It's a good game on PS3, but I've played it at a friends house on his PC, it's no where near the same. In PS3 you can go just about anywhere and be able to see another player. In PC, I played for about 30 minutes, didn't see a single player. This game is dead for PC...SOE has stream-lined thier "technique". It used to take them years to destroy a game, not they can do it in just a couple of months
In regards to the PC Population = it depends. If you're on D&G you fly anywhere and trip over people during normal hours.
The other servers though I would agree.
PE can be populated during regular hours too much not as much as D&G.
Its hard to evaluate what their sub numbers are. Steam is useless. It caused patching and dl issues for some at launch and the fix was to "not use steam" so steam isn't even tracking all players who purchased through steam.
But beyond the technical...people play so casualy and the short leveling curve means you leave gotham/metro streets after about 25 hours of play rarely to return. They need more open world stuff to draw people out of the watchtower/HOD. The button mashy gameplay quickly wears on a pc gamer. The game has a lot of bad design decisions that PUSH players away from playing rather than draw them in. The biggest draw for me is the IP. If this game had the champions IP or COX IP, I wouldn't even bother touching it.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
Originally posted by sodade21
Originally posted by WhiteLantern
Also, the superservers, megaservers, industrial-strength-Nth metal servers, or whatever they end up being called, are not online yet.
then why i see only 4 servers..? where is the 30 other people have mention??.....
When the superservers are up, you will only see one server. Four servers, one per region/system.
Also, the superservers, megaservers, industrial-strength-Nth metal servers, or whatever they end up being called, are not online yet.
then why i see only 4 servers..? where is the 30 other people have mention??.....
When the superservers are up, you will only see one server. Four servers, one per region/system.
PC EU
PC NA
PS3 EU
PS3 NA
No, he's talking about the Euro servers. You only see the servers in your region and there are only 4 euro servers for PC. That's what he's seeing and being confused about.
Also, the superservers, megaservers, industrial-strength-Nth metal servers, or whatever they end up being called, are not online yet.
then why i see only 4 servers..? where is the 30 other people have mention??.....
When the superservers are up, you will only see one server. Four servers, one per region/system.
PC EU
PC NA
PS3 EU
PS3 NA
No, he's talking about the Euro servers. You only see the servers in your region and there are only 4 euro servers for PC. That's what he's seeing and being confused about.
Right... thats why he said *when* the Super Servers are up. He's explaining to the OP that the day he sees *ONE* server is the day they're up.
So the game is back everything is working superservers is on the game... i did purchased the game yesterday and i feel so lonely... why? the game seems and feels so good... will i find more ppl in lvl cap zones or it will stay as it is now...ghost town..i think i saw 1 player today and yesterday 3!.... where is everybody? I am at "Looking for trouble" PVP.... maybe i should go elsewhere..?
It's a good game on PS3, but I've played it at a friends house on his PC, it's no where near the same. In PS3 you can go just about anywhere and be able to see another player. In PC, I played for about 30 minutes, didn't see a single player. This game is dead for PC...SOE has stream-lined thier "technique". It used to take them years to destroy a game, not they can do it in just a couple of months
In regards to the PC Population = it depends. If you're on D&G you fly anywhere and trip over people during normal hours.
The other servers though I would agree.
PE can be populated during regular hours too much not as much as D&G.
I get that you are a fan of the game. I, myself, would like to see the game one day succeed.
But the yellow highlighted text is just false. I was on D&G during prime-time hours (both EST and PST, as I was checking both) on Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday, and unless you were in the Watchtower, there was no "tripping over players". And even in the Watchtower, you would only trip over one if you happened to be flying/super-speeding/acrobating through there with your eyes closed. And even then, you might very easily avoid tripping.
Sadly, the game is going to need a heck of a lot more than Cao being gone, and Megaservers, to get people back.
I, myself, have decided at this point to just play something else and not even worry about the rest of my free game time they gave us
I get that you are a fan of the game. I, myself, would like to see the game one day succeed.
But the yellow highlighted text is just false. I was on D&G during prime-time hours (both EST and PST, as I was checking both) on Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday, and unless you were in the Watchtower, there was no "tripping over players"
That is an impossibility. Message me when you're on next time and we'll go hunting. You can't go outside without finding a few dozen villains (or heroes) to kill.
Hell even the world PvP quests have players there fighting it out, especially at primetime.
My main is on a lower pop PvP server - Public enemies, and there was over 100 players in one small area duking it out Saturday night.
Sure, people gather at the Superman statue to duke it out. But that hardly counts as "Open World PvP" when it is designated and arranged for a particular location.
Just like in the other thread where you claimed D&G is medium on the weekend. False. It has not been medium since early April, has not hit medium since the servers came back up, and I even pointed to a DCUO forum thread created by our server's own Longhorn Tex-- one of the biggest advocates of D&G-- dated April 25, 2011, where even he has to admit that not even D&G is getting above Low anymore.
I'd like the game to succeed, but spreading inaccurate information about server loads and how busy a server is, is not the way to go.
Is D&G busier than any other PvP server? Yep. But is it a busy server? Nope. It just appears that way in relation to the other ghost towns.
Now, go check the DCUO forums and see how many are talking about the Megaservers not being the ultimate fix, as they still don't want to sub until better content is provided. The problem DCUO suffers that is further propounding the issue is that people are getting sick-and-tired of grinding the same instances over and over again. And the instances are too easy for many of them, leading to them not being very interesting for them either.
And for those that have T2 already, they are done as far as some of them are concerned. T3 and the Fortress of Solitude stuff is not going to be in Update 3 like originally mentioned. It's now been officially stated as Update 4 . . . at least 2 months away (or possibly longer) as Update 3 just now entered the PSN approval process. A bad set-up that PC has to wait for the PS3 to be approved, but that's how SOE wants to do it.
