You see post stating 50k others 100k & yeat other say even different numbers , my question is why were the server numbers removed? I remember playing in beta & you could see exactly how many were playing on each server , put that back in & people can judge for themself how many actually play ? But I doubt they would every do that as thats the last thing any company wan't its playerbase to know ..
new numbers, they updated the database pure crafters which I define as level 1 to 9 adventure but above 10 in crafting- 1356 level 1 to 50 adventure- 353, 214 level 11 to 50 adventure - 71, 822 level 1 to 10 adventure- 281, 392 level 11 to 15 adventure- 48, 977 level 16 to 20 adventure- 16, 567 level 21 to 50 adventure- 6,278
That make no sence you mention characters between 10-20 3 times lol , talk about exaggerated numbers
There are 353,214 characters between level 1 and 50. Of those, 281,392 are between 1 and 10, and 71,822 are between 11 and 50.
Of the 71,822 level 11 or higher, 48,977 are between level 11 and 15, 16,567 are between level 16 and 20, and the remaining 6,278 are level 21 or higher.
After 2 weeks it would be logical to use the second figure as a relevant value (seeing there are probably some slackers that couldnt have bothered to move up to level 15 in that time and some altomaniacs that have pushed more then 1 class up to it) Adding the crafters we can have an estimate of 50-60 thousand players at this time. Not too bad but not overly impressive either. The real state of the game will probably be visible after 60 days or so in wich new players may flock to it due to word of mouth or initial players may leave due to various reasons, so basically all this specualtion is rather pointless at this time.
I personally think there's going to be a big dive in the numbers once the 30day trials are up but I'm happy to read they are doing well.
I am not sure I would consider 120K or so as "doing well" considering that this game cost more to produce than any game yet except WOW - which peaked at around 8 million subscribers and is now probably at 6-7 million.
But as others have noted, the real test will come at 30 and 60 days after release, when the first payment or the first renewal payment comes due.
the Vanguard Players character database, these are characrters not players and include characters made on the buddy keys level 1 to 50- 344851
level 1 to 5- 186133
level 6 to 10- 89276
level 11 to 15- 47903
level 16 to 50- 21569
Its very likely that the bulk of the 6-10 characters are those of players who have stopped playing after a few hours. It happens in all mmo's. Id guess half of those are quitters and the other half are alts.
given the slightly more hardcore playerbase of this game and the ease of getting to level 10, i would of expected alot more players to be in the 16-50 rrange than that number shows. For this tyope of game that attracts the more hardcore players, the "first wave" usually has most of the interested players on board.
given the data you have provided i would estimate vanguards playerbase at 50-70k. Pretty normal for a mmo with a horrible release.
I know in my guild the average level is around 9. So there are still quite a few people I would assume who are under level 10. I just hit level 8 on my second character I made. I made a vulmane dread knight and made it to level 9 and then decided it wasn't for me, so I made a Thestren bloodmage and made it to 8.
People need to realize that Vanguard has a whole new system that people need to learn, not everyone playing was a beta tester and so they aren't sure what class/race combination they want to play. One of the officers in the guild had a level 14 rogue within the first week or so and then realized he had messed up on his character and so created a new one. I would expect that to be the case more often then not.
If it states there are 350K characters made I would take about 1/3 of that as teh actual number of accounts playing the game currently. Also, if Brad said the number is over 100K I doubt he is lying about it. Really what would they have to gain from claiming such low numbers. If they were going to lie about how many active real accounts they have (not counting buddy keys) they would of shot for a higher number and fudged their numbers to cover themselves.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
and 100k scripts is good? umm ya ok wow had well over a mill at this point and i bet games such as warhammer will be the same. so ok i guess 100k is good for soe cuase with there lineup they need it
I personally think there's going to be a big dive in the numbers once the 30day trials are up but I'm happy to read they are doing well.
I am not sure I would consider 120K or so as "doing well" considering that this game cost more to produce than any game yet except WOW - which peaked at around 8 million subscribers and is now probably at 6-7 million.
