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LoTRO really is growing (probably)
Yeebo
Member UncommonPosts: 1,361
Thought you guys might enjoy this article:
www.massively.com/2009/06/21/server-merges-in-lotro-heck-no/
It's based in this producer quote:
www.vg247.com/2009/06/19/lotro-growing-no-plans-for-server-merge-says-turbine/
Before the trolls come in with:
That proves nothing. No hard data is given, and he said "if anything it is growing" rather than "it is growing." LoTRO is teh suck and therefore clearly must be dieing.
Let me point out that I'm not saying this proves anything. That's why I put "probably" in the title.
It does jive what with the "deluded fanboys" on this message board have been saying since MoM launched, based on what we are seeing in game. But as we are all rabid deluded fanboys, obviously nothing we say can be trusted ;-)
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.
Comments
Several months ago, I guess almost a year actually, someone here who was really bored but clever realized a way to see how many players there are.
Basically, each person who plays the game, gets signed up for the official forums. So by counting the numbers on forums, you can see how many people have joined the game in a given time frame.
Granted, it only tells you about the Turbine run game (the NA one).
Anyway, I joined the game in July of 08. My forum number is 1017308 (same username, so you know it's me).
http://forums.lotro.com/member.php?u=1229400
There might be a few more, but that person joined the game today. So good enough yardstick.
So between July of 08 and June 09, about 210,000 people joined the game.
R.I.P. City of Heroes and my 17 characters there
Not everyone that plays LoTRO ever bothers to post on the forums. If 200K folks have joined the forums in the last year just in NA, the game might be doing better than I would have thought.
Interesting observation in any case.
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.
Darkfall for now.
Quit bashing games YOU don't like! Including WoW, you know you liked it before you got burned out.
http://live.xbox.com/member/Njai
I don't think that's true.
When I signed up for the forums, I had to pick a new user name and a new password. Neither of those is the same as my main account. My forum number was assigned after that.
If someone is willing to post a reliable link, I'd certainly be interested to see how their system works.
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 don't think that's true.
When I signed up for the forums, I had to pick a new user name and a new password. Neither of those is the same as my main account. My forum number was assigned after that.
If someone is willing to post a reliable link, I'd certainly be interested to see how their system works.
Well, I'm pretty sure that it tells how many people have registered but yeah, I remember having to physically make my on forum name and password in order to post on the forums, so they are not automatically made.
I guess it's possible that there are over a million forum accounts obviously not all of them current subscribers but it could tell us at least how many people have at least showed up and tried the game. Although this might take into account trial accounts that make trial forum accounts for access just to that small part of the forums.
In America I have bad teeth. If I lived in England my teeth would be perfect.
You don't need hard numbers to see that Mines of Moria put LOTRO back on the map.
Before Mines of Moria, lets say summer 2008 the population on my server (EU EN-RP server Laurelin) was okay, but the lower level zones were bit underpopulated and it was a nightmare to get groups going for the Epic books.
Now, 7 months after Mines of Moria expansion, the population is really booming on my server. In such a way, that I even have severe lag issues in several zones, because of the high number of players.
I have never seen so many players (in very zone!) running around, since the first months after launch. No joke.
I don't know if it's for every server. But it sure is on the one I am playing on.
But all in all. I think it's pretty safe to say the game is doing really well at the moment.
Cheers
LOTRO has two things going for it...
1. An IP that everyone knows
2. Good solid PvE gameplay
Since none of the games that have come out since LOTRO have been anything other than disappointing, it is not surprising that people are turning to LOTRO (though Turbine are slacking and its updates are really buggy recently).
I also think that WoW is losing NA / EU subscribers, and only growing in Asia, because I can't see the market growing continously, the people are filtering in from somewhere.
It is very unusual for an MMO to keep growing like this, I think WoW and EVE are the only two that do it and I think that if they made the LOTRO client free, like EVE's is, they'd probably see a faster rate of growth too.
With my 2nd toon being level 52 atm, I have decided to do some traiting
So, went back to Ered Luin, Breeland, and finally to Lone-Lands, to do my spider-killing traits.
Even in Ered Luin, I have seen at least 7-8 newbies (all level 13-17) in that region where all the spiders are (where you have to escort a dwarf out from the spider lair). I have to emphasize this, since even when I was a newbie (waaay back in April 2007), that place was not exactly crowded.
Then, in the Lone-Lands, another spider lair near Osth Guruth - I had practically had to wait in line to get spiders, as it was full of appropriate level (around 25) players, questing up and down.
Breeland was the most crowded... I have decided to finish the GB quests, and when it popped to my mind, I have found a group of 3 already advertising for it. Guess what? 2 of them were totally noobs, only 1 had its second toon in the game. That's pretty good imvho....
So, on Snowbourn (EU), the supply of upcoming/leveling new players is really excellent
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
I think the game must be dying since no haters have posted in this thread yet! ;(
If WoW = The Beatles
and WAR = Led Zeppelin
Then LotrO = Pink Floyd
The only one on the board currently is busy frothing in the "Yet another WoW clone.." topic
DB
Denial makes one look a lot dumber than he/she actually is.
It is foolish they don't consider merging some servers. Yes, the game is growing but the main amount of players are coming to the same servers because the others are so light on population. Good thing they're upgrading their servers because it seems Turbine is fine with just letting this continue.
Talk about being stubborn to the point of utter stupidity. Just the other day I ran into more players again starting over on Elendilmir because they complained their prior server was so unpopulated. Least they moved rather than just quit but they seriously need to get their heads out of their asses and do some consolidation so everyone can enjoy this game the way it was intended.
How the hell these guys can do such a good job in so many other areas and royally jack this up and not even give a damn about it or refuse to consider the issue is beyond me. Absolutely ridiculous...
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
This is all speculation on your part, that you are damming them for.
----------
"Anyone posting on this forum is not an average user, and there for any opinions about the game are going to be overly critical compared to an average users opinions." - Me
"No, your wrong.." - Random user #123
"Hello person posting on a site specifically for MMO's in a thread on a sub forum specifically for a particular game talking about meta features and making comparisons to other titles in the genre, and their meta features.
How are you?" -Me
They could do things to fill out the other servers if they wanted to. Creating longer queues on the high population servers are a good deterrent. They could discontinue transfers to high pop servers, or even prevent new characters from being created on high pop servers. But stuff like that generally tends to piss off the players. But yeah, I agree something needs to be done to keep the low pop servers from emptying out and the high pop servers from getting more crowded.
So are all these posts about game populations just a lame way to justify playing them. I mean god forbid the game you are playing and enjoying is not deemed leet by other gamers.
Lemmings.
This is all speculation on your part, that you are damming them for.
No, it isn't because that was the reason I quit this game first time around. It's also the reason a lot of recently returning players orginally quit the game for-at least a lot of the ones I have spoken with.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
They could do things to fill out the other servers if they wanted to. Creating longer queues on the high population servers are a good deterrent. They could discontinue transfers to high pop servers, or even prevent new characters from being created on high pop servers. But stuff like that generally tends to piss off the players. But yeah, I agree something needs to be done to keep the low pop servers from emptying out and the high pop servers from getting more crowded.
They could do what FFXI used to do. Make it so that you can only join the high population servers if you get a buddy pass from a friend who is already on those servers. This way people that want to play with their friends won't get angry.
Playing - FFXIV, ESO
Played - FFXI, WoW, Lineage 2, Guild Wars, Aion, SWToR, LotRO, GW2, TERA, Rift, ArcheAge, TSW