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Role Playing (Games)

MMOG Subscription Analysis Provides New Insights 309

Posted by simoniker from the many-graphs-better-than-one dept.
Thanks to jer0 for pointing to SirBruce's updated MMOG Subscription Growth analysis page, which tries to "chart the trend in active subscriptions" for major MMO titles using public and private data. This "major revision" has the "chart separated into three tiers" dependent on subscription size, and shows Lineage as the worldwide MMO leader at "just under 2.7 million" (though this may be reliant on bulk 'PC Baang' subscriptions in countries such as South Korea, and the game has "only 7,000 [subscribers] in the United States.") Other notable entries include City Of Heroes ("surpassed 180,000 subscribers... proof that a well-executed MMOG can still garner substantial numbers even in the current competitive climate"), and the also recently launched, but less successful Horizons ("After peaking at around 35,000 subscribers, they have since fallen to somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 subscribers.")
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MMOG Subscription Analysis Provides New Insights More

MMOG Subscription Analysis Provides New Insights

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  • Horizons? Huh? (Score:4, Informative)

    by Ignorant Aardvark ( 632408 ) <cydeweys.gmail@com> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:03PM (#10016378) Homepage Journal
    I consider myself up-to-date on gaming news, but I've never even heard of Horizons. Is it good? I'm interested in trying it out. Has anyone on here played it, and if so, what do you think of it?

    • Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by DarkFencer ( 260473 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:08PM (#10016435)
      Horizons had some nice ideas but the implementation was horrible. The game felt incredibly lifeless and boring.

      There were no equipment drops as far as I was aware. Only items that could be used by crafters to create equipment.

      The combat was extremely boring and had little to keep anyone interested.

      The only interesting things was the extensive crafting system but it wasn't enough to keep this game from dying a slow death.
      • I never understood that MMO crafting thing. Why craft fake stuff? If I want to craft something, I'll do that in real life.

      • AE Employee here (Score:3, Interesting)

        by lanner ( 107308 )
        Hi. I am a former Artifact Entertainment (Horizons) employee. I was a systems administrator for their production server and networking equipment. If you have questions, post them and I will answer, so long as it won't get me into trouble.

    • Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:2, Informative)

      by Don Calamari ( 144891 )
      Horizons has a really good crafting system and one of the best UIs I've seen. It has some major flaws though. Really bad performance on ATI cards and a lack of high level content for example. I hear they are getting better on the content though. It has a 7 day free trial, so if you like crafting or being a dragon give it a go. http://www.istaria.com/ [istaria.com]

    • Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:5, Informative)

      by dsanfte ( 443781 ) * on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:10PM (#10016464) Journal
      There's a free trial if you want to try it (www.istaria.com), but Horizons has a ... colorful history.

      Since a corporate takeover from the inside [gamemethod.com] by David Bowman (of Asheron's Call fame, who was fired for "agressive ladder-climbing"), the game underwent an extreme redesign, and hasn't been the same since.

      It made its retail debut around December of this year, still very much in beta, for which it received sound derision. The bugs were incredible. The game was a flop

      Artifact Entertainment filed for bankruptcy a few months ago, and last month handed pink slips to half its developer staff. This seemed aimed at making the game a viable target for a buyout, but nothing has happened as yet.

      David Bowman ran AE and Horizons into the ground. All in all, I wouldn't play an online game with no future. Subscription numbers are dropping steadily every month. Horizons is on its deathbed, waiting to die.
    • It's decent. Pretty big world, good crafting system, lots of stuff to kill. There is a market for used items. Lots of races to play as, including Dragons which have thier own crafting system. Of course I havn't played it since the beta.

    • I am playing the game - even as I write this (Score:5, Informative)

      by tramsan ( 806820 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @05:41PM (#10017329)
      I see the replies here are sort of one-sided, so as a current Horizons player I guess I should post my views. As good as any first post, I guess. =P


      First off, let's deal with the "corporate takeover from the inside." There are two camps in regards to this. There are the Allen camp and the anti-Allen camp. David Allen was the CEO of Artifact Entertainment before the "takeover," and provided most of the early days ideas, concepts and designs.

      The Allen camp claims it was a vicious, ruthless takeover, taking Allen's baby away from him and then ruining it.

      The anti-Allen camp claims that Allen was fired due to incompetence and inability to make all his nice ideas into something real, and then the remaining staff created a game as best as they could with the funds and time left at their disposal.

      Thing is - WE DON'T KNOW. We can never know either. All we have are Mr. Allen's biased articles and interviews and AE's official (and thus, naturally, biased) comments. In the end, this becomes a non-issue, since it's the game itself that is important, and not who made it and who not made it.

      Also, AE did not file bankruptcy, they filed bankruptcy -protection-. The difference is huge, and the story is long. Details can be had www.istaria.com, for instance.


      Alright, now for the game itself.

      Horizons of today is a completely different game than Horizons of pre-launch, or even at launch. I'm not going to say much, in order to not come off as biased, but I will bring up a few of my personal likes.

      Variety and freedom: Character development in Horizons is very flexible. You can decide to do anything at any moment. You can build complex characters with multiclassing, leveraging individual strengths of the different classes. For instance you can train up a warrior based class for the melee capability, and then switch over to a mage based class to get some magic support, then to a cleric based one to enhance your survivability. Since you can join any and all schools available in the game, you can do a lot of things. (Exception is dragons, more on that later.) Tired of killing things? Go join any of the crafting classes and start building weapons, armor, houses, food...

      Construction: Unlike many games where you buy a premade house to put your things in, in Horizons you buy a Plot. The plot has a set size and any of three zonings which determine what structures can be put on the plot. (RCI - Sim City players will be familiar with those.) When you've placed a building on your plot only the basic scaffolding is actually placed. You then have to build it yourself. Putting in that final stone block on a building and seeing it complete is very gratifying.