Guess what, that means the 45 days will be over before Update 4 hits.
As far as the Megaserver, that isn't going to be too soon either. Deadmeat is talking about how they are still ironing all the details out and still building the tech. Then, naturally, it'll go into internal testing before they lauch the Public Test Server and put it into Public Beta. Then, once all that is hammered out and ironed down, it'll go live.
I can't imagine seeing Megaservers before September.
Again, by then the 45 days, and even more subs, are gone.They have a hell of a lot of work ahead of them to bring people back into the game, or retain the few new players that are strolling in. Megaservers are not going to be anything more than a band-aid if they keep losing subs . . . which by all conversations, they still are.
The ones I'm reading mention MegaServers as the #1 requested feature.
While there are some people complaining about other issues, they're minor by comparison, not game breaking, and certainly not running people off like having a half dozen servers empty and 2 or 3 populated.
Everyone knows there are things they can approve especially in the bug fix and content department but that pales in comparison to having a near max'd out SKILL PT character on a dead server.
EVERY game has people moaning about lack of content at some point.
I even had issue in WoW for months at a time in every expansion pack.
If you think world PvP only happens under the Superman statue you didn't follow the link and pay attention to the fact that there are hundreds of people involved in weekly world events on PE server.
The link shows you an example of that from last Saturday.
This event usually lasts for about two hours.
Also the queues on both D&G and PE are instant pop.
There's new threads about that and new threads about loads of new level 30s on some of the lower pop servers appearing.
People are asking for MegaServers to help support bolster this population increase.
I try to only stick to the facts followed up by opinions based around the facts.
Feel free to disagree with my opinion but claiming a fact I said is false or misleading is passive aggressive and false in itself.
Especially without any support or substance to it whatsoever.
I'll take screenshots for you next time just we did about the world pvp you claimed only happened "Under the superman statue" which was 100% false.
That is spreading disinformation and is certainly not helping the game or the community.
The megaserver technology is already done. It is going through testing now.
I'll make you a bet it will be absolutely be online before the end of July.
My hunch is probably closer to end of June but I'll put cash down on the July timeframe.
I love it when people refute trends in Xfire, Steam, etc. but don't offer anything else. Why? Because there isn't anything else. When people look at these figures, all say the same trend is occuring. Obviously, not everyone uses Steam/Xfire/whatever, It's called "sampling" of data. Do you know in statistics you really need about 35 observations to draw a basic conclusion on the population of data? It's like saying every time you hear a political poll that it's wrong because you and your friends were not asked the question by a pollster.
Anyway, you can debate the data sources all you want. We all know AoC, WAR, DCUO have all shrunk dramatically in population. How much more than "normal" I guess you can debate all day, but it seems from casual observation of players in the game that population declines have been faster than most other MMO games. The data seems to back up those claims. Nobody has official data, but saying the data isn't official hardly refutes the casual observations anyone can plainly see.
NinjaBoy . . . yes, Megaservers are the #1 request by the diminished playerbase that is left. Naturally that would be the case.
But go check other forums, where the inactive people still post about the game (since they can't post on the DCUO forums). Megaservers are NOT their #1 requested feature by a long shot.
So, the current, weak population wants Megaservers. Those that left generally don't care about that. It's viewed (i.e. posted) accurately for what it is: a server merge down to ONE server for each platform/region because the game tanked so badly and bled players so badly, announced 4 months after launch. A game that was their "fastest selling" and "sold out of boxes at retailers" gets a merge from 9 servers to 1, a mere 4 months into being Live.
The game needs a lot more done to it than a server merge to one server.
As I said, the mistake some current players are making is that Megaservers are the "Great White Hope" that is going to fix the game. It isn't, unless is draws a lot of former players back.
I'll take bets on that happening.
Again, I want to see DCUO succeed, but Cao screwed the pooch on it, and now the new management gets their chance. Unfortunately, after all the issues and problems-- time is not on their side anymore.
Beauman is correct. The remaining playerbase may want server mergers more than anything else, because it addresses the immediate population problems, but the population problems were caused by many other issues.
Merging servers only resolves population issues, but does nothing to resolve the issues that caused most people to leave in the first place. Most of the issues that drove people away are still lingering around to encounter people as they return to the game.
The game is free for 45 days right now to basicaly any former soe customer and still the population is declining.
Cao screwed the pooch on it, and now the new management gets their chance. Unfortunately, after all the issues and problems-- time is not on their side anymore.
True but we need to give the new game designer a little time to see what he can come up with in the "new" DCUO.
The new game lead was previously responsible for leading up the best aspect of the game - the combat system. That is a good sign.
Also they have a God of War dev working on the project now which could also be good for the game.
Nothing's going to change overnight. It's going take a while.
It took Conan almost 4 months before they were able to stop the bleeding and make some decent growth for 2yrs+.
I see the same happening for this game in the long run.
The only thing working against it is the launch of other big titles like SWTOR and GW2.
Realistically those won't be out until the end of the year.
Cao screwed the pooch on it, and now the new management gets their chance. Unfortunately, after all the issues and problems-- time is not on their side anymore.
True but we need to give the new game designer a little time to see what he can come up with in the "new" DCUO.
The new game lead was previously responsible for leading up the best aspect of the game - the combat system. That is a good sign.
Also they have a God of War dev working on the project now which could also be good for the game.
Nothing's going to change overnight. It's going take a while.
It took Conan almost 4 months before they were able to stop the bleeding and make some decent growth for 2yrs+.
I see the same happening for this game in the long run.
The only thing working against it is the launch of other big titles like SWTOR and GW2.