But as others have noted, the real test will come at 30 and 60 days after release, when the first payment or the first renewal payment comes due.
Not sure if I agree with that but I certainly see your point.
To be fair though, we have to give it time. This is an MMO and it's the nature of the beast, if the game is worth it's salt (I don't think it is but my oppinion isn't exactly reflective of the general public) then people will talk and it will continue to climb, if it's not then whithin the next 90 days it will peak and fall to it's static number.
Either way, I certainly hope that Sigil can do well, no matter my personal views I certainly want the fans of the game to satisfied in the end and I don't want to see a developer have a flop on their hands. IMO though, they need to start doing some heavy changes to get that accomplished but again, my oppinion is certanily not worth much in this case.
and 100k scripts is good? umm ya ok wow had well over a mill at this point and i bet games such as warhammer will be the same. so ok i guess 100k is good for soe cuase with there lineup they need it
I honestly doubt Warhammer will have over 1 million subscriptions that quickly. I really doubt any game is going to come even close to World of Warcraft's success. At least any game released in by a Western Developer. Games such as Granada Espada, Ragnarok Online 2, or if a Lineage 3 was made will probably surpass World of warcraft in world wide subscriptions if they are recieved well in the asian market place. Remember out of the 8 million or so subscribers to WoW only about 2-3 million are western subscribers that leaves 5-6 million that come from an asian background. Previously no MMO from the west has done well in that market place. They like different art styles then us, they like different game mechanics then us, and they like different game sytles then us. Also, their MMO market is way way larger then ours. I would honestly say out of all American PC gamers that play MMOs probably 85-95% have played WoW. In Asia its probably a lot lower % of potential MMO customers then that who actually play WoW.
Currently playing: LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too: Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Well, like most of the posters before me, you can interpret Brad's quote in two ways.
Optimistic: It really is 100K boxes sold which means VG is very healthy and gives Sigil additional resources to iron out the game.
Pessimistic: Due to Brad's vague answer, the 100K represents subscribers which includes the Free Trials that are available with the boxes. Obviously this answer isn't as good and is actually very bad because it makes Brad seem like he is trying to pad numbers to encourage people to buy VG.
I am a realist and cynic. I do hope that VG did sell 100K boxes. That would be a very good sign. But playing the game, my gut feeling (my opinion only!) is that there are not 100K boxes sold. If the game had gone gold, it would have been announced officially. Heck, some games announce going gold with pre-orders. They do so to generate excitement in the game.
I'm going to stick with VG a couple months or so until LotRO comes out. If VG hasn't cleaned up its act by then, Sigil will have lost me as a customer. I think there are many who feel the way I do. Time will tell how Sigil will perform in the next couple of months. It's in their hands.
SOE isn't too concerned with low numbers, its obvious to me their strategy is to have many different games under their control with a combined financial income rivaling that of World of Warcraft. They still run games like Tanaris along with The Matrix, Planetside, EQ, EQII, SWG and Vanguard. They'll make decent enough money despite the lack of popularity of any single game.
While I don't like to see people fail, I do have to admit that I don't want to see Vanguard become some kind of miracle success. The reason being that I don't want future games to try and emulate Vanguard. I don't like hardcore games and I'd like to see a lot more casual games show up on the market and I mean casual from beginning to end, not the current casual beginning and hardcore raiding for endgame.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
that shows only 68,000 characters above level 10. Is leveling that slow since release? correction 69,472[/b][/quote]
Yes, very from L10 on. From 1-8: No time
8-10...so so
10+ intended timesink. Sigil knows, that the big buck (houses, mounts, ships) is what will cause serious "changes" in the game. Just take houses: Imagine 100K player and all want houses.
I read a number the other day, what was it? 4000 houseplots in total?
You get the idea what happens when everyone can afford a house, so they made it very expensive (100.000 coper = 10 G for the plot, 1 G upholding). But of course, that is no solution, just a delay - and Sigil might know already what will happen when plots are rare...(lol, i see the acutions for astrominical amounts already). But Sigil bought a bit time by putting this problem to high levels, so they can start to adress this when many players get to these levels, earning nuff money for their quests. So back to the question:
Yes, leveling is a repeative threadmill starting as a "teen".
