I think they hugely overestimated the size and the composition of the 'hardcore' crowd.
I would have considered myself hardcore in 2004, but I don't have the time or patience for it any more. I think that is a large part of the problem with the time involved; with an ageing mmo population and the plethora of other games available people simply don't have the time any more.
In terms of the composition of the 'hardcore' crowd they mistook challenge for effluxion of time.
Probably because they yell the loudest and try to tell every developer that they represent the majority of gamers, and catering to them is an instant recipe for success.
One of them was eventually bound to listen and try it.
And I know what you mean, I find myself lacking the time and patience these days too. (Especially the latter, since I often find I can't be bothered with it even when I do have the free time)
This is probably pretty close to the mark.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Played the beta, i unistall the game the day after. There is no way i pay for a linear themepark like this, no innovation, no diversity, same hub progression, raids, battlegrounds, nothing new. They have indeed courage to make this game p2p from the start.
They should have used the GW2 business model, buy the game then play for free with cosmetic cash shop, now is time they start to pay for this business mistake.
See, this sort of puzzles me. The gameplay is in no way impacted by the payment model, so why does making it B2P make it more worthy of playing?
If a game sucks, I'm not going to play it even if totally free, how much it costs has nothing to do whether I'm going to spend time in it.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Played the beta, i unistall the game the day after. There is no way i pay for a linear themepark like this, no innovation, no diversity, same hub progression, raids, battlegrounds, nothing new. They have indeed courage to make this game p2p from the start.
They should have used the GW2 business model, buy the game then play for free with cosmetic cash shop, now is time they start to pay for this business mistake.
See, this sort of puzzles me. The gameplay is in no way impacted by the payment model, so why does making it B2P make it more worthy of playing?
If a game sucks, I'm not going to play it even if totally free, how much it costs has nothing to do whether I'm going to spend time in it.
Agreed. Changing the payment model is not going to save this game...
For a relatively new game i was kinda surprised to see the low population. Zone chat is empty, starting areas are empty. I was hoping for a very busy game but so far it feels very lonely. i didn't come across one player during my 5 hours play time. Granted i am only lvl 15 but game is new. So where is everyone?
I chose Stormtalon (PvE), which was the only MED server and that too during 7 pm. All other servers were low.
Sadly the standard thing with MMOs, they put in too many servers so they can get in everyone who want to try the game at launch but few MMOs can hold on those players after the first month. That makes the game feel pretty empty and might turn off more players.
The problem is really that the only 3 other options are to either limit the initial sales, merge servers a month after launch or use mega server technology which all have their own drawbacks. The hype might go down after the first month meaning you sell less copies than if you release all you can at launch, server merges looks pretty bad in many peoples eyes and more than a few MMOers dislike mega servers since it is hard to learn to know your server then and it hurts server pride.
A catch 22 in other words because it is really hard to grow the first few months after the release month, most interested people buy the game as soon as they can.
Played the beta, i unistall the game the day after. There is no way i pay for a linear themepark like this, no innovation, no diversity, same hub progression, raids, battlegrounds, nothing new. They have indeed courage to make this game p2p from the start.
They should have used the GW2 business model, buy the game then play for free with cosmetic cash shop, now is time they start to pay for this business mistake.
See, this sort of puzzles me. The gameplay is in no way impacted by the payment model, so why does making it B2P make it more worthy of playing?
If a game sucks, I'm not going to play it even if totally free, how much it costs has nothing to do whether I'm going to spend time in it.
You'd be surprised at how many people will play a game if they only had to pay the box price. They can spend as much or as little time they want playing it. With a sub, you're already forced to commit to playing the game on their terms, not yours. It's also why F2P is so popular now... it givens the players the freedom to play when they want.
Now if you paid for 30 days and it only ticked off time that you were actually in-game, that would be different. And I'm sure everyone would be open arms to that sort of payment system. Play 2 days, take 60 days off, play 12 days, take 14 days off, still have 14 days left of playtime... at your choosing. Subs eat 30 days whether you are actually playing it or not. Pure profit to them. Pure gouging to you.
