Thanks. I was aware of the rest, just this soft launch I didn't know.
There are more than a few controversial forum topics that were locked by community management (though many have been deleted) and they date a lot of significant events that contributed to the spike and drop after final wipe. One of these days if I get a chance, I'll chart them out... wayback machine captured a lot of the heated discussions before devs and mods could sanitize them; like all the promises leading up to final wipe and then all the events that translate into negative player retention.
A lot of posts were deleted, but never fear! InsaneMembrane over on Shroud Unlimited managed to capture some before they were removed. You can check them out there. http://shroudunlimited.boards.net/board/8/vault
What happened in May to generate that increase in numbers?
It wasn't May, you're looking at the July 2016 Land Rush and switch to Persistence.
That was people coming back, and quickly leaving again when they realised the game just wasn't any fun. This is why I say the fans are being deliberately dishonest, they KNOW the game has already had the prior accounts come back, but they'll use any deception to keep the game afloat just that little bit longer.
They should consider paying people for playing this game.
I wonder if the people who spent thousands of dollars on ingame assets are happy about it.
Yeah, at this point it becomes mandatory for SotA to change into F2P title to stay afloat. F2P are being considered by Garriot? That guy is surely full of himself...
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
He should have done what he did before, create RPG games then launch an MMO. He just dived into the deep end of the pool instead. FTP would bring in the masses and so would a greater emphasis on PvE. At least learn from Final Fantasy MMO, they made a great recovery by listening to their customers.
But I do understand it's their house. They can invite as many people in as they want and throw out as many people as they want. What they can't do is get into fights with their customers, win the fights, and expect them to stay. I think a successful business knows when to push and when to yield.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
“If we have 65,000 backers now, if you just move that up to something as small as 100,000, and you look at a modest spending like in Ultima Online which was usually about $10 per month, that’s 12 million a year. If you bump that up to 200,000, that’s $24 million in revenues. Those kinds of numbers I think for many roleplaying games including ours are well within reach.”
65,000 backers... of which only 133 are playing the game right now.
Yea, "old person who isn't with the times" is seriously correct, else you'd think RG would know about the low rate of initial-player-base retention that's common knowledge by now.
I'd guess they might be setting a new record low for retention rates if those figures are remotely accurate.
Almost starting to make Wildstar look good by comparison.
Depends on if everyone who plays, plays through Steam, I don't know if that's the case or not.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Just so people are aware they banned a bunch of users from posting in the SotA official forums the day before their AMA. They controlled the message and questions there. They won't even acknowledge they did this.
Just so people are aware they banned a bunch of users from posting in the SotA official forums the day before their AMA. They controlled the message and questions there. They won't even acknowledge they did this.
Just so people are aware they banned a bunch of users from posting in the SotA official forums the day before their AMA. They controlled the message and questions there. They won't even acknowledge they did this.
I'm not surprised. They've got devs that come to forums, sppoutin lies calling people trolls and sayin they been banned, insulting people and the forum they post on like Chris did here. These guys just don't get it. They think if they can shut people up they can ignore all the feedback over the years that told them just how crappy this game was and is and they'll have a smash hit. Hello Sota devs the word is out, u're game sucks and you deserve all the negative reviews you're getting. Just keep plugging your ears and pretending it's all good you deserve the bankruptcy that's coming. It's ok though you guys have been through this before with your failed app adventure ROFL. Ty for years of entertainment of watching you fail. Too bad your egos and money were more important than making the a good game. Hopefully future kickstarter devs can learn a lesson from u, Sota is the example of how to go bankrupt and fail.
“If we have 65,000 backers now, if you just move that up to something as small as 100,000, and you look at a modest spending like in Ultima Online which was usually about $10 per month, that’s 12 million a year. If you bump that up to 200,000, that’s $24 million in revenues. Those kinds of numbers I think for many roleplaying games including ours are well within reach.”
65,000 backers... of which only 133 are playing the game right now.
Yea, "old person who isn't with the times" is seriously correct, else you'd think RG would know about the low rate of initial-player-base retention that's common knowledge by now.
I'd guess they might be setting a new record low for retention rates if those figures are remotely accurate.
Almost starting to make Wildstar look good by comparison.
Depends on if everyone who plays, plays through Steam, I don't know if that's the case or not.
Evidence posted earlier in this thread is it's a bit more than half.
(FYI, Marvel Heroes evidence with a margin of error going by developer comments and steam total hours compared to developer statements is that it's at least a bit more than half, too. Likely even more than that but one needs to make room for statistical deviation)
He should have done what he did before, create RPG games then launch an MMO. He just dived into the deep end of the pool instead. FTP would bring in the masses and so would a greater emphasis on PvE. At least learn from Final Fantasy MMO, they made a great recovery by listening to their customers.