Im "afraid" that many people will leave sooner or later because of the grindmadness (which Vanguard IS at a major point) and dont want to spend month on leveling just for houses, which was never be "advertised" as a "uber bonus". But thats business and artificial timesinks are a part of that.
so you are saying that even assuming there are no alts past level ten or that no one on a buddy key has made it past level ten that there are 30K players who are still at lvl ten or below two weeks past release. That is pretty amazing.
Actually, it's not quite that amazing. See what you're failing to realize is that while some characters may be under level 10 adventuring, they may be high level crafting, or diplomacy. Therefore, your numbers are slightly skewed.
Also, Claude is actually lying, or he doesn't know what he's talking about. I'd like to see where he got the number of 4000 plots total. Let me tell you from wandering around the plot areas, there are TONS of plots waiting to be bought. Again, it's not that hard to get one either, I'm only level 13 and I could have bought 2 plots by now.
Secondly, the part where I know he's either lying or doesn't know what he's talking about, not all plots cost 10g to buy. Infact, I'd say that those are the minority. They are the plots closest to towns and such, in very high demand areas. If you go further out, most of the plots in the game seem to be 2.5g (with a 25s a week upkeep), which is doable in the teens levels if you work at it. In addition, there are rumours that some plots are even as low cost as 1g to buy (10s a week upkeep).
These two are just trying to take numbers which are partially true and represent them as the full extent of the game. Take their comments with a big grain of salt.
In the beta forums it was mentioned that there will be around 3000 plots of land to be bought . The aim is to have a real estate market where people will buy and sell land for profit also. Also people will gradually move to bigger more expensive plots that will be able to support bigger houses. So a little tip buy your plot while you can. And then extort the living hell out of the noobs that will come on later ,
SOE isn't too concerned with low numbers, its obvious to me their strategy is to have many different games under their control with a combined financial income rivaling that of World of Warcraft. They still run games like Tanaris along with The Matrix, Planetside, EQ, EQII, SWG and Vanguard. They'll make decent enough money despite the lack of popularity of any single game.
Gods and heroes, a spy MMORG at the end of the year, and two more in production. The list has no end .I think SOE's aim is to divide players to people who have station pass and people who are going to buy it.
Looking at the numbers a little closer, it does seem like there should be a lot more in the 11+ range for a game that has been out for 3 weeks. I am sure that a lot of the under 10 are name place holding alts, characters given up on, buddy accounts etc. I suspect that you can get a close estimate of active players by looking at the 10+ numbers.
Levelling is very slow after 10. The people with Lvl 40 toons cheated, its just that simple. It is taking me a full day to level my Disciple (Lvl 18). I don't know why so many people act surprised that it takes so long, probably because you're used to games where you can max level in a week.
SOE isn't too concerned with low numbers, its obvious to me their strategy is to have many different games under their control with a combined financial income rivaling that of World of Warcraft. They still run games like Tanaris along with The Matrix, Planetside, EQ, EQII, SWG and Vanguard. They'll make decent enough money despite the lack of popularity of any single game.
While I don't like to see people fail, I do have to admit that I don't want to see Vanguard become some kind of miracle success. The reason being that I don't want future games to try and emulate Vanguard. I don't like hardcore games and I'd like to see a lot more casual games show up on the market and I mean casual from beginning to end, not the current casual beginning and hardcore raiding for endgame.
More casual games? How many do you need FFS. Some people are so selfish.
well I really hope all 100,000 of you are enjoying Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
the Vanbois need to realize Vrazule was 100% dead on correct when he said that SOE doesn't care about one game having a million subscribers, as long as they have their whole collection of Station Pass games making profit they really could care less.
Instead of creating a game with massive appeal to try and kiss the ground WoW walks on, they manage a dozen or more "niche" games like Vanguard, EQ2, SWG, etc.
SOE isn't too concerned with low numbers, its obvious to me their strategy is to have many different games under their control with a combined financial income rivaling that of World of Warcraft. They still run games like Tanaris along with The Matrix, Planetside, EQ, EQII, SWG and Vanguard. They'll make decent enough money despite the lack of popularity of any single game.