Played the beta, i unistall the game the day after. There is no way i pay for a linear themepark like this, no innovation, no diversity, same hub progression, raids, battlegrounds, nothing new. They have indeed courage to make this game p2p from the start.
They should have used the GW2 business model, buy the game then play for free with cosmetic cash shop, now is time they start to pay for this business mistake.
See, this sort of puzzles me. The gameplay is in no way impacted by the payment model, so why does making it B2P make it more worthy of playing?
If a game sucks, I'm not going to play it even if totally free, how much it costs has nothing to do whether I'm going to spend time in it.
One of those MMORPG.comisms...Sounds good so lets go with it...
I actually bought this one for a time, so I understand, it does roll off the finger well..
Problem is you're not considering value.... While a game might not change depending on payment model, it's value can. Is what you get for 15 a month worth $15 a month? That's the question... I wouldn't play many games if they cost 15 a month plus a box fee, doesn't mean they're bad games, they just would offer nothing of value to justify that monthly cost. This will vary from person to person in what they see as worth that monthly fee..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's already too late and it's all on Carbine's account with their "hardcore or die, everyone else is a cupcake ha ha ha" attitude.
The game dies shockingly fast. I wrote it earlier, i even bought a new videocard for Wildstar which died after 3 days...by the time i get it back from RMA there won't be anything left from the game i bought the card for.
Even if NCSoft goes into full damage controle mode aka nerf content to shiz (in which case Carbine would look like total fools), people won't return with WoD on the radar.
Originally posted by Bigdaddyx For a relatively new game i was kinda surprised to see the low population. Zone chat is empty, starting areas are empty. I was hoping for a very busy game but so far it feels very lonely. i didn't come across one player during my 5 hours play time. Granted i am only lvl 15 but game is new. So where is everyone?
I chose Stormtalon (PvE), which was the only MED server and that too during 7 pm. All other servers were low.
Starting zones should be empty 2 months after release. And zone chat is rarely used given that most people are either busy chatting on teamspeak/ventrilo/mumble or in the capital cities zone chat which I always see busy.
Biggdaddyx called it, Annekynn that is an excuse, as stated EQ2, Neverwinter and Rift start zones are not ghost.
Man the sky is not falling and as a matter of fact you guys are so far off its funny. There are 174 ranked guilds on that website that have killed the first boss in GA. That takes a lot of effort from ATLEAST 20 people to accomplish. MANY of those guilds have WAY more then 20 members. My guild currently has 34 raiders and around 15 friends and family if that gives you an idea.
174 x 20 =3480 active players. THATS JUST THE RAIDERS AT WORST CASE NUMBERS. That would be one over populated server. Now take in the fact that there are a TON of RP guilds, PVP guils and MANY MANY progression guilds that are still farming Silver Dungeons just to get into the raids.
3480 x $14.99 = $52165 a month they are getting. SO I am going to do the laws of math and ASSUME that raiders make up about 20 percent of the actual player base. That would be $250000 a month if NO ONE bought any Creed, which if you stand near the creed dealer ...you can hear someone buying creed like once every 5 minutes.
So that is just a small survey slice of the Wildstar community. I very very small slice that I greatly minimized just to show that worst case outlook.
So sorry to burst your bubble but if you just did some minor research or ACTUALLY played the game past the first 20 levels you would see that the game is not only doing fine but it's thriving. The sky is not falling...hell its a nice sunny say outside.
Man the sky is not falling and as a matter of fact you guys are so far off its funny. There are 174 ranked guilds on that website that have killed the first boss in GA. That takes a lot of effort from ATLEAST 20 people to accomplish. MANY of those guilds have WAY more then 20 members. My guild currently has 34 raiders and around 15 friends and family if that gives you an idea.