But I do understand it's their house. They can invite as many people in as they want and throw out as many people as they want. What they can't do is get into fights with their customers, win the fights, and expect them to stay. I think a successful business knows when to push and when to yield.
But but but....they are "leaders" in the genre, as evidenced on their seed invest site:
But but but....they are "leaders" in the genre, as evidenced on their seed invest site:
It says so. It must be true.
/sarcasm
Richard Garriot is a Master in pitching his Companies to Investors (or Investors just suck at making decisions).
He sold Origins to Electronic Arts for $35 Millions Then he Merged his second Company, Destination Games, with NCSoft West. When sacked he won $29 Millions for being forced to sell his Shares at a lower market price. Now he values Portalarium $25 Million and if he has his ways and investors believe his BS, this will be his third big paycheck of his career.
But but but....they are "leaders" in the genre, as evidenced on their seed invest site:
It says so. It must be true.
/sarcasm
Richard Garriot is a Master in pitching his Companies to Investors (or Investors just suck at making decisions).
He sold Origins to Electronic Arts for $35 Millions Then he Merged his second Company, Destination Games, with NCSoft West. When sacked he won $29 Millions for being forced to sell his Shares at a lower market price. Now he values Portalarium $25 Million and if he has his ways and investors believe his BS, this will be his third big paycheck of his career.
But but but....they are "leaders" in the genre, as evidenced on their seed invest site:
It says so. It must be true.
/sarcasm
Richard Garriot is a Master in pitching his Companies to Investors (or Investors just suck at making decisions).
He sold Origins to Electronic Arts for $35 Millions Then he Merged his second Company, Destination Games, with NCSoft West. When sacked he won $29 Millions for being forced to sell his Shares at a lower market price. Now he values Portalarium $25 Million and if he has his ways and investors believe his BS, this will be his third big paycheck of his career.
Space travel is expensive.
Indeed, I think that after that experience he actually stopped caring about games. If I have to be honest I think RG had little say in SotA design, my guess is that it's all down to Starr Long and Chris Spears, and I have the feeling that this two don't really get along. There is no other way to justify this mess.
But but but....they are "leaders" in the genre, as evidenced on their seed invest site:
It says so. It must be true.
/sarcasm
Richard Garriot is a Master in pitching his Companies to Investors (or Investors just suck at making decisions).
He sold Origins to Electronic Arts for $35 Millions Then he Merged his second Company, Destination Games, with NCSoft West. When sacked he won $29 Millions for being forced to sell his Shares at a lower market price. Now he values Portalarium $25 Million and if he has his ways and investors believe his BS, this will be his third big paycheck of his career.
Space travel is expensive.
Indeed, I think that after that experience he actually stopped caring about games. If I have to be honest I think RG had little say in SotA design, my guess is that it's all down to Starr Long and Chris Spears, and I have the feeling that this two don't really get along. There is no other way to justify this mess.
I would say RG is just as much to blame for this cheap unity asset flip. He should have been more involved and reigned them both in early on or fired them both for stupidity and goofing off with crap ideas. They all 3 are to blame for this trainwreck.
... my guess is that it's all down to Starr Long and Chris Spears, ...
Oh I hope not. Spears is a self-absorbed hack with nothing but contempt for his community. Long...well, I simply believe that at this point you must clearly have a grasp on where you are in the space-time continuum. Sadly, he does not.
“If we have 65,000 backers now, if you just move that up to something as small as 100,000, and you look at a modest spending like in Ultima Online which was usually about $10 per month, that’s 12 million a year. If you bump that up to 200,000, that’s $24 million in revenues. Those kinds of numbers I think for many roleplaying games including ours are well within reach.”
65,000 backers... of which only 133 are playing the game right now.
Yea, "old person who isn't with the times" is seriously correct, else you'd think RG would know about the low rate of initial-player-base retention that's common knowledge by now.
I'd guess they might be setting a new record low for retention rates if those figures are remotely accurate.
Almost starting to make Wildstar look good by comparison.
It looks like they have around 500 on average, even though someone told Chris that in another thread and he tried to say they were wrong and there were more..
catnipgames said: I'm pretty sure you know the concurrency is higher than the numbers you listed for total players and is rising. --- Here's Chris telling how many they got on their reddit AMA.