      Crafting vs fighting: While Horizons is very crafting centric, it's hardly a must. I know several players who have opted to ignore crafting in favour of more adventuring, and they are doing well. Likewise, if you don't like fighting you don't have to do that either - as long as you can outrun the occasional monster wandering around dangerous resource places.

      Dragons: To my knowledge, Horizons is the only current MMORPG that allows players to play as dragons. Playing as a dragon is a -very- different experience to any other race.

      Community: Due to how Horizons plays, it tends to attract social people, or "team players." In no other game have I met a community so helpful, kind and cooperative as in Horizons.


      In the end, Horizons is not for everyone. It is a niche game, and everyone knows it. Chances are it might be for you. In fact, you know what? Don't listen to me. Don't listen to what anyone else says about this game either. Go download the trial and play the game to get your own perception. It won't cost you more than your time and some bandwidth. If you don't like it, fine, leave it. If you like it, a winner is you! I will give you one advice, however. Don't be afraid to join the community. Ask for help, trade, just plain chat. The communication inte

    • I *LOVE* Horizons! (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Brash Endeavors ( 806831 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @06:40PM (#10017879) Homepage
      The deluge of negative articles about this game has always astonished me. I've been a very heavy MMORPG player since 1999 or so, and have played EQ, AC, AC2, DAoC, FFXI, and some others I cannot recall now.

      Horizons is hands down my favorite of all of those. I foresee myself playing this game for years to come.

      The game has a much more mature player base than any other I have seen, a complete lack of d00ds/griefers (the lack of a PvP element probably is a part of this). The game certainly is less attractive to power-levelers who do become bored with it rapidly. The game is also the most "solo friendly" of anything I've played since AC1. I have always hated forced-grouping games, and Horizons gives you both the ability to participate in a community, as well as a chance to be self-reliant if you choose.

      For me the attraction is the very immersive world. The world itself is a beautiful one, the player models from Dragon to Dryad are great, the crafting system is first-class, and the multi-schooling system is much more enjoyable and intriguing for me than rigid class systems like EQ/DAoC had. I love the *process* of playing Horizons, and just interacting with the world. If you are a goal-oriented person in a race to level 100, then yes this game may not be for you.

      There ARE issues with the game at this time, and they ARE making some major improvements, which I expect to really transform the game over the next 6-12 months. For a game like Horizons, I am willing to give this game the time it needs to fully mature. I currently play mainly on the Blight test server and there are a LOT of changes coming in the very near future.

      Visit Tazoon.com [tazoon.com] to see a greater amount of positive feedback from CURRENT players who really love this game, and learn WHY they like it. It has a loyal diehard fanbase that I have not experienced since my three years with AC1.

      But most of all, try the 7-day free trial and make up your own mind about this game.

  • Runescape numbers inflation? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by jbellis ( 142590 ) * <jonathan@carnage ... m minus math_god> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:04PM (#10016393) Homepage
    graph #3 reports 100k Runescape "active subscribers" in Jul 04. Either I'm hugely underestimating how many people pay for Runescape, or they're counting _all_ accounts, of which the majority are neither 'subscribers' or 'active.'
    • ... Just like The New York Times site has over fifty million registered users?

      Note: figure completely made up.
    • The early numbers look right for paying accounts. I was estimating subscriber numbers for the first six months or so, and the January to July end of the 2002 curve looks right.

      If it was "all active accounts", the February 2002 data point would be around 150,000 players. If it was all accounts ever created, the February 2002 point would be around a million.
    • 100k is a reasonable figure. I see people of all ages at the public library hunched over pc's, playing that game. My daughters love it, their friends at school love it and play it religiously, and I see 40+ year old men playing it (which kinda makes me shudder when I think about it too long).

      It's gotta be the most popular MMOG out there.
    • Runescape lists how many people are playing at one time. I just added up the servers on the pay side of things and came up with just shy of 10,000 players online right now. If you go with 10% online at any one time, 100K doesn't seem an unreasonable figure.

      Someone earlier was saying the assumption is 1/5 (20%) of your subscriber base online at anyone time - that's like 2.5 hours everyday. If that is realistic, then you're only talking 50K. Really, considering his methodology, being off by 2X is not that ba

  • Call me lame (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Killjoy_NL ( 719667 ) <slashdot@@@remco...palli...nl> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:05PM (#10016398)
    But I'm kinda interested in the Matrix online game.
    I'm wondering how they will incorporate bullettime into the online/realtime arena.

    I'm afraid it will suck though, but if it's cool, that will be the first online game I will pay a subscription for.

    For me the other online MMOPROPRFPRFRPGR's are too boring in the long run.

  • No Piracy Concerns (Score:5, Interesting)

    by ticklemeozmo ( 595926 ) <justin.j.novack@aRASPcm.org minus berry> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:05PM (#10016401) Homepage Journal
    By requiring a paid subscription, you virtually eliminate the industry-standard scapegoat of "piracy" when your game fails...
    • Well yes and no.

      I've played Ragnarok online for a little while on a hacked server, so I leeched the game and played it for free.

      The server's gone now, but I lost interest before it disappeared.

  • Lineage language (Score:5, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:07PM (#10016423)
    does anyone here play any of those Asian based MMORPG's? I'm just curious, do they have enough english-speaking players or english language servers so that playing doesn't become a chore of finding something you can understand??

    • Re:Lineage language (Score:4, Interesting)

      by Stripe7 ( 571267 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:38PM (#10016744)
      I play Korean Company Nexon's Shattered Galaxy online and chats in German, French, Chinese, while not common can be seen. Most Koreans apparently play the Korean version Tactical Commander. In game English works most of the time. Its easy to specify enemy locations, Arbs(Enemy Artillery) E5. That is understandable in all languages. I have heard of attempts at auto translatiion by some online companies but do not know of their progress.