174 x 20 =3480 active players. THATS JUST THE RAIDERS AT WORST CASE NUMBERS. That would be one over populated server. Now take in the fact that there are a TON of RP guilds, PVP guils and MANY MANY progression guilds that are still farming Silver Dungeons just to get into the raids.
3480 x $14.99 = $52165 a month they are getting. SO I am going to do the laws of math and ASSUME that raiders make up about 20 percent of the actual player base. That would be $250000 a month if NO ONE bought any Creed, which if you stand near the creed dealer ...you can hear someone buying creed like once every 5 minutes.
So that is just a small survey slice of the Wildstar community. I very very small slice that I greatly minimized just to show that worst case outlook.
So sorry to burst your bubble but if you just did some minor research or ACTUALLY played the game past the first 20 levels you would see that the game is not only doing fine but it's thriving. The sky is not falling...hell its a nice sunny say outside.
Manipulating numbers from wildstar - progress won't change facts. The game is bleeding subscriptions at an alarming rate and very few if any new players are joining. ALL EU realms are showing low status for the last 15 days and half of them are ghost towns with only a hand full of people running around.
If Carbine doesn't take immediate action then you can bet that NCsoft will.
Also, the way you extrapolated these sub numbers is just hilarious, no offense. And light years away from the actual figures.
I throw money around like it is cool on games unfortunately (spent over 400 between archeage/the repopulation/Archlord 2/Firefall/Pathfinder/Gloria Victis within the last 2 weeks) but this one takes the cake as far as a COMPLETE waste. I play archeage off and on, the repopulation even less but still find myself logging on. Archlord 2 I enjoyed for the first 2 weeks, Pathfinder im looking forward too, GV has potential and I check when events are going on... but after I played the beta of WS I just couldn't bring myself to even log in once ever again. I am still sitting on my free 30 days from purchasing the game and I doubt I ever use it (no I wont give it away to someone). Game is just plain sad, nothing is fun about it at all.
There is no way i pay for a linear themepark like this, no innovation, no diversity, same hub progression, raids, battlegrounds, nothing new.
They should have used the GW2 business model, buy the game then play for free with cosmetic cash shop, now is time they start to pay for this business mistake.
See, this sort of puzzles me. The gameplay is in no way impacted by the payment model, so why does making it B2P make it more worthy of playing?
If a game sucks, I'm not going to play it even if totally free, how much it costs has nothing to do whether I'm going to spend time in it.
Your question comes up from time to time here in the forums. I'll copy paste what I responded to someone else with a similar statement.
This is very easy to answer. I know someone else posted a thread about something similar to what you are stating so I might as well comment it here. It isn't so much that it will be "more" fun or "more" interesting in the long run, but rather something to dab on in the short run. I will give you 4 perfect personal examples.
Example #1: FFXIV
I enjoyed my time in FFXIV but I ran through 2.0's content just shy of 2 months. I practically experienced everything in the game (minus crafting) that the game had to offer. Before the recent updates, anyone interested in endgame had to wait for a whole week due to lockouts. And you could do this endgame content in just a little over an hour. So I would log on 1-2 hours a week to play said content and not come back till the next week. Was it worth it to me the $15 a month for the long run? No.
Example #2: TSW
The #1 thing I loved about The Secret World was the story and voice acting... everything else fell between average or below average. Was it fun for me in the short run due to those 2 very fun aspects in the game? Yes. In the long run? No.
Almost similar to example #2 and #3. It felt to me like WOW 3.0 or SWTOR 3.0 in the PVE department minus the combat of course. I really did love the voice acting and the story during beta... but not enough for me to sub for the game.
Summary:
There might be one or two aspects of the game or maybe one or two endgame content that you truly enjoy... but not the rest. It either falls that you feel that the rest of the content isn't that much fun OR you cleared said content already leaving you with very little else to do. So the question isn't how difficult it is to obtain said $15, but rather is it worth it to you IF you fall under one of these two (or more) categories in the long run.