Realistically those won't be out until the end of the year.
The new game lead did NOT lead the combat system design. He said he worked with the people who did, but they did the heavy work. The combat system uses animation as a form of ability cooldowns, so the graphics dept had to be involved.
I'm not sure that someone from the graphics department is what will revive DCU nor will having 1 person who worked on Gods of War. What matters is if there will be any changes to the game, what they will be and how quick/well they are delivered on. I might be incorrect, but so far the new leader hasn't even said anything, so I'm not sure what would lead you to believe he will turn the game around.
As for other new mmos release, those are the least of concerns for DCU. DCU needs to be able to stand on its own two feet before it even has a chance to stand up to new releases and it currently can't even do that.
One last thing, where do you get this information on Age of Conan growing (for two years?).
Cao screwed the pooch on it, and now the new management gets their chance. Unfortunately, after all the issues and problems-- time is not on their side anymore.
True but we need to give the new game designer a little time to see what he can come up with in the "new" DCUO.
The new game lead was previously responsible for leading up the best aspect of the game - the combat system. That is a good sign.
Also they have a God of War dev working on the project now which could also be good for the game.
Nothing's going to change overnight. It's going take a while.
It took Conan almost 4 months before they were able to stop the bleeding and make some decent growth for 2yrs+.
I see the same happening for this game in the long run.
The only thing working against it is the launch of other big titles like SWTOR and GW2.
Realistically those won't be out until the end of the year.
The new game lead did NOT lead the combat system design. He said he worked with the people who did, but they did the heavy work. The combat system uses animation as a form of ability cooldowns, so the graphics dept had to be involved.
You're playing a little bit of semantics here. I think you might have misunderstood the quote or what was written.
DeadMeat wrote:
Finally, I would like to announce that we have a new Game Director for DC Universe Online, Mark Anderson. Mark was the Art Director for DCUO at launch and was dually responsible for the game’s combat system. Joining us from the God of War team, Mark has over the years been one of the most creative and passionate members of the DCUO team and we are very excited for the vision he has for the game moving forward. If you see Mark (aka MAnderson) in the forums make sure to say hi and tell him to get back to work.
See you in game!
Lorin "DeadMeat" Jameson
Executive Producer
Mark indeed was responsible for the game's combat system which is the most positive and well recieved aspect of the game.
Also every game's graphical system has some relevance to the combat system to some extent.
Originally posted by Daffid011
I might be incorrect, but so far the new leader hasn't even said anything, so I'm not sure what would lead you to believe he will turn the game around.
Relax man he just got promoted. lol Deadmeat already did the initial opener for him. He'll say plenty in the next few weeks.
Originally posted by Daffid011.
One last thing, where do you get this information on Age of Conan growing (for two years?).
I take it you never played AoC or kept up with it?
Some of the numbers between the estimates fluxuate but the main premise is the same - AoC stopped the bleeding at the end of 2008 and AoC's population numbers were greater at the end of 2010 then at the end of 2008.
[1] Mark indeed was responsible for the game's combat system which is the most positive and well recieved aspect of the game.
Also every game's graphical system has some relevance to the combat system to some extent.
[2] I take it you never played AoC or kept up with it?
<>
It's pretty common knowledge and widely accepted.
1)
Mark was not in charge of the combat system. That was pure spin by SOE trying to make the graphics guy sound like he has experience with game design.
Here is what the new game director said
"Just a quick point of clarification on the letter, I did indeed work closely with the combat and animation teams on look and feel of the moment to moment combat, but the heavy lifting and especially the system side parts was people Tunso and the rest of the combat team." LINK
So no, he was not in charge of the combat system. Who would put the graphics director in charge of game mechanics like that?
Anyhow, seven days later and the new director only has 7 posts all tucked away deep in a thread. The DCU playerbase isn't exactly singing the praises of the game right now and he should be doing everything in his power to be reaching out and reassuring them that things are going to change... if they are going to change at all. Right now it seems like DCU is moving along business as usual.
2)
You are right, I don't pay much mind to Age of Conan anymore and honestly you are the only person I've seen talk about the game growing as if it is significant.
As for the 5 sources you cite
I could not find anything in the financials that showed AOC growing, can you link something specific please? Most of what I read was how their revenue was declining. That isn't exactly proof, but it doesn't make it look good either.
Still not sure where mmodata.net is getting his information, but if AOC doubled in size like he is claiming, it would only make sense that the number of servers would also increase. Without any references, his info doesn't look very credible.
That mmocrunch article is a joke. That guy counted CHARACTERS in a guild as if each one of them represented a player and then doubled it? It is very sloppy work with no foundation.
Ok player experience I guess.
I'm not sure what I am supposed to be looking at in the YG.com link. Is there some sort of population tracker there?
I'm not saying AoC didn't grow, just that the information presented isn't very good.
Changing the lead developer on DCUO does not gaurantee a turn around, although it may make desperate DCUO players 'hopeful'. The history of $OE and its games gives a more accurate prediction however.
Age of Conan's population hasn't really grown...it is more of recovering from a failed launch where it lost hundreds of thousands of players. Now that it is going F2P, I suspect it may recover and actually 'grow' population-wise.
"Just a quick point of clarification on the letter, I did indeed work closely with the combat and animation teams on look and feel of the moment to moment combat, but the heavy lifting and especially the system side parts was people Tunso and the rest of the combat team." LINK
So no, he was not in charge of the combat system. Who would put the graphics director in charge of game mechanics like that?
I'm not trying to be a smart.... or come off wrong but do you not know what that means?
He was the lead working closely with the grunts / high level grunts that did the "heavy lifting".
The lead isn't going to sit behind a table and start writing millions of lines of code.