I agree. I think their goal is to collect as many online games as possible so people will pay extra for their Station Pass. I think if MxO and some of the other games you mentioned were on its own, it would have caved by now but because it is being subsidized by EQ2, it is surviving.
It is also another means to inflate sub numbers to generate excitement.
Now, lets just remove all the pre-paid for a month 'subscribers' that are going to dump this game at the end of the free month. And then subtract all the 'subscribers' that are playing this game via SoE All Access and thus are not really supporting V:SoH with monthly sub fees. What will you have left? 50K ? 40K ? That, if they are lucky.
V:SoH is destined to be just another SoE All Access Pass game. Along the same lines as PlanetSide, EQ1, EQ2, MO, and all the other loser titles in the SoE All Access Pass lineup. If it wasn't a dogger, it never would have been launched as an All Access Pass game.
you have to admit that the station pass was brilliant. It keeps mediochre mmos afloat, its all run off of sony's servers in a single location anyhow, so it doesnt matter how many servers each individual game has, and the station pass costs MORE than any 1 subscription, the trade off being that players have access to more types of games.
eventually sony will put out a winner ( when they buy into my design philosophy, heh) and the station pass will basically be the ultimate in endevours.
Comments
You see post stating 50k others 100k & yeat other say even different numbers , my question is why were the server numbers removed? I remember playing in beta & you could see exactly how many were playing on each server , put that back in & people can judge for themself how many actually play ? But I doubt they would every do that as thats the last thing any company wan't its playerbase to know ..
new numbers, they updated the database
pure crafters which I define as level 1 to 9 adventure but above 10 in crafting- 1356
level 1 to 50 adventure- 353, 214
level 11 to 50 adventure - 71, 822
level 1 to 10 adventure- 281, 392
level 11 to 15 adventure- 48, 977
level 16 to 20 adventure- 16, 567
level 21 to 50 adventure- 6,278
I miss DAoC
That make no sence you mention characters between 10-20 3 times lol , talk about exaggerated numbers
Let me make it simple for you.
There are 353,214 characters between level 1 and 50. Of those, 281,392 are between 1 and 10, and 71,822 are between 11 and 50.
Of the 71,822 level 11 or higher, 48,977 are between level 11 and 15, 16,567 are between level 16 and 20, and the remaining 6,278 are level 21 or higher.
After 2 weeks it would be logical to use the second figure as a relevant value (seeing there are probably some slackers that couldnt have bothered to move up to level 15 in that time and some altomaniacs that have pushed more then 1 class up to it) Adding the crafters we can have an estimate of 50-60 thousand players at this time.
Not too bad but not overly impressive either.
The real state of the game will probably be visible after 60 days or so in wich new players may flock to it due to word of mouth or initial players may leave due to various reasons, so basically all this specualtion is rather pointless at this time.
I personally think there's going to be a big dive in the numbers once the 30day trials are up but I'm happy to read they are doing well.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
I am not sure I would consider 120K or so as "doing well" considering that this game cost more to produce than any game yet except WOW - which peaked at around 8 million subscribers and is now probably at 6-7 million.
But as others have noted, the real test will come at 30 and 60 days after release, when the first payment or the first renewal payment comes due.
Its very likely that the bulk of the 6-10 characters are those of players who have stopped playing after a few hours. It happens in all mmo's. Id guess half of those are quitters and the other half are alts.
given the slightly more hardcore playerbase of this game and the ease of getting to level 10, i would of expected alot more players to be in the 16-50 rrange than that number shows. For this tyope of game that attracts the more hardcore players, the "first wave" usually has most of the interested players on board.
given the data you have provided i would estimate vanguards playerbase at 50-70k. Pretty normal for a mmo with a horrible release.
Looking at the numbers a little closer, it does seem like there should be a lot more in the 11+ range for a game that has been out for 3 weeks.
I am sure that a lot of the under 10 are name place holding alts, characters given up on, buddy accounts etc.