More research to back up my claims..for those who think I am just pulling stuff out of my butt.
Actually, you kinda do.
Do you know what a subscription is? Initial sales don't mean much in sub based games. I purchased the collectors edition played for 45 days and then cancelled my subscription like many others.
Man the sky is not falling and as a matter of fact you guys are so far off its funny. There are 174 ranked guilds on that website that have killed the first boss in GA. That takes a lot of effort from ATLEAST 20 people to accomplish. MANY of those guilds have WAY more then 20 members. My guild currently has 34 raiders and around 15 friends and family if that gives you an idea.
174 x 20 =3480 active players. THATS JUST THE RAIDERS AT WORST CASE NUMBERS. That would be one over populated server. Now take in the fact that there are a TON of RP guilds, PVP guils and MANY MANY progression guilds that are still farming Silver Dungeons just to get into the raids.
3480 x $14.99 = $52165 a month they are getting. SO I am going to do the laws of math and ASSUME that raiders make up about 20 percent of the actual player base. That would be $250000 a month if NO ONE bought any Creed, which if you stand near the creed dealer ...you can hear someone buying creed like once every 5 minutes.
So that is just a small survey slice of the Wildstar community. I very very small slice that I greatly minimized just to show that worst case outlook.
So sorry to burst your bubble but if you just did some minor research or ACTUALLY played the game past the first 20 levels you would see that the game is not only doing fine but it's thriving. The sky is not falling...hell its a nice sunny say outside.
Errr, how many devs does their team have again? And at what salaries at each month?
I know your calculations are a bare minimum and all, but that $52k probably wouldn't even come close to covering all of those.
Also, I don't make a habbit of counting raiding guilds but... that doesn't seem like such a terribly huge number considering that's across all servers. (Unless I'm mistaken somehow?)
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
Things like Rapt and Xfire have always been useless for determining population levels. You can determine trends with it. But even then they're not great.
As for Wildstar vs ESO, The reason I play ESO is because of Cyrodiil, the PvP system basically....I don't play it for any other reason. If ESO had launched with nothing but a Warzone system, I would not of played it..Because I have countless other games to play that have that exact same system. Wildstar for example..I have zero reason to ever want to play that game when I can play SWTOR and do the exact same thing.
Originally posted by Bigdaddyx For a relatively new game i was kinda surprised to see the low population. Zone chat is empty, starting areas are empty. I was hoping for a very busy game but so far it feels very lonely. i didn't come across one player during my 5 hours play time. Granted i am only lvl 15 but game is new. So where is everyone?
I chose Stormtalon (PvE), which was the only MED server and that too during 7 pm. All other servers were low.
Starting zones should be empty 2 months after release. And zone chat is rarely used given that most people are either busy chatting on teamspeak/ventrilo/mumble or in the capital cities zone chat which I always see busy.
Starting zones should be empty 2 months after release? Really? This is the answer people in my guild had when i told them that starting zones up to level 25 on Eko EU where empty. What about new players coming in in a 2 months old game?
Fanboyism at its finest.
Maybe they shouldn't be - but they are. In pretty much every game I have played post 2004. Really.
And what about new players coming into a 2 month old game? They are screwed. The product of linear game design. In pretty much every game I have played post 2004. Really.
I've played almost every major MMO and I've never gone 4 hours without seeing anybody, even in games that are years old.
Only time that came close was Maplestory, but even there I saw one other guy.
Originally posted by Bigdaddyx For a relatively new game i was kinda surprised to see the low population. Zone chat is empty, starting areas are empty. I was hoping for a very busy game but so far it feels very lonely. i didn't come across one player during my 5 hours play time. Granted i am only lvl 15 but game is new. So where is everyone?
I chose Stormtalon (PvE), which was the only MED server and that too during 7 pm. All other servers were low.
Starting zones should be empty 2 months after release. And zone chat is rarely used given that most people are either busy chatting on teamspeak/ventrilo/mumble or in the capital cities zone chat which I always see busy.