      • Re:Lineage language (Score:3, Interesting)

        by Kindaian ( 577374 )
        Ultima Online has automatic translation... and... works enought if people talk "plain"...

        AFAIK, it's based on the systrans translation engine...

        (that was about... 3 or more years ago... now should be even better)
  • They keep saying how it's the biggest thing in the world, but I've tried it...it sucks. And if this is the biggest thing in the world, then the world needs a reality check. I mean, it's really totally awfull.

    Or is it one of those things that "it's world famous in Korea...and Korea is the center of the universe" kind of thing? I know, Korea has more people online per capita than the US, but still, do they have to subjected to such a sucky game? Someone move a EQ server into Korea or something. Those poor poor people!

    This shows that being the most popular certainly doesn't mean the best!
  • Can't read the website, unfortunately, but did Clan Lord [deltatao.com] make the list?

    I played that once a long time ago. Very cool.

  • The funny thing is... (Score:3, Interesting)

    by FortKnox ( 169099 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:11PM (#10016466) Homepage Journal
    Most of the people are the same. Jumping from one addiction to the next. See, you thought Everquest wasn't very addictive, so you took that first hit...er... month for free. Then when you got into that second month, they asked for money. Soon that got expensive, so you switched from crac...errr... Everquest to cocai.... errr... city of heros. Its a little cheaper to pay for, but the high you get is a little better.

    Yes, I feel that in 10 years we will see a sharp decline of subscribers from ALL MMOGs due to OD'ing or parents kicking their 30 year old kids out of the house and force them to get jobs.

    Seriously, though, I don't get it from the players perspective. You pay $30-$50 a shot to BUY the game and the first month. Then you pay $10 a month to play. You, then, PAY (?!?!?) for major updates to the system (cleverly named 'expansions')???
    What does that $10 go to? Just playing on the servers?
    The other sad thing is that the games aren't fun to a casual gamer. You have to be a teenager or college kid without any outside distractions to do well in these games. Once you are good enough, its your duty to be an ass to all casual gamers so they eventually quit and never play again.

    What MMOG really need is a 'death' time. You 'age' in the game, and once you hit like 60 you die. That way kids that play the game 8+ hours a day can start at level 16 and work to super massive skills, but the casual gamer can start at 30 when a few skills have been mastered and they can play without fear of some child named 1337 d00d smacking them around and being an ass.

    </rant>

    • Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2, Interesting)

      by rayde ( 738949 )
      I think some of the games, such as Lineage, offer the game as a free download [lineage.com]... you just need to give them credit card information to play. They don't really charge you for the game itself though.

    • Re:The funny thing is... (Score:5, Funny)

      by ScottGant ( 642590 ) <scott_gant@sbcgloba l . n etNOT> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:16PM (#10016523) Homepage
      What MMOG really need is a 'death' time.

      I play MMORPG's a lot, as does my wife....and we own our own house so we're not in line to be kicked out of our parents basement...but I digress.

      I've always thought there should be a RPG that has aging and perm death. All these kiddies walk around saying how lame PvP is on different games yet they curl up in a ball and piss themselves when I tell them my thoughts on PvP and MMORPGs

      You should start out very young, age through the game and at some point in the future die of old age if the environment doesn't kill you. Also, if you die, you're dead....you lose everything and can never come back. Your account AND credit card that you used to set up the account are locked and can never be used again! If you want to join the game again you have to buy a whole new version with a different credit card.

      Anything less than this and you're a little girl care-bear loser wimp! Don't even try to argue with me! You're a wimp care-bear! Eat it and STFU!
      • I've always thought there should be a RPG that has aging and perm death. All these kiddies walk around saying how lame PvP is on different games yet they curl up in a ball and piss themselves when I tell them my thoughts on PvP and MMORPGs

        You should start out very young, age through the game and at some point in the future die of old age if the environment doesn't kill you. Also, if you die, you're dead....you lose everything and can never come back. Your account AND credit card that you used to set up the
        • if you die it executes a "rm -rf /*" system call

          Even better! Let the loser wimp care-bears play the safe PvP servers on other games! If you have nothing real to lose, you have nothing to lose...so what' the point?

      • Re:The funny thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Xzzy ( 111297 ) <sether@@@tru7h...org> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:36PM (#10016726) Homepage
        Problem with that kind of system is the amount of content required to keep players playing.

        The game would have to be reasonably easy, and reasonably fast paced. Most games these days keep people tagging along by installing longer and more involved advancement methods. If jimbob spends 6 months getting to a high level, then dies to a dragon somewhere, he's going to quit. If he spends 2 days getting to the same level and dies, he'll be just as likely to start over as quit.

        There is also the min/maxing problem that many modern gamers fixate on. They see two states for their character: max level/stats, and newbie. The entire point of the game is to be the best they can be. Everything accomplished on that route is considered "work" and is what makes the game "lame".

        "Journey" type systems where the point of the game is having fun exploring a world are doomed to failure because of this mindset. Nethack is the best example of this type of game.

        I find it a hilarious no-win situation on the part of the developers. I also find it hilarious that players are only happy with a game when they are the highest level, and fail to see that if the "level grind" were completely removed, they wouldn't have played the game to begin with.
        • exactly...I of course was being sarcastic.

          The journey to 65 (in the case of EQ) is where most of the fun is!

          That's also why you rarely rarely see someone that's a griefer/jerk/idiot that's 65 in EQ. Yes, there are some, but it's rare. The kiddies just don't have the patience.
    • Seriously, though, I don't get it from the players perspective. You pay $30-$50 a shot to BUY the game and the first month. Then you pay $10 a month to play. You, then, PAY (?!?!?) for major updates to the system (cleverly named 'expansions')???