He's *leading* that development thus he's being a good leader and giving credit to the people beneath him on the project that are actually getting their hands dirty so to speak.
In regards to the AoC issue - as I said before it's common knowledge. You can pick anything apart but it's widely accepted by both Funcom haters and Funcom fanbois. There are many many threads over the various forums from the past 2 1/2 years that cover the financials and the yg numbers. I never had them bookmarked but you can find them if you're really interested and try hard enough. I found you two or three websites already pertaining to the other 3 choices. The one website is very accurate and credible. I'm sure if you sent the author of the chart an email he can tell you where his sources are....
Read what the new lead designer says. He helpd work on the combats systems LOOK and FEEL. Being that he was in charge of the art direction and graphics of the game that makes complete and total sense. It requires no massive jumps to conclusions that he was somehow thrust into a position of designing combat mechanics. He pretty clearly says the SYSTEM side of things was done by the actual combat team.
No where does he say he was the leader of anything related to combat. You are doing exactly what marketing people hope people will do with vague statements.
All we really know about this guy is:
He was the art director for DCU. Presumebly he worked with Jim Lee a great deal.
He helped the combat systems aesthetics.
He worked on another video game that was successful in some unknown capacity.
He has a total of 7 posts and all of those a replies buried deep in one thread.
He has not formally addressed the players yet.
He has not stated one way or another about what the direction of DCU is going to be.
I think this guy has a lot to prove before we start predicting he will turn the game around and it will start growing again.
As for age of conan.
Mmodata.net has already been caught using rumors and less than reliable information. Nothing about that site is credible. In fact you have given no real direct information that says AOC has grown. If is it so widely accepted it shouldn't be a problem to link at least something direct to show that growth?
Either way I think we are really debating over something that is so minor in the scheme of things it is a moot point. I doubt AOC has grown in any noteworthy amount without requiring additional servers.
Read what the new lead designer says. He helpd work on the combats systems LOOK and FEEL. Being that he was in charge of the art direction and graphics of the game that makes complete and total sense. It requires no massive jumps to conclusions that he was somehow thrust into a position of designing combat mechanics. He pretty clearly says the SYSTEM side of things was done by the actual combat team.
No where does he say he was the leader of anything related to combat. You are doing exactly what marketing people hope people will do with vague statements.
All we really know about this guy is:
He was the art director for DCU. Presumebly he worked with Jim Lee a great deal.
He helped the combat systems aesthetics.
He worked on another video game that was successful in some unknown capacity.
He has a total of 7 posts and all of those a replies buried deep in one thread.
He has not formally addressed the players yet.
He has not stated one way or another about what the direction of DCU is going to be.
I think this guy has a lot to prove before we start predicting he will turn the game around and it will start growing again.
As for age of conan.
Mmodata.net has already been caught using rumors and less than reliable information. Nothing about that site is credible. In fact you have given no real direct information that says AOC has grown. If is it so widely accepted it shouldn't be a problem to link at least something direct to show that growth?
Either way I think we are really debating over something that is so minor in the scheme of things it is a moot point. I doubt AOC has grown in any noteworthy amount without requiring additional servers.
Bottom line is the game is merging to 4 "mega" servers after 3? months, No amount of hope or spin from anyone can dispute this fact.
The producer is the same person who worked on SWG, where is that now? Closed half of it's servers and now has to offer FCTS to make any server seem populated, and still servers are on very light during the FREE 45 days.
The Dev team is made up of people who worked on SWG, please see above.
Where is this population surge? All I have seen before the Sony downtime was people screaming for server merges. A staged PVP event with 10 people in a screenshot does not equal hundreds of players.
It seems to be a common theme from anyone who supports an SOE game that afew players = 100+, a new producer = the game is on the right track, afew forum posts from a DEV = they are communicating, server mergers = a good thing. The list goes on. Have you ever noticed they only communicate with you after they pull some monumental disaster?
I may hate SOE, but they are the smartest company around, because they actually have people who PAY THEM to spout thier BS and have no need of marketing.
Read what the new lead designer says. He helpd work on the combats systems LOOK and FEEL. Being that he was in charge of the art direction and graphics of the game that makes complete and total sense. It requires no massive jumps to conclusions that he was somehow thrust into a position of designing combat mechanics. He pretty clearly says the SYSTEM side of things was done by the actual combat team.
No where does he say he was the leader of anything related to combat. You are doing exactly what marketing people hope people will do with vague statements.
All we really know about this guy is:
He was the art director for DCU. Presumebly he worked with Jim Lee a great deal.
He helped the combat systems aesthetics.
He worked on another video game that was successful in some unknown capacity.
He has a total of 7 posts and all of those a replies buried deep in one thread.
He has not formally addressed the players yet.
He has not stated one way or another about what the direction of DCU is going to be.
I think this guy has a lot to prove before we start predicting he will turn the game around and it will start growing again.
As for age of conan.
Mmodata.net has already been caught using rumors and less than reliable information. Nothing about that site is credible. In fact you have given no real direct information that says AOC has grown. If is it so widely accepted it shouldn't be a problem to link at least something direct to show that growth?
Either way I think we are really debating over something that is so minor in the scheme of things it is a moot point. I doubt AOC has grown in any noteworthy amount without requiring additional servers.
lol I think it was one statement that wasn't vague and pretty straight forward. He's the lead.
It means just that.... He's lead the team in some capacity. Your third sentence states he's in a leadership role at the art direction.
In regards to Conan the data is there, it's valid, you can choose not to believe it but you'd be in the minority. You haven't disproven any of the numbers or the stats, statements, etc. You've in fact did the very thing you accused Sony of during in regards to vague statements with no substance.