Starting zones should be empty 2 months after release? Really? This is the answer people in my guild had when i told them that starting zones up to level 25 on Eko EU where empty. What about new players coming in in a 2 months old game?
Fanboyism at its finest.
Maybe they shouldn't be - but they are. In pretty much every game I have played post 2004. Really.
And what about new players coming into a 2 month old game? They are screwed. The product of linear game design. In pretty much every game I have played post 2004. Really.
I've played almost every major MMO and I've never gone 4 hours without seeing anybody, even in games that are years old.
Only time that came close was Maplestory, but even there I saw one other guy.
I can easily do that in WoW. Im on illidan the most populated Horde server around as well as WoW now having merged servers for low populated areas, I can go on for hours, even days, not seeing anyone and WoW has a little more numbers than the rest...
I've played almost every major MMO and I've never gone 4 hours without seeing anybody, even in games that are years old.
I have.
Back before Ryzom consolidated their newbie zones - i.e. they had four separate newbie zones - I played several hours a day for a bit over a week and only saw two other players in that time. It gave a false impression of the game being dead, because I'd picked the least popular race and starter area.
Originally posted by Bigdaddyx For a relatively new game i was kinda surprised to see the low population. Zone chat is empty, starting areas are empty. I was hoping for a very busy game but so far it feels very lonely. i didn't come across one player during my 5 hours play time. Granted i am only lvl 15 but game is new. So where is everyone?
I chose Stormtalon (PvE), which was the only MED server and that too during 7 pm. All other servers were low.
Starting zones should be empty 2 months after release. And zone chat is rarely used given that most people are either busy chatting on teamspeak/ventrilo/mumble or in the capital cities zone chat which I always see busy.
Starting zones should be empty 2 months after release? Really? This is the answer people in my guild had when i told them that starting zones up to level 25 on Eko EU where empty. What about new players coming in in a 2 months old game?
Fanboyism at its finest.
Maybe they shouldn't be - but they are. In pretty much every game I have played post 2004. Really.
And what about new players coming into a 2 month old game? They are screwed. The product of linear game design. In pretty much every game I have played post 2004. Really.
I've played almost every major MMO and I've never gone 4 hours without seeing anybody, even in games that are years old.
Only time that came close was Maplestory, but even there I saw one other guy.
I can easily do that in WoW. Im on illidan the most populated Horde server around as well as WoW now having merged servers for low populated areas, I can go on for hours, even days, not seeing anyone and WoW has a little more numbers than the rest...
Ok but that game is over 10 years old, not just months old. Plus they have an auto-level thing you can buy so many people probably don't even bother leveling.
While ArcheAge is between closed betas, I actually wanted to try this game. Saw MMORPG was running an offer on trial keys....only to realise its NA only? That is such an odd move, to completely isolate 3/4 of the world?
Really put me off and obviously haven't bothered paying the money to try the game.
If the same minds who dreamt up that idea, also dreamt up the game - its doomed to fail.
I will keep it updated every week with the dropping numbers.
I won't say it is dying but it can really benefit from server merges at this point. Wildstar will always have small population which isn't a bad thing.
Comments
This is probably pretty close to the mark.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
See, this sort of puzzles me. The gameplay is in no way impacted by the payment model, so why does making it B2P make it more worthy of playing?
If a game sucks, I'm not going to play it even if totally free, how much it costs has nothing to do whether I'm going to spend time in it.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
Agreed. Changing the payment model is not going to save this game...
Sadly the standard thing with MMOs, they put in too many servers so they can get in everyone who want to try the game at launch but few MMOs can hold on those players after the first month. That makes the game feel pretty empty and might turn off more players.
The problem is really that the only 3 other options are to either limit the initial sales, merge servers a month after launch or use mega server technology which all have their own drawbacks. The hype might go down after the first month meaning you sell less copies than if you release all you can at launch, server merges looks pretty bad in many peoples eyes and more than a few MMOers dislike mega servers since it is hard to learn to know your server then and it hurts server pride.