I suspect that you can get a close estimate of active players by looking at the 10+ numbers.
I know in my guild the average level is around 9. So there are still quite a few people I would assume who are under level 10. I just hit level 8 on my second character I made. I made a vulmane dread knight and made it to level 9 and then decided it wasn't for me, so I made a Thestren bloodmage and made it to 8.
People need to realize that Vanguard has a whole new system that people need to learn, not everyone playing was a beta tester and so they aren't sure what class/race combination they want to play. One of the officers in the guild had a level 14 rogue within the first week or so and then realized he had messed up on his character and so created a new one. I would expect that to be the case more often then not.
If it states there are 350K characters made I would take about 1/3 of that as teh actual number of accounts playing the game currently. Also, if Brad said the number is over 100K I doubt he is lying about it. Really what would they have to gain from claiming such low numbers. If they were going to lie about how many active real accounts they have (not counting buddy keys) they would of shot for a higher number and fudged their numbers to cover themselves.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
I am not sure I would consider 120K or so as "doing well" considering that this game cost more to produce than any game yet except WOW - which peaked at around 8 million subscribers and is now probably at 6-7 million.
But as others have noted, the real test will come at 30 and 60 days after release, when the first payment or the first renewal payment comes due.
Not sure if I agree with that but I certainly see your point.
To be fair though, we have to give it time. This is an MMO and it's the nature of the beast, if the game is worth it's salt (I don't think it is but my oppinion isn't exactly reflective of the general public) then people will talk and it will continue to climb, if it's not then whithin the next 90 days it will peak and fall to it's static number.
Either way, I certainly hope that Sigil can do well, no matter my personal views I certainly want the fans of the game to satisfied in the end and I don't want to see a developer have a flop on their hands. IMO though, they need to start doing some heavy changes to get that accomplished but again, my oppinion is certanily not worth much in this case.
Important Information regarding Posting and You
I honestly doubt Warhammer will have over 1 million subscriptions that quickly. I really doubt any game is going to come even close to World of Warcraft's success. At least any game released in by a Western Developer. Games such as Granada Espada, Ragnarok Online 2, or if a Lineage 3 was made will probably surpass World of warcraft in world wide subscriptions if they are recieved well in the asian market place. Remember out of the 8 million or so subscribers to WoW only about 2-3 million are western subscribers that leaves 5-6 million that come from an asian background. Previously no MMO from the west has done well in that market place. They like different art styles then us, they like different game mechanics then us, and they like different game sytles then us. Also, their MMO market is way way larger then ours. I would honestly say out of all American PC gamers that play MMOs probably 85-95% have played WoW. In Asia its probably a lot lower % of potential MMO customers then that who actually play WoW.
Currently playing:
LOTRO & WoW (not much WoW though because Mines of Moria rocks!!!!)
Looking Foward too:
Bioware games (Dragon Age & Star Wars The Old Republic)
Optimistic: It really is 100K boxes sold which means VG is very healthy and gives Sigil additional resources to iron out the game.
Pessimistic: Due to Brad's vague answer, the 100K represents subscribers which includes the Free Trials that are available with the boxes. Obviously this answer isn't as good and is actually very bad because it makes Brad seem like he is trying to pad numbers to encourage people to buy VG.
I am a realist and cynic. I do hope that VG did sell 100K boxes. That would be a very good sign. But playing the game, my gut feeling (my opinion only!) is that there are not 100K boxes sold. If the game had gone gold, it would have been announced officially. Heck, some games announce going gold with pre-orders. They do so to generate excitement in the game.
I'm going to stick with VG a couple months or so until LotRO comes out. If VG hasn't cleaned up its act by then, Sigil will have lost me as a customer. I think there are many who feel the way I do. Time will tell how Sigil will perform in the next couple of months. It's in their hands.
SOE isn't too concerned with low numbers, its obvious to me their strategy is to have many different games under their control with a combined financial income rivaling that of World of Warcraft. They still run games like Tanaris along with The Matrix, Planetside, EQ, EQII, SWG and Vanguard. They'll make decent enough money despite the lack of popularity of any single game.