"Noteworthy" is subjective. 20% growth while stopping the massive hemmoraging / exodus of 2008 is pretty noteworthy to me and probably the rest of the world. Especially given the state of that game.
I'm a little perplexed why you would take a position that is the polar opposite of the rest of the world (and the data we have available) but I'll agree to disagree with you on the matter.
Also increasing 30k-50k isn't going to require any new server infrastructure from what they had existing. They left a lot of hardware in place after the initial 2008 exodus then the early 2009 merger.
lol I think it was one statement that wasn't vague and pretty straight forward. He's the lead.
It means just that.... He's lead the team in some capacity. Your third sentence states he's in a leadership role at the art direction.
<<snip>>
I'm a little perplexed why you would take a position that is the polar opposite of the rest of the world (and the data we have available) but I'll agree to disagree with you on the matter.
Mark Anderson was promoted to a leadership role over the game. Prior to that he was the art director. I'm not sure why you are having such a hard time understanding that. He was not in charge of the combat system any more than the customer service representatives were in charge of creating the questing system, because they worked with the questing team to test the content.
Marks comment was pretty crystal clear that he not in charge of the combat system.
As for Age of Conan, again you are the only one I see talking about noteworthy growth in that game. The one link you did give shows AOC going from 75k to 125k players in less than six months, but now you are talking about the games population going from 30k-50k.
Perhaps you are right and there was some growth, but as we all know merging servers is a clear sign of noteworthy decline in a game. Adding servers is a clear sign of noteworthy growth in a game. I'm not saying the game certainly has not grown, just that your information is far less than convincing.
Bottom line is the game is merging to 4 "mega" servers after 3? months, No amount of hope or spin from anyone can dispute this fact.
The producer is the same person who worked on SWG, where is that now? Closed half of it's servers and now has to offer FCTS to make any server seem populated, and still servers are on very light during the FREE 45 days.
The Dev team is made up of people who worked on SWG, please see above.
Where is this population surge? All I have seen before the Sony downtime was people screaming for server merges. A staged PVP event with 10 people in a screenshot does not equal hundreds of players.
It seems to be a common theme from anyone who supports an SOE game that afew players = 100+, a new producer = the game is on the right track, afew forum posts from a DEV = they are communicating, server mergers = a good thing. The list goes on. Have you ever noticed they only communicate with you after they pull some monumental disaster?
I may hate SOE, but they are the smartest company around, because they actually have people who PAY THEM to spout thier BS and have no need of marketing.
I was surprised when I heard how many former SWG developers were either lead designer or lead producer.
Chris Cao, Grant "Rogue 5" McDaniel, Dark Lord Heliass, Blixtev, Dotanuki, DeadMeat all in some way in top level leadership roles for DCU.
I knew that this many leadership changes wasn't good for a game, but some people were saying that this many former SWG developers could only produce a complete train wreck of a game. At the time I didn't really buy into that, because I thought it would be next to impossible to screw up a DC super hero game that also had access to 20+ million playstation players and no competition from any mmos there. Obviously I was wrong.
As for players of dieing games pointing to a handful of people and spinning that into some huge event or signs of revival, you are right. That type of thing gets posted on these forums so much that it really doesn't even phase me anymore. Even while servers are being closed you can find some people talking about how healthy a game is and how many people are playing. One of the stages of denail I guess.
As for Age of Conan, again you are the only one I see talking about noteworthy growth in that game. The one link you did give shows AOC going from 75k to 125k players in less than six months, but now you are talking about the games population going from 30k-50k.
Perhaps you are right and there was some growth, but as we all know merging servers is a clear sign of noteworthy decline in a game. Adding servers is a clear sign of noteworthy growth in a game. I'm not saying the game certainly has not grown, just that your information is far less than convincing.
I didn't follow the discussion (and I'm too lazy/can't be bothered atm to read all back), but with the hybrid F2P move, the upcoming Blood & Glory hardcore PvP servers and the added content tie-in with the Conan movie in August, I'd be very surprised if there wouldn't be some kind of visible growth in AoC.
I don't know if that was the topic, I just saw this post, so apologies if this was OP offtopic
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
In regards to the PC Population = it depends. If you're on D&G you fly anywhere and trip over people during normal hours.
The other servers though I would agree.
PE can be populated during regular hours too much not as much as D&G.
Its hard to evaluate what their sub numbers are. Steam is useless. It caused patching and dl issues for some at launch and the fix was to "not use steam" so steam isn't even tracking all players who purchased through steam.
But beyond the technical...people play so casualy and the short leveling curve means you leave gotham/metro streets after about 25 hours of play rarely to return. They need more open world stuff to draw people out of the watchtower/HOD. The button mashy gameplay quickly wears on a pc gamer. The game has a lot of bad design decisions that PUSH players away from playing rather than draw them in. The biggest draw for me is the IP. If this game had the champions IP or COX IP, I wouldn't even bother touching it.
When the superservers are up, you will only see one server. Four servers, one per region/system.
PC EU
PC NA
PS3 EU
PS3 NA
No, he's talking about the Euro servers. You only see the servers in your region and there are only 4 euro servers for PC. That's what he's seeing and being confused about.
Right... thats why he said *when* the Super Servers are up. He's explaining to the OP that the day he sees *ONE* server is the day they're up.
umm....superservers is not in game yet
I get that you are a fan of the game. I, myself, would like to see the game one day succeed.
But the yellow highlighted text is just false. I was on D&G during prime-time hours (both EST and PST, as I was checking both) on Thursday, Friday, AND Saturday, and unless you were in the Watchtower, there was no "tripping over players". And even in the Watchtower, you would only trip over one if you happened to be flying/super-speeding/acrobating through there with your eyes closed. And even then, you might very easily avoid tripping.