A catch 22 in other words because it is really hard to grow the first few months after the release month, most interested people buy the game as soon as they can.
You'd be surprised at how many people will play a game if they only had to pay the box price. They can spend as much or as little time they want playing it. With a sub, you're already forced to commit to playing the game on their terms, not yours. It's also why F2P is so popular now... it givens the players the freedom to play when they want.
Now if you paid for 30 days and it only ticked off time that you were actually in-game, that would be different. And I'm sure everyone would be open arms to that sort of payment system. Play 2 days, take 60 days off, play 12 days, take 14 days off, still have 14 days left of playtime... at your choosing. Subs eat 30 days whether you are actually playing it or not. Pure profit to them. Pure gouging to you.
One of those MMORPG.comisms...Sounds good so lets go with it...
I actually bought this one for a time, so I understand, it does roll off the finger well..
Problem is you're not considering value.... While a game might not change depending on payment model, it's value can. Is what you get for 15 a month worth $15 a month? That's the question... I wouldn't play many games if they cost 15 a month plus a box fee, doesn't mean they're bad games, they just would offer nothing of value to justify that monthly cost. This will vary from person to person in what they see as worth that monthly fee..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I thought it was a solid game with a great game world.
My problem was I hated the combat. Too busy (both visually and movement wise).
But definitely one of the better made games in years.
It's already too late and it's all on Carbine's account with their "hardcore or die, everyone else is a cupcake ha ha ha" attitude.
The game dies shockingly fast. I wrote it earlier, i even bought a new videocard for Wildstar which died after 3 days...by the time i get it back from RMA there won't be anything left from the game i bought the card for.
Even if NCSoft goes into full damage controle mode aka nerf content to shiz (in which case Carbine would look like total fools), people won't return with WoD on the radar.
Biggdaddyx called it, Annekynn that is an excuse, as stated EQ2, Neverwinter and Rift start zones are not ghost.
http://www.wildstar-progress.com/rankings/prad/world/vanilla/genetic_archives
Man the sky is not falling and as a matter of fact you guys are so far off its funny. There are 174 ranked guilds on that website that have killed the first boss in GA. That takes a lot of effort from ATLEAST 20 people to accomplish. MANY of those guilds have WAY more then 20 members. My guild currently has 34 raiders and around 15 friends and family if that gives you an idea.
174 x 20 =3480 active players. THATS JUST THE RAIDERS AT WORST CASE NUMBERS. That would be one over populated server. Now take in the fact that there are a TON of RP guilds, PVP guils and MANY MANY progression guilds that are still farming Silver Dungeons just to get into the raids.
3480 x $14.99 = $52165 a month they are getting. SO I am going to do the laws of math and ASSUME that raiders make up about 20 percent of the actual player base. That would be $250000 a month if NO ONE bought any Creed, which if you stand near the creed dealer ...you can hear someone buying creed like once every 5 minutes.
So that is just a small survey slice of the Wildstar community. I very very small slice that I greatly minimized just to show that worst case outlook.
So sorry to burst your bubble but if you just did some minor research or ACTUALLY played the game past the first 20 levels you would see that the game is not only doing fine but it's thriving. The sky is not falling...hell its a nice sunny say outside.
Manipulating numbers from wildstar - progress won't change facts. The game is bleeding subscriptions at an alarming rate and very few if any new players are joining. ALL EU realms are showing low status for the last 15 days and half of them are ghost towns with only a hand full of people running around.
If Carbine doesn't take immediate action then you can bet that NCsoft will.
Also, the way you extrapolated these sub numbers is just hilarious, no offense. And light years away from the actual figures.
Your question comes up from time to time here in the forums. I'll copy paste what I responded to someone else with a similar statement.