While I don't like to see people fail, I do have to admit that I don't want to see Vanguard become some kind of miracle success. The reason being that I don't want future games to try and emulate Vanguard. I don't like hardcore games and I'd like to see a lot more casual games show up on the market and I mean casual from beginning to end, not the current casual beginning and hardcore raiding for endgame.
With PvE raiding, it has never been a question of being "good enough". I play games to have fun, not to be a simpering toady sitting through hour after hour of mind numbing boredom and fawning over a guild master in the hopes that he will condescend to reward me with shiny bits of loot. But in games where those people get the highest progression, anyone who doesn't do that will just be a moving target for them and I'll be damned if I'm going to pay money for the privilege. - Neanderthal
Actually, it's not quite that amazing. See what you're failing to realize is that while some characters may be under level 10 adventuring, they may be high level crafting, or diplomacy. Therefore, your numbers are slightly skewed.
Also, Claude is actually lying, or he doesn't know what he's talking about. I'd like to see where he got the number of 4000 plots total. Let me tell you from wandering around the plot areas, there are TONS of plots waiting to be bought. Again, it's not that hard to get one either, I'm only level 13 and I could have bought 2 plots by now.
Secondly, the part where I know he's either lying or doesn't know what he's talking about, not all plots cost 10g to buy. Infact, I'd say that those are the minority. They are the plots closest to towns and such, in very high demand areas. If you go further out, most of the plots in the game seem to be 2.5g (with a 25s a week upkeep), which is doable in the teens levels if you work at it. In addition, there are rumours that some plots are even as low cost as 1g to buy (10s a week upkeep).
These two are just trying to take numbers which are partially true and represent them as the full extent of the game. Take their comments with a big grain of salt.
In the beta forums it was mentioned that there will be around 3000 plots of land to be bought . The aim is to have a real estate market where people will buy and sell land for profit also. Also people will gradually move to bigger more expensive plots that will be able to support bigger houses. So a little tip buy your plot while you can.
And then extort the living hell out of the noobs that will come on later ,
Gods and heroes, a spy MMORG at the end of the year, and two more in production. The list has no end .I think SOE's aim is to divide players to people who have station pass and people who are going to buy it.
Levelling is very slow after 10. The people with Lvl 40 toons cheated, its just that simple. It is taking me a full day to level my Disciple (Lvl 18). I don't know why so many people act surprised that it takes so long, probably because you're used to games where you can max level in a week.
More casual games? How many do you need FFS. Some people are so selfish.
well I really hope all 100,000 of you are enjoying Vanguard: Saga of Heroes.
the Vanbois need to realize Vrazule was 100% dead on correct when he said that SOE doesn't care about one game having a million subscribers, as long as they have their whole collection of Station Pass games making profit they really could care less.
Instead of creating a game with massive appeal to try and kiss the ground WoW walks on, they manage a dozen or more "niche" games like Vanguard, EQ2, SWG, etc.
It is also another means to inflate sub numbers to generate excitement.
i mean,
* really early release
* released at the same time as burning crusade
* just 2 weeks out
isnt that bad at all
Now, lets just remove all the pre-paid for a month 'subscribers' that are going to dump this game at the end of the free month. And then subtract all the 'subscribers' that are playing this game via SoE All Access and thus are not really supporting V:SoH with monthly sub fees. What will you have left? 50K ? 40K ? That, if they are lucky.
V:SoH is destined to be just another SoE All Access Pass game. Along the same lines as PlanetSide, EQ1, EQ2, MO, and all the other loser titles in the SoE All Access Pass lineup. If it wasn't a dogger, it never would have been launched as an All Access Pass game.
you have to admit that the station pass was brilliant. It keeps mediochre mmos afloat, its all run off of sony's servers in a single location anyhow, so it doesnt matter how many servers each individual game has, and the station pass costs MORE than any 1 subscription, the trade off being that players have access to more types of games.
eventually sony will put out a winner ( when they buy into my design philosophy, heh) and the station pass will basically be the ultimate in endevours.