      Actually, I played EverQuest for 5 years (from Day 1 until recently). Before EQ, I played many games, typically buying at least one $50 per month only to get tired of it and never play it again. With EQ, I payed a few times the $50 for expansions and took the lon
    • So that's like, what, $10/month for entertainment versus $10/movie without popcorn and a drink at the theater for 3 hours entertainment (max). Even factoring in the price of expansions it's still cheap entertainment. (tho really that's an everquest and clones thing. Asheron's Call has had 1 and will finally have it's second expansion out sometime next year)

      CoH hasn't been nearly as bad for the casual gamer as a lot of the other games. There's no uber loot you must spend forever camping to get (tho I hear i
    • Your perceptions are really distorted. I'm not saying there are no 20-30s loosers that do nothing but play, but they are not the majority. Last one I played was Star Wars Galaxies. I joind a big PA (collection of players, in other games a guild) that used voice chat. I discovered some things that many would consider supprising:

      1) A good number of women. The stereotype seems to be all males and that wasn't true. Our PA was probably 30-35% women.

      2) Lots of married people, with children. Some couples, some s

  • Free MMORPG list (Score:5, Informative)

    by rayde ( 738949 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:12PM (#10016475) Homepage
    after playing SWG for a few months and getting tired of paying for it, I tried some free MMORPGs. There's a list of some here [onrpg.com].

  • Free MMORPGs (Score:3, Informative)

    by StevenHenderson ( 806391 ) <[stevehenderson] [at] [gmail.com]> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:12PM (#10016477)
    It will be interesting to see how free MMORPGs in the future such as Guild Wars (http://www.guildwars.com/ [guildwars.com]) do. For me, I personally refuse to pay 10 or so bucks a month when I don't have the time to commit to such a game.
  • I for one don't mind paying 50-80 bucks for an online game. But I have a problem paying the full price for a game in addition to a monthly subscription. Sure it's a great business model for the game industry however it's not a good bargain for me as the consumer.

    • Naw, it's a ridiculously obvious cash grab. 50 bucks for the game, 10 bucks a month, and in a few months, another 50 bucks for the "expansion pack"..

      I'd give some a shot, like City of Heroes or SWG, and I wouldnt mind burning 10 bucks for the first month if I decided the game sucked. But it'd cost me 60 bucks minimum to find out that the game sucks. Actually City of Villains, the sequel, sounds even better, since I'd much rather be Venom than Spidey, or Sinestro than Lantern, etc..

      I kind of don't get i
      • RPGs arent necessarily my bag in the first place. However, I'll pay to play the first MMOFPS. Or a MMOGTA, massively multiplayer online grand theft auto! Get to work, Rockstar.

        I'll assume you never heard of (The now defunct) 10Six. It was an MMO FPS with RTS aspects. Your only opponents were players, and their automated turrets/vehicles. An amazing amount of fun, hosted through the even more defunct Heat.net.

        Also, PlanetSide is pretty much a MMOFPS. Likewise with WWIIO. I can't claim to make a soli
    • Are you sure its not a good bargin? You correctly point out that buying Doom3 for $40 is cheaper than a years subscription to any MMOG. But the trick happens to be, are you going to play Doom3 for [i]an entire year[/i]?? Most stand alone games can be played through in less than a month and have zero replay value. MMOG have months on end play value.

      When viewed that way games like Doom3 are worth $40 but no more of a value than playing City of Heroes month after month.

  • No real accuracy. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Shivetya ( 243324 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:13PM (#10016492) Homepage Journal
    Hence all this is just a shouting/boasting game depending on which side of the coin you are. Too many of these companies do not publish numbers and I don't believe the old rule of 5xpeak online is really relevant much.

    Take Horizons, their subscriber base in the US is probably less than 10K, but that is in essence a seperate game from the European operations under GN. Artifact Entertainment is in Chapter 11 as we type, they have a big show down with their provider at the end of the month, a provider whom they basically defrauded for many months. Their bankruptcy documents provided a lot of insight into these groups.

    As for AC/AC2. Who knows, they won't tell as their numbers have never been good. A company proud of its numbers will tell you. A company with something to hide from players and investors tells a whole different story.

  • MMOG stats I'd like to see... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by myowntrueself ( 607117 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:16PM (#10016518)
    what proportion of their subscribers are griefers?

  • ATATD. (Score:4, Interesting)

    by DAldredge ( 2353 ) <SlashdotEmail@GMail.Com> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:16PM (#10016520) Journal
    If you haven't tried the A Tale in the Desert Beta you really should.

    It's just hard to describe.

    http://www.atitd.net/ [atitd.net] Current - Non Beta version
    http://www.atitd2.com/ [atitd2.com] Beta Version
    http://www.atitd.info/ [atitd.info] Info on the game

    In the game: Karsus

    • ATITD :: Amazingly Well Done (Score:5, Interesting)

      by endofoctober ( 660252 ) <<moc.deryasderfi> <ta> <eloc.kj>> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:46PM (#10016813) Homepage
      I have to agree with parent's sentiment - ATITD2 (I just started playing the beta) is amazingly well done, but p0w3rg4m3rz will be bored within minutes...a plus as far as I'm concerned.

      The game takes place in the Egypt of antiquity, and all players begin as peasants. The goal of the game is to build "the perfect society" according to the Seven Virtues. You learn how to build structures, and learn new skills at "state sponsored" schools dedicated to the Seven Virtues, eventually completing tests to move higher in the tech tree.

      Three things I find of particular interest: cooperative learning (wherein citizens donate materials to Universities in order to unlock higher skills for *all* their region), the ability to teach skills to other players, and player-written laws.

      If you don't like the way something works in the game, propose a law. If it has enough votes (and doesn't break game mechanics), the "law" is written into the game by the devs. And speaking of the devs, they seem *very* responsive to player ideas. You really get the sense that they care about the enjoyment factor.