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/post/6375418#6375418
This is very easy to answer. I know someone else posted a thread about something similar to what you are stating so I might as well comment it here. It isn't so much that it will be "more" fun or "more" interesting in the long run, but rather something to dab on in the short run. I will give you 4 perfect personal examples.
Example #1: FFXIV
I enjoyed my time in FFXIV but I ran through 2.0's content just shy of 2 months. I practically experienced everything in the game (minus crafting) that the game had to offer. Before the recent updates, anyone interested in endgame had to wait for a whole week due to lockouts. And you could do this endgame content in just a little over an hour. So I would log on 1-2 hours a week to play said content and not come back till the next week. Was it worth it to me the $15 a month for the long run? No.
Example #2: TSW
The #1 thing I loved about The Secret World was the story and voice acting... everything else fell between average or below average. Was it fun for me in the short run due to those 2 very fun aspects in the game? Yes. In the long run? No.
Example #3: SWTOR
Same as example #2
Example #4: ESO
Almost similar to example #2 and #3. It felt to me like WOW 3.0 or SWTOR 3.0 in the PVE department minus the combat of course. I really did love the voice acting and the story during beta... but not enough for me to sub for the game.
Summary:
There might be one or two aspects of the game or maybe one or two endgame content that you truly enjoy... but not the rest. It either falls that you feel that the rest of the content isn't that much fun OR you cleared said content already leaving you with very little else to do. So the question isn't how difficult it is to obtain said $15, but rather is it worth it to you IF you fall under one of these two (or more) categories in the long run.
https://forums.wildstar-online.com/forums/index.php?/topic/99469-regarding-wildstar-sales/
More research to back up my claims..for those who think I am just pulling stuff out of my butt.
Didnt see any research in there :P
Actually, you kinda do.
Do you know what a subscription is? Initial sales don't mean much in sub based games. I purchased the collectors edition played for 45 days and then cancelled my subscription like many others.
Errr, how many devs does their team have again? And at what salaries at each month?
I know your calculations are a bare minimum and all, but that $52k probably wouldn't even come close to covering all of those.
Also, I don't make a habbit of counting raiding guilds but... that doesn't seem like such a terribly huge number considering that's across all servers. (Unless I'm mistaken somehow?)
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
Things like Rapt and Xfire have always been useless for determining population levels. You can determine trends with it. But even then they're not great.
As for Wildstar vs ESO, The reason I play ESO is because of Cyrodiil, the PvP system basically....I don't play it for any other reason. If ESO had launched with nothing but a Warzone system, I would not of played it..Because I have countless other games to play that have that exact same system. Wildstar for example..I have zero reason to ever want to play that game when I can play SWTOR and do the exact same thing.
I've played almost every major MMO and I've never gone 4 hours without seeing anybody, even in games that are years old.
Only time that came close was Maplestory, but even there I saw one other guy.
I can easily do that in WoW. Im on illidan the most populated Horde server around as well as WoW now having merged servers for low populated areas, I can go on for hours, even days, not seeing anyone and WoW has a little more numbers than the rest...
I broke down the dying MMO known as WildStar in this post:
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm/game/632/view/forums/post/6424331
I will keep it updated every week with the dropping numbers.
I have.
Back before Ryzom consolidated their newbie zones - i.e. they had four separate newbie zones - I played several hours a day for a bit over a week and only saw two other players in that time. It gave a false impression of the game being dead, because I'd picked the least popular race and starter area.
Ok but that game is over 10 years old, not just months old. Plus they have an auto-level thing you can buy so many people probably don't even bother leveling.
While ArcheAge is between closed betas, I actually wanted to try this game. Saw MMORPG was running an offer on trial keys....only to realise its NA only? That is such an odd move, to completely isolate 3/4 of the world?
Really put me off and obviously haven't bothered paying the money to try the game.
If the same minds who dreamt up that idea, also dreamt up the game - its doomed to fail.
I won't say it is dying but it can really benefit from server merges at this point. Wildstar will always have small population which isn't a bad thing.