You have to wonder if he is saying "average peek concurrency" cause an "average" would not have "upticks" in the evenings and weekends cause guess what, "average" takes those into account. And even still I am highly suspect of this 500 as when they gave the API data out and people figured out how to do an Online player count it was just about double of what Steam Charts said it was when I saw it.
You have to wonder if he is saying "average peek concurrency" cause an "average" would not have "upticks" in the evenings and weekends cause guess what, "average" takes those into account. And even still I am highly suspect of this 500 as when they gave the API data out and people figured out how to do an Online player count it was just about double of what Steam Charts said it was when I saw it.
The dude is so use to spinning untruths and makin excuses for their lack of ability to do anything else but copy and paste cheap assets into their game. Thier lazy and have no real skills to do better lol. I just found it funny he tried to tell someone they had a lot more people than they'd said, then turns around gives that number. Dude not only bad with customers but even worse at coding. I think like u said, he's still lying and got half what he said.
Be glad when they pull the plug on this one, their begathon and seedinvest begging can't keep them going long with just a few hundred people playing. Their prob dreamin up the way to get people for their next failure adventure. Something tells me they won't find as many gullibles this time
You guys are missing something, though: Think about how many people will be attracted to the game when they have a telethon offering authentic Richard Garriott stool samples!
Comments
~~ postlarval ~~
It wasn't May, you're looking at the July 2016 Land Rush and switch to Persistence.
That was people coming back, and quickly leaving again when they realised the game just wasn't any fun. This is why I say the fans are being deliberately dishonest, they KNOW the game has already had the prior accounts come back, but they'll use any deception to keep the game afloat just that little bit longer.
I wonder if the people who spent thousands of dollars on ingame assets are happy about it.
Yeah, at this point it becomes mandatory for SotA to change into F2P title to stay afloat. F2P are being considered by Garriot? That guy is surely full of himself...
When you don't want the truth, you will make up your own truth.
But I do understand it's their house. They can invite as many people in as they want and throw out as many people as they want. What they can't do is get into fights with their customers, win the fights, and expect them to stay. I think a successful business knows when to push and when to yield.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
~~ postlarval ~~
(FYI, Marvel Heroes evidence with a margin of error going by developer comments and steam total hours compared to developer statements is that it's at least a bit more than half, too. Likely even more than that but one needs to make room for statistical deviation)
/sarcasm
~~ postlarval ~~
Then again, thats bound to cause a proper shitstorm. What a pile of steaming crap
/Cheers,
Lahnmir
Kyleran on yours sincerely
'But there are many. You can play them entirely solo, and even offline. Also, you are wrong by default.'
Ikcin in response to yours sincerely debating whether or not single-player offline MMOs exist...
'This does not apply just to ED but SC or any other game. What they will get is Rebirth/X4, likely prettier but equally underwhelming and pointless.
It is incredibly difficult to design some meaningfull leg content that would fit a space ship game - simply because it is not a leg game.
It is just huge resource waste....'
Gdemami absolutely not being an armchair developer
He sold Origins to Electronic Arts for $35 Millions
Then he Merged his second Company, Destination Games, with NCSoft West.
When sacked he won $29 Millions for being forced to sell his Shares at a lower market price.
Now he values Portalarium $25 Million and if he has his ways and investors believe his BS, this will be his third big paycheck of his career.
~~ postlarval ~~
If I have to be honest I think RG had little say in SotA design, my guess is that it's all down to Starr Long and Chris Spears, and I have the feeling that this two don't really get along.
There is no other way to justify this mess.
~~ postlarval ~~
http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/464370/an-impressive-look-at-new-moondial-effects-shroud-of-the-avatar-mmorpg-com/p1
Ice-Queen said:
How many people are even left playing Sota these days, 300, 400, 500 people? I'm sure no one will ever give out the numbers, it's embarrassing.
catnipgames said:
I'm pretty sure you know the concurrency is higher than the numbers you listed for total players and is rising.
---
Here's Chris telling how many they got on their reddit AMA.
https://www.reddit.com/r/SotA_Official/comments/6iek5l/im_richard_garriott_aka_lord_british_creator_of/
How many players has the game averaged over the last month?
We have been averaging around 500 concurrency with upticks in the evenings and weekends and also in the new release weeks.
Read more at http://forums.mmorpg.com/discussion/464370/an-impressive-look-at-new-moondial-effects-shroud-of-the-avatar-mmorpg-com/p5#54rWoOiUQyTdoSHO.99
Be glad when they pull the plug on this one, their begathon and seedinvest begging can't keep them going long with just a few hundred people playing. Their prob dreamin up the way to get people for their next failure adventure. Something tells me they won't find as many gullibles this time