      I still play EQ and CoH, but ATITD2 looks like it will appeal to people who like a challenge, but want to go a different route.
      • My biggest problem with the ATITD2 beta is the lack of instructions. I played ATITD for a bit so I understand the premise of the game, but i still got lost after a couple of minutes. The UI is not very intuitive, either to a newbie or to someone used to other MMOGs. And the method of progression is completely unknown to new players. I got lucky enough to start near a guild (or whatever) building that offered membership and access to tools if you just went and gathered a few things for them... but I had
        • The game can be played in a window (rather than maximized) and many players take advantage of this fact to keep some browser tabs open to the incredibly detailed websites and wikis out there that cover all these subjects. These websites are easy to find from the www.atitd2.com Links page.

          Also, the Linux client runs great! I just started playing this game two days ago and I'm hooked for sure.

    • I'll describe it (Score:4, Insightful)

      by blunte ( 183182 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @05:50PM (#10017388)
      Go fetch small piece of natural resource X.
      Go fetch small piece of natural resource Y.
      Put X and Y together to make tool A.

      Go fetch small piece of natural resource Y.
      Go fetch small piece of natural resource Z.
      Put Y and Z together using tool A to make item B.

      Repeat until you have 80 units of item B.

      Go fetch small piece of natural resource P.
      Bake P in item B.
      Removed baked P.
      Stack baked P.

      Call all your friends to gather around and see your abstract art, created entirely of baked P!!11!

  • *Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Wind_Walker ( 83965 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:17PM (#10016533) Homepage Journal
    All data in those graphs are based on owner-reported numbers. "We have more than 7 billion subscribers!" means a data point of 7 billion.

    There is no standard for the data. For example, Star Wars Galaxies is in the habit of reporting the total number of unique numbers in their database. So everybody who downloads a free trial counts as "a new subscriber"

    Finally, we have the biggest laugh of them all. "...proof that a well-executed MMOG can still garner substantial numbers even in the current competitive climate." The problem is that "substantial numbers" does not equal success. City of Heroes has been out for about 3 months. Most of the people currently playing CoH are still in the MMORPG "honeymoon" phase where everything is new, the end-game content is still unexplored, and people are trying out new ideas and new play styles. A year from now, we'll see if CoH is still succeeding.

    The same goes for World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, and whatever new games come out. The only measure of a game's success is staying power.

  • Notes for those who didn't RTFA (Score:5, Informative)

    by l33t-gu3lph1t3 ( 567059 ) <arch_angel16.hotmail@com> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:20PM (#10016564) Homepage
    1 - all info on each game is provided by the game maker, so take it with a grain of salt.
    2 - the stats don't differentiate between "players" and "accounts". So a single account with 3 characters may show up as 3.
    3 - the stats don't differentiate between active accounts and inactive accounts.
    4 - the lineage figures are crap as massive bulk of them come from South Korean cybercafes. It's noted that South Korea apparently doesn't get many Japanese import games, thus it figures that Lineage may have a disproportionately high user base there.

    A much better chart would be the server population figures for these games ;) But I doubt the makers would provide that data.
    • 1. Actually most of his numbers are guesses. The majority of these companies DON'T publish their numbers. Some may hint at them but most don't tell you what they are.

      2. That is primary an issue with Korean games. It is not an issue for US based games as that type of gaming community does not yet exist here, or in any real numbers.

      3. Again as most of these companies don't give real numbers to begin with!

      FWIW, AC2 numbers can be gleaned from the frontpage of www.fallenkingdoms.com They peak at around

  • new gameplay concepts (Score:5, Insightful)

    by MattW ( 97290 ) <matt@ender.com> on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:23PM (#10016604) Homepage
    City of Heroes is fun, and I commend them for doing something different when too many people are just trying to be Everquest.

    It goes to show that there's a lot of different things that attract different people; CoH was my first MMO, despite being a long-time MUDder who wrote 100,000 lines of code to expand the Diku/ROM base for a mud I helped make. (I do have an SWG box still gathering dust that I'll use sooner or later)

    I think there's two concepts that are waiting to make a lot of money:

    (1) MMORPG for people with money. People are desperate to target the $10-15 range. But I think there's a substantial set of subscribers who would pay a lot more for better service. I think the MMO to exploit this will be two tiered. Much like EQ's premium service, but far more so. It will be at least $75/mo -- or possibly not flat rate. It may be $50/mo + $2/hr or something. I know a lot of players are price sensitive, but I paid $3/hr on weekends to get onto compuserve and move an asterick around in a dungeon at 300 baud. And $2/hr doesn't mean squat to me, and if I can get a party of 6 into some real "DM-controlled" sort of adventures at $2/hr, I'm on it. I'd probably want some perks, but it could be very profitable. I know a lot of people who would do the same.

    (2) Skill-based play. By which I mean reflexes. I'm a broken record on this topic, sure; but MMOs are "the same". One needs to implement semi-twitch gameplay... perhaps a Q3 style play, with a level of auto-aim that decreases with level. (or simply easier-to-hit monsters) I don't want to completely twitch-base it, I think anyone should be able to fight and win (at least at lower levels), but I think there should be an in-game effect of "skill". Please don't mention planetside; I still want level progression; I still want it to be playable by people who don't have the reflexes. I just want those that do to get an edge for them.

    <rant>

    On another note, I'd like to pre-emptively predict the utter failure of Dungeons and Dragons Online. They were SURE to get a subscription out of me, until I read an interview, and discover they are MANGLING the D&D ruleset, one of the best things about it... doing things like allowing a +5 attack bonus to let you "perform 5-hit combos with the proper key sequence". What? Are these crack-monkeys making D&D Online or Street Fighter II Online?