Sadly, the game is going to need a heck of a lot more than Cao being gone, and Megaservers, to get people back.
I, myself, have decided at this point to just play something else and not even worry about the rest of my free game time they gave us
That is an impossibility. Message me when you're on next time and we'll go hunting. You can't go outside without finding a few dozen villains (or heroes) to kill.
Hell even the world PvP quests have players there fighting it out, especially at primetime.
My main is on a lower pop PvP server - Public enemies, and there was over 100 players in one small area duking it out Saturday night.
http://forums.station.sony.com/dcuopc/posts/list.m?start=195&topic_id=23591
Check the screenshots for proof.
I agree with you though, it will be a lot better with Mega / SuperServers.
We'll see how things go.
I'm either the biggest DCUO fan OR the biggest hater depending on what they've done during that week.
They reintroduced (accidentally) one major exploit that was previously fixed.
That hurts the game more then mostly public knowledge info getting released via a hack.
It not only pisses off their main base but also new players and players who haven't tried the game since launch.
Hopefully they patch that soon and don't break anything else.
DCUO can be a great game and the game is a lot better then it was during month 1.
It's just a matter of attracting new players while keeping the ones they have content.
They need stay on top of the exploits and get the mergers done asap.
Sure, people gather at the Superman statue to duke it out. But that hardly counts as "Open World PvP" when it is designated and arranged for a particular location.
Just like in the other thread where you claimed D&G is medium on the weekend. False. It has not been medium since early April, has not hit medium since the servers came back up, and I even pointed to a DCUO forum thread created by our server's own Longhorn Tex-- one of the biggest advocates of D&G-- dated April 25, 2011, where even he has to admit that not even D&G is getting above Low anymore.
I'd like the game to succeed, but spreading inaccurate information about server loads and how busy a server is, is not the way to go.
Is D&G busier than any other PvP server? Yep. But is it a busy server? Nope. It just appears that way in relation to the other ghost towns.
Now, go check the DCUO forums and see how many are talking about the Megaservers not being the ultimate fix, as they still don't want to sub until better content is provided. The problem DCUO suffers that is further propounding the issue is that people are getting sick-and-tired of grinding the same instances over and over again. And the instances are too easy for many of them, leading to them not being very interesting for them either.
And for those that have T2 already, they are done as far as some of them are concerned. T3 and the Fortress of Solitude stuff is not going to be in Update 3 like originally mentioned. It's now been officially stated as Update 4 . . . at least 2 months away (or possibly longer) as Update 3 just now entered the PSN approval process. A bad set-up that PC has to wait for the PS3 to be approved, but that's how SOE wants to do it.
Guess what, that means the 45 days will be over before Update 4 hits.
As far as the Megaserver, that isn't going to be too soon either. Deadmeat is talking about how they are still ironing all the details out and still building the tech. Then, naturally, it'll go into internal testing before they lauch the Public Test Server and put it into Public Beta. Then, once all that is hammered out and ironed down, it'll go live.
I can't imagine seeing Megaservers before September.
Again, by then the 45 days, and even more subs, are gone.They have a hell of a lot of work ahead of them to bring people back into the game, or retain the few new players that are strolling in. Megaservers are not going to be anything more than a band-aid if they keep losing subs . . . which by all conversations, they still are.
You and I must be reading different forums.
The ones I'm reading mention MegaServers as the #1 requested feature.
While there are some people complaining about other issues, they're minor by comparison, not game breaking, and certainly not running people off like having a half dozen servers empty and 2 or 3 populated.
Everyone knows there are things they can approve especially in the bug fix and content department but that pales in comparison to having a near max'd out SKILL PT character on a dead server.
EVERY game has people moaning about lack of content at some point.
I even had issue in WoW for months at a time in every expansion pack.
If you think world PvP only happens under the Superman statue you didn't follow the link and pay attention to the fact that there are hundreds of people involved in weekly world events on PE server.
The link shows you an example of that from last Saturday.
This event usually lasts for about two hours.
Also the queues on both D&G and PE are instant pop.
There's new threads about that and new threads about loads of new level 30s on some of the lower pop servers appearing.
People are asking for MegaServers to help support bolster this population increase.
I try to only stick to the facts followed up by opinions based around the facts.
Feel free to disagree with my opinion but claiming a fact I said is false or misleading is passive aggressive and false in itself.
Especially without any support or substance to it whatsoever.
I'll take screenshots for you next time just we did about the world pvp you claimed only happened "Under the superman statue" which was 100% false.
That is spreading disinformation and is certainly not helping the game or the community.
The megaserver technology is already done. It is going through testing now.
I'll make you a bet it will be absolutely be online before the end of July.
My hunch is probably closer to end of June but I'll put cash down on the July timeframe.
I love it when people refute trends in Xfire, Steam, etc. but don't offer anything else. Why? Because there isn't anything else. When people look at these figures, all say the same trend is occuring. Obviously, not everyone uses Steam/Xfire/whatever, It's called "sampling" of data. Do you know in statistics you really need about 35 observations to draw a basic conclusion on the population of data? It's like saying every time you hear a political poll that it's wrong because you and your friends were not asked the question by a pollster.
Anyway, you can debate the data sources all you want. We all know AoC, WAR, DCUO have all shrunk dramatically in population. How much more than "normal" I guess you can debate all day, but it seems from casual observation of players in the game that population declines have been faster than most other MMO games. The data seems to back up those claims. Nobody has official data, but saying the data isn't official hardly refutes the casual observations anyone can plainly see.
NinjaBoy . . . yes, Megaservers are the #1 request by the diminished playerbase that is left. Naturally that would be the case.