    </rant>

    • I believe I saw Ken Troop listed on the D&D Online team from Turbine.

      Anyone who remembers his stint as AC1 lead, or the mess that is AC2 should know enough to stay well the hell away from games he's working on.
    • One needs to implement semi-twitch gameplay... "perform 5-hit combos with the proper key sequence". What? Are these crack-monkeys making D&D Online or Street Fighter II Online?
      You bash Dungeons and Dragons Online for trying something new while simultaneously bemoaning the fact that all MMORPGs are the same. That level of doublethink is amazing.

      Are you John Ashcroft?

  • Nice, but is it trustworthy? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:23PM (#10016606)
    I've been looking this study over and I don't see any documentation for any of his facts. Granted this isn't the New York Times or the Washington Post but whenever I need to provide a report or an article I need to site my references, been that way ever since 6th grade. Why should he be held to any other standard though if he expects us to take his work seriously?

    Take for instance his SWG numbers. SOE does not release their population numbers at all, so if they didn't want people to know their numbers why would they tell him as a secret source and not just release that information publically? And the only guess we have is between 200-300k subscribers based on a quote from one of the suits at SOE. A range of roughly 1/3 of the possible total volume can not be taken as accurate. Which makes me wonder how he was able to determine subscription drops +-15k when the only number we have is between 200k and 300k.

    Yeah, it's nice he spent the effort to plot this stuff out, but it should really only be looked at as an analysis of what he thinks their subscription numbers are when he fails to provide any sort of sources or documented references. Quite frankly, his guess is as good as mine on most of these games regarding where their subscription numbers are. As a SWG player I can say It certainly appears there are more people playing now compared to six months ago, but that could just by my server(Bloodfin) seeing a population spike while others fall. Not enough for me to make a conclusive argument one way or the other on their total subscriber numbers.

    Sorry for the AC post, moderators have been kind of flaky lately and don't want to get burned as a troll for raising a valid concern.

  • Does "Second Life" count? (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 5n3ak3rp1mp ( 305814 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:23PM (#10016613) Homepage
    I actually just registered for Second Life [secondlife.com] last night. It's kinda interesting. I don't think it qualifies as a conventional "roleplaying" game, although you do have an avatar in a massive multiplayer online world, and you can configure how you look and amass all sorts of objects in an inventory... as well as virtual money. But there's no "experience", per se.

    One aspect that may definitely disqualify it as a MMORPG for sure, is that it actually has women in it. ;)

    Second Life has a scripting language (C++-based) and basically allows anyone to create freeform objects with behaviors and properties. The economic model is interesting. You can do things like create an automated dispenser which charges people to create copies of objects you have created. You can also own virtual real estate.

    Someone has created an adventure-within-a-world in it that tracks experience. I haven't checked it out yet, but it sounds interesting. You have to "buy" an Adventurer's Pack which gives you all the relevant objects.

    So I don't know if it counts. What do you think?

    My name in it is Roark Spinnaker, in the event you run into me while I'm flying around in it. I haven't decided yet if I will stay after the free week trial is over.
    • Just to be on-topic: As of earlier this week, it was determined that SecondLife had around 15,000 subscribers, based on data released about the in-game economy. Earlier this year (around May, I think) the official subscriber numbers were 10,000 accounts.

      Long-time subscriber Carnildo Greenacre here.

  • Where does The Sims Online stand? Is it still up? (Score:4, Informative)

    by pappy97 ( 784268 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:29PM (#10016657)
    Hehehehehehe.

    I just watched an episode of G4TechTV's "Icons "profiling Will Wright and it was before the full launch of The Sims Online. Someone said something like "it could do well, or fall flat on its face."

    Boy did it ever fall flat on its face.
  • I've been toying around with writing me own games for a bit now, and I've been thinking about writing them much longer than that. And I've gotten into no small number of arguments on various IRC #gamedev channels about MMORPG's in particular lately.

    Though I don't claim that it's foolproof or that it's guaranteed sucess, I don't think it's a guaranteed failure either. Here is my idea:

    A smaller, more focused MMORPG, perhaps even the "massive" part needs to be removed. Target subscription is 500-1500 subscribers, with a set upper limit of probably 1500. Target subscription fee $50 a month (read on before you just dismiss everything outright). Before anyone explodes over that rate, consider that for every other product, there are people interested in paying a premium for just about anything. (Also consider that the hardcore gamer has a bigger game budget than that anyway... but will he devote so much of it to this?)

    Not sure about the world itself, but I will admit that it probably has to be either a starwar'ish space thing, or medivieval fantasy (dragons, elves). If you wanted to play, you'd submit an application, and assuming it's not all booked up, you'd be given a choice of up to 2 dozen characters to play, complete with biography summaries of those (and if they were completely unsuitable... wait another day, while we find some other choices for you). I'd also try to weed out all the obnoxious players, too, for that matter. People who want to play in character are important, and if you chalked up more than a few infractions (talking about monday night football in game, using too much modern slang, etc) I'd probably end up canceling the subscription.

    Player death would be permanent (choose another character). There would be skill levels, but this isn't pacman and they aren't power pellets (numbers hidden from the player). There would be a true storyline/plot going on, but it's up to the players what happens with it (will the evil lord dominate the known world, blah blah). Also (and I'm still conceptualizing what the tools would have to be to allow this) the DM's in the game would work hard to come up with alot of subplots for players, while encouraging players to not only maintain the plots, but invent/help out/ grow them.

    For instance, let's take a very boring character that no one would choose to play. An owner of a small bookshop in the village that passes for a major city in the kingdom. One day walking to the market, a DM uses his "godlike" powers to put a old hag in his path, in a way that he can't help but walk into her, knock her down. She casts a curse, which the player might not even choose to believe (I tend to go for the flavor of story where magic is truly rare, though this world may or may not be that way). That DM flags that player, so that if another DM takes over, they can keep a fairly close watch on him. For the next week of play, whenever he logs in, bad (but not really evil) things happen to the character. Keeps stepping in horse turds, or if he walks past a candle, his head catches on fire (though not allowing it to do significant damage). Let the player decide how to handle it. Will the player seek someone out to reverse it? Will he seek out the old hag and apologize? I don't know.

    And I could cook up a few dozen other subplots, for this *boring* character. Town guards extorting protection from him (which is actually an intersecting plot for another character I use an example). Some evil creepy stranger asks you to track down a rare book. Etc.

    Among other things, each player would be flagged as to what subplots had been used with him, and maybe the software should even keep track (suggest?) of possible subplots. With at most 300 simultaneous players, it just might be possible, if everything were automated well for the DM. (They'd have to be good typists though, to keep up with everyone, talking through so many NPCs).

    Anyone care to comment on how stupid all of this is?
    • It's something that can and will work - it's like EQ legends taken to the next level.

      The trick is, it needs to piggyback on a successful service. You can't develop a game for 1500 people @ $50/mo. Even if you could provide the service at that rate (and I think $75/mo would be more likely, or $30 + a per hour rate), that still won't nearly cover development. But you can have a standard service and have some custom content on the premium service as well as route all content through a period of exclusivity th

    • This idea sounds a lot like A Land Far Away [alandfaraway.org] for Neverwinter Nights. Except for the pay-for-play, of course.

      I've often wondered if it would be possible to take something like DAoC or EQ, license the engine and server platforms, and set up something similar to this.

    • Take a look at www.eventide.net.

      Rubies of Eventide closed its doors in Feb, re-opening in July.

      It is using a free-2-play model, with a server limit, with a $50 donation to get a unlimited account.

      Prime time caps to 125 f2p's, no limit on gentry, hits the upper 100's to low 200's at times. As much as in the p2p days peak...

      The response has been amazing, going from less than hundred previous hard core players, including me, to over 1000 players in 6 weeks.

      No one is getting rich on it, it basically pays f
    • At E3 this year I attended a discussion about MMOG's and all of them agreed that the newer ones are going to cost about $10 million to develop. One of them was the lead designer for Puzzle Pirates and he said he pulled that one out for $1 millions. Everyone would stop playing puzzle priates instantly if they were charged $50 a month. I'm not sure many would play the new, hot MMOG for $50 a month. But assuming you did get 1500 people to play your game at $50 a month, it would take more than 11 years to o

    • Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:4, Insightful)

      by oGMo ( 379 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @05:05PM (#10017014)

      This is unrealistic for many reasons. It might work in a small MUD, but for anything largescale (say over 50-100 players) you've got one major component to worry about: balance.

      Economic balance. Play balance. Story balance. Everything has to work and continue to work for an extended period of time. Having DMs working fulltime coming up with quests is a nice idea, but with 1500 people that's a lot of DMs, and the balance will quickly spin out of control. (And if you want DMs talking through NPCs, that'd be at least 1 DM per PC, following them around and paying attention to their actions. Waiting 20 seconds to get a response from each NPC as the DM types it would still suck.)

      It works like this: if quests lack sufficient rewards, no one will complete them. Sufficient rewards include the following:

      • Power (new items, abilities, etc.)
      • Social Status (fame, fortune)
      • Information (substantial plot forwarding)

      However, too much of any of these will throw the game, and you have to be very careful to measure things out and consider how each affects the other across the board. Having 500 DMs constantly handing out arbitrary quests will be fairly quick chaos. Enormous inflation (even simple items cost millions), social breakdown (everyone is an ultrapowerful level-99 adept with infinite money on hand), or spiralling plots (contradictions, dead ends) are the issue here.

      And $50/mo is laughable. People choke at $12.95/mo for FFXI (which is high), and FFXI has incredible balance (one of the few MMORPGs with a stable economy even after 2 years).

      If you want to play this sort of thing, play a "real" RPG with pencil and paper, where such concerns don't matter. P&P RPGs can be far more fun and flexible anyhow.

    • Player death would be permanent

      I'd pay more, up to $29.99/month, for a game in which player death is NOT permanent, so if I'm like killed in a car crash or something then the game company resurrects me (presumably so they keep getting my subcription monies...)

      Talk about customer service!

    • DM complexity doesn't scale linearly with the number of players, but exponentially. Good luck, you'd sure as heck need it.

      You'd be better off working on research into how to get computers to be able to make up/tell coherent stories on the fly.
    • I just can't see this working. While it does seem like there is a market for it, it is extrememly hard to get people to play the way you want them to. Your idea of a book owner isn't going to appeal to anyone unless he can progress that character to something more interesting. Sure, it can be sort of interesting if he gets a curse, but really, so what? He isn't having any effect on the major story line.

      Let's assume that that was just a bad example and that people can have effect on how the world is run
  • Meh, my favorite is still Yohoho! Puzzle Pirates [puzzlepirates.com]. It's a free download, runs on any platform that runs Java, it has skill-based gameplay and a friendly community. Of course if you're a PHAT LEWT whore who enjoys crapping your pants so that you don't miss a mob it's probably not for you. It's better suited to more casual players.

  • Logarithmic charts would be better (Score:3, Insightful)

    by BalloonMan ( 64687 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @04:40PM (#10016759) Homepage Journal
    The article complains about how the Legend stats completely dwarf the rest of the data in a linear graph. Doesn't this dataset just beg for a logarithmic presentation? This is like compairing populations of countries or any number of other scenarios where power laws apply.

    Anyhow, the absurd comparisons of random untrustworthy data sources and the poor presentation just shows that this guy needs a good statistics teacher to whack him upside the head. I'm going to go read some Tufte.