But go check other forums, where the inactive people still post about the game (since they can't post on the DCUO forums). Megaservers are NOT their #1 requested feature by a long shot.
So, the current, weak population wants Megaservers. Those that left generally don't care about that. It's viewed (i.e. posted) accurately for what it is: a server merge down to ONE server for each platform/region because the game tanked so badly and bled players so badly, announced 4 months after launch. A game that was their "fastest selling" and "sold out of boxes at retailers" gets a merge from 9 servers to 1, a mere 4 months into being Live.
The game needs a lot more done to it than a server merge to one server.
As I said, the mistake some current players are making is that Megaservers are the "Great White Hope" that is going to fix the game. It isn't, unless is draws a lot of former players back.
I'll take bets on that happening.
Again, I want to see DCUO succeed, but Cao screwed the pooch on it, and now the new management gets their chance. Unfortunately, after all the issues and problems-- time is not on their side anymore.
Beauman is correct. The remaining playerbase may want server mergers more than anything else, because it addresses the immediate population problems, but the population problems were caused by many other issues.
Merging servers only resolves population issues, but does nothing to resolve the issues that caused most people to leave in the first place. Most of the issues that drove people away are still lingering around to encounter people as they return to the game.
The game is free for 45 days right now to basicaly any former soe customer and still the population is declining.
True but we need to give the new game designer a little time to see what he can come up with in the "new" DCUO.
The new game lead was previously responsible for leading up the best aspect of the game - the combat system. That is a good sign.
Also they have a God of War dev working on the project now which could also be good for the game.
Nothing's going to change overnight. It's going take a while.
It took Conan almost 4 months before they were able to stop the bleeding and make some decent growth for 2yrs+.
I see the same happening for this game in the long run.
The only thing working against it is the launch of other big titles like SWTOR and GW2.
Realistically those won't be out until the end of the year.
The new game lead did NOT lead the combat system design. He said he worked with the people who did, but they did the heavy work. The combat system uses animation as a form of ability cooldowns, so the graphics dept had to be involved.
I'm not sure that someone from the graphics department is what will revive DCU nor will having 1 person who worked on Gods of War. What matters is if there will be any changes to the game, what they will be and how quick/well they are delivered on. I might be incorrect, but so far the new leader hasn't even said anything, so I'm not sure what would lead you to believe he will turn the game around.
As for other new mmos release, those are the least of concerns for DCU. DCU needs to be able to stand on its own two feet before it even has a chance to stand up to new releases and it currently can't even do that.
One last thing, where do you get this information on Age of Conan growing (for two years?).
You're playing a little bit of semantics here. I think you might have misunderstood the quote or what was written.
DeadMeat wrote:
Mark indeed was responsible for the game's combat system which is the most positive and well recieved aspect of the game.
Also every game's graphical system has some relevance to the combat system to some extent.
Relax man he just got promoted. lol Deadmeat already did the initial opener for him. He'll say plenty in the next few weeks.
I take it you never played AoC or kept up with it?
There are five common sources.
#1. Funcom financials from Q4 2008 to Q4 2010
#2. MMORPG sub chart - http://www.mmodata.net/
#3. Misc comparison reviews from certain periods of decline then growth - http://www.mmocrunch.com/2010/02/17/age-of-conan-subscription-well-above-100000/
#4. Player experience
#5. Yellow Gremlin trends evaluated - http://aoc.yg.com/
Some of the numbers between the estimates fluxuate but the main premise is the same - AoC stopped the bleeding at the end of 2008 and AoC's population numbers were greater at the end of 2010 then at the end of 2008.
It's pretty common knowledge and widely accepted.
1)
Mark was not in charge of the combat system. That was pure spin by SOE trying to make the graphics guy sound like he has experience with game design.
Here is what the new game director said
"Just a quick point of clarification on the letter, I did indeed work closely with the combat and animation teams on look and feel of the moment to moment combat, but the heavy lifting and especially the system side parts was people Tunso and the rest of the combat team." LINK
So no, he was not in charge of the combat system. Who would put the graphics director in charge of game mechanics like that?
Anyhow, seven days later and the new director only has 7 posts all tucked away deep in a thread. The DCU playerbase isn't exactly singing the praises of the game right now and he should be doing everything in his power to be reaching out and reassuring them that things are going to change... if they are going to change at all. Right now it seems like DCU is moving along business as usual.
2)
You are right, I don't pay much mind to Age of Conan anymore and honestly you are the only person I've seen talk about the game growing as if it is significant.
As for the 5 sources you cite
I could not find anything in the financials that showed AOC growing, can you link something specific please? Most of what I read was how their revenue was declining. That isn't exactly proof, but it doesn't make it look good either.
Still not sure where mmodata.net is getting his information, but if AOC doubled in size like he is claiming, it would only make sense that the number of servers would also increase. Without any references, his info doesn't look very credible.
That mmocrunch article is a joke. That guy counted CHARACTERS in a guild as if each one of them represented a player and then doubled it? It is very sloppy work with no foundation.
Ok player experience I guess.
I'm not sure what I am supposed to be looking at in the YG.com link. Is there some sort of population tracker there?
I'm not saying AoC didn't grow, just that the information presented isn't very good.
Changing the lead developer on DCUO does not gaurantee a turn around, although it may make desperate DCUO players 'hopeful'. The history of $OE and its games gives a more accurate prediction however.
Age of Conan's population hasn't really grown...it is more of recovering from a failed launch where it lost hundreds of thousands of players. Now that it is going F2P, I suspect it may recover and actually 'grow' population-wise.
I'm not trying to be a smart.... or come off wrong but do you not know what that means?
He was the lead working closely with the grunts / high level grunts that did the "heavy lifting".
The lead isn't going to sit behind a table and start writing millions of lines of code.
He's *leading* that development thus he's being a good leader and giving credit to the people beneath him on the project that are actually getting their hands dirty so to speak.
In regards to the AoC issue - as I said before it's common knowledge. You can pick anything apart but it's widely accepted by both Funcom haters and Funcom fanbois. There are many many threads over the various forums from the past 2 1/2 years that cover the financials and the yg numbers. I never had them bookmarked but you can find them if you're really interested and try hard enough. I found you two or three websites already pertaining to the other 3 choices. The one website is very accurate and credible. I'm sure if you sent the author of the chart an email he can tell you where his sources are....
Read what the new lead designer says. He helpd work on the combats systems LOOK and FEEL. Being that he was in charge of the art direction and graphics of the game that makes complete and total sense. It requires no massive jumps to conclusions that he was somehow thrust into a position of designing combat mechanics. He pretty clearly says the SYSTEM side of things was done by the actual combat team.
No where does he say he was the leader of anything related to combat. You are doing exactly what marketing people hope people will do with vague statements.
All we really know about this guy is:
He was the art director for DCU. Presumebly he worked with Jim Lee a great deal.
He helped the combat systems aesthetics.
He worked on another video game that was successful in some unknown capacity.
He has a total of 7 posts and all of those a replies buried deep in one thread.
He has not formally addressed the players yet.
He has not stated one way or another about what the direction of DCU is going to be.
I think this guy has a lot to prove before we start predicting he will turn the game around and it will start growing again.
As for age of conan.
Mmodata.net has already been caught using rumors and less than reliable information. Nothing about that site is credible. In fact you have given no real direct information that says AOC has grown. If is it so widely accepted it shouldn't be a problem to link at least something direct to show that growth?
Either way I think we are really debating over something that is so minor in the scheme of things it is a moot point. I doubt AOC has grown in any noteworthy amount without requiring additional servers.
Bottom line is the game is merging to 4 "mega" servers after 3? months, No amount of hope or spin from anyone can dispute this fact.
The producer is the same person who worked on SWG, where is that now? Closed half of it's servers and now has to offer FCTS to make any server seem populated, and still servers are on very light during the FREE 45 days.
The Dev team is made up of people who worked on SWG, please see above.
Where is this population surge? All I have seen before the Sony downtime was people screaming for server merges. A staged PVP event with 10 people in a screenshot does not equal hundreds of players.
It seems to be a common theme from anyone who supports an SOE game that afew players = 100+, a new producer = the game is on the right track, afew forum posts from a DEV = they are communicating, server mergers = a good thing. The list goes on. Have you ever noticed they only communicate with you after they pull some monumental disaster?
I may hate SOE, but they are the smartest company around, because they actually have people who PAY THEM to spout thier BS and have no need of marketing.
lol I think it was one statement that wasn't vague and pretty straight forward. He's the lead.
It means just that.... He's lead the team in some capacity. Your third sentence states he's in a leadership role at the art direction.
In regards to Conan the data is there, it's valid, you can choose not to believe it but you'd be in the minority. You haven't disproven any of the numbers or the stats, statements, etc. You've in fact did the very thing you accused Sony of during in regards to vague statements with no substance.
"Noteworthy" is subjective. 20% growth while stopping the massive hemmoraging / exodus of 2008 is pretty noteworthy to me and probably the rest of the world. Especially given the state of that game.
I'm a little perplexed why you would take a position that is the polar opposite of the rest of the world (and the data we have available) but I'll agree to disagree with you on the matter.
Also increasing 30k-50k isn't going to require any new server infrastructure from what they had existing. They left a lot of hardware in place after the initial 2008 exodus then the early 2009 merger.
Mark Anderson was promoted to a leadership role over the game. Prior to that he was the art director. I'm not sure why you are having such a hard time understanding that. He was not in charge of the combat system any more than the customer service representatives were in charge of creating the questing system, because they worked with the questing team to test the content.
Marks comment was pretty crystal clear that he not in charge of the combat system.
As for Age of Conan, again you are the only one I see talking about noteworthy growth in that game. The one link you did give shows AOC going from 75k to 125k players in less than six months, but now you are talking about the games population going from 30k-50k.
Perhaps you are right and there was some growth, but as we all know merging servers is a clear sign of noteworthy decline in a game. Adding servers is a clear sign of noteworthy growth in a game. I'm not saying the game certainly has not grown, just that your information is far less than convincing.
I was surprised when I heard how many former SWG developers were either lead designer or lead producer.
Chris Cao, Grant "Rogue 5" McDaniel, Dark Lord Heliass, Blixtev, Dotanuki, DeadMeat all in some way in top level leadership roles for DCU.
I knew that this many leadership changes wasn't good for a game, but some people were saying that this many former SWG developers could only produce a complete train wreck of a game. At the time I didn't really buy into that, because I thought it would be next to impossible to screw up a DC super hero game that also had access to 20+ million playstation players and no competition from any mmos there. Obviously I was wrong.
As for players of dieing games pointing to a handful of people and spinning that into some huge event or signs of revival, you are right. That type of thing gets posted on these forums so much that it really doesn't even phase me anymore. Even while servers are being closed you can find some people talking about how healthy a game is and how many people are playing. One of the stages of denail I guess.
I didn't follow the discussion (and I'm too lazy/can't be bothered atm to read all back), but with the hybrid F2P move, the upcoming Blood & Glory hardcore PvP servers and the added content tie-in with the Conan movie in August, I'd be very surprised if there wouldn't be some kind of visible growth in AoC.
I don't know if that was the topic, I just saw this post, so apologies if this was OP offtopic
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."