  • MMO was supposed to be the next big thing (Score:5, Interesting)

    by SmallFurryCreature ( 593017 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @05:23PM (#10017192) Journal
    And it hasn't happened. Why not? Well for one I think the game industry has no clue. Nor do most gamers. Why? Wich is the most popular PC game? No it is not a trick answer like solitair. Just check sales figures of full priced real PC games. The answer? The Sims. Still selling at full price (although by now bundled with 1 or 2 expansions) years later.

    Yet the sims online was a total failure. I think the reason for this is both simple and important.

    What was the difference between The Sims and The Sims online?

    The sims is a non-competitive game. It is totally impossible to compare the "performance" of one player vs another. The Sims as played by those still playing it is perhaps even a coorperative game. Most of the content is not created by Maxis/EA but by the users and shared by the users. I even think that people don't by the expansions for the extra content but for the extra capability it gives the community to create their own content.

    Compare this with the sims online where there is no user created content and that introduces competition with other players. Plus now you gotta work for every credit in game (Many The Sims player use the moneycheat to get the money they need for their family). The Sims is a game where you let your creative juices flow. The Sims online is a grind to compete.

    The Sims is also a good example because the sales figures show that the people that play it are not afraid to spend money. Even content downloaded is often paid for as most of the "free" content is hosted from a central site that requires a subscription to offset hosting costs. Add the constant expansions and The Sims player have easily spend hundreds of dollars.

    Most MMO games seem obsessed with adding competition even PvP. Sure online combat games are popular but is it popular with the right crowd? Is it possible that people who like Counter Strike will never pay for a MMO version of it? After all why should they, they got their MMO free.

    Paid for MMO games perhaps should aim at a different audience. An audience that prefers to have something more then just a grind to compete on a ladder game. Competition gives winners and losers. People are not going to pay money each month to loose to some 12 yr old kid that can afford to spend 24/7 learning every exploit in the game.

    Game industry take note. With every leet counter stike kiddie you attract to your game you loose 10 people that just want to have fun.

    I am not saying the a massive CS game won't work or sell. Just that at their is a different market as well. Second Life is an example of this.

    What I would like to see in a game. No PvP except maybe in arena's with very clear rules and no cheats. A low lvl/irregular player is not worthless, read this as not making it compulsery to first grind to lvl X before you can do anything fun/usefull. Police that constantly checks for assholes ruining it for everyone else. Ban people that can't behave. 1 asshole can easily turn of dozens of players.

    Growth would be nice too, you start as a kid with no skills and weak stats, then grow up and eventually grow old and then die. Give the option to retire and make the next character related to the first. A child an apprentice or similar. This neatly would avoid insanely high characters but a child would inherit money and some basic skills avoiding you to start a new low lvl character once you reached the XP ceiling.

    But most importantly the game should still be fun when you remove the multi player element.

    To many games now are very basic Diablo clones. Nothing wrong with diablo but not everyone likes it and there is no market for dozens like it.

  • Economics and opportunities (Score:3, Interesting)

    by Peter Cooper ( 660482 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @06:14PM (#10017650) Homepage Journal
    What I don't get it why there aren't any smaller coding / artwork groups doing really well with MMORPGs.

    Release the client for free, make it open source even, ditto for the server, and then charge, say, $10 a month to use a centrally hosted 'world' (which has all the good stuff). Even a 25,000 players (less than most of the games in this study) would rake in $250,000 per month.. and imagine what, say, 15 hardcore people (who might ordinarily be working on free software anyway) could do with that!

    Okay, I'm not saying this is an easy venture by any means, but it strikes me as odd that I haven't heard of anyone trying this. There seems to be so much money and opportunity in it.
    • Checkout www.eventide.net.

      They are doing exactly that.

      Client is free, play is free, they get donations.

      It is working quite nicely.

      Disclaimer: I am an active memember of the ROE community, I may be a bit biased =)

  • Consider the source... (Score:4, Insightful)

    by rben ( 542324 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @06:14PM (#10017653) Homepage

    My wife, who works in the MMORPG Industry, tells me that she believes that Sir Bruce's numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.

    I'd like to point out that some companies, including the one my wife works for, are extremely reluctant to reveal these kinds of numbers and consider them closely held proprietary secrets. Therefore, it's unlikely that all these numbers came from the game companies themselves. Numbers that did come from game companies might be a bit inflated. It's hard to resist the temptation to make your game look just a little bit better.

    Just a word of caution that you shouldn't believe everything you read.... even on /.

  • Thumbs Up! for City of Heroes (Score:4, Informative)

    by Phrogman ( 80473 ) on Thursday August 19, 2004 @07:21PM (#10018220)
    Its not perfect by any stretch, but COH had the smoothest release and has the least problems of any of the MMO products I have tried.

    Its a fun PvE game, the AI on the mobs is quite good - again far better than any other MMORPG game I have tried - and the developers seem to have a handle on what the game needs. They listen and respond to public feedback.

    Currently its a bit content light, but they are adding new content and new features quarterly at the moment, and the first (and only) patch was pretty problem free.

    I went to DAOC from EQ because Mythic looked like they were doing things right and addressing the aspects of EQ that really bothered me, and the whole RvR thing looked neat. I played it since release until the release of City of Heroes, and was a pretty big DAOC fan. I don't think I could return now, COH has spoiled me. It is lightyears ahead of the competition in my opinion, and while its early still, being only 3 months old, I think it has a very bright future.

    Its well worth checking out City of Heroes if you are looking for a new game.

  • WARNING: Shameless plug (PlaneShift) (Score:5, Informative)

    by Jorrit ( 19549 ) on Friday August 20, 2004 @04:02AM (#10020424) Homepage
    I'm one of the developers on the free (in the sense of not having to pay money to play it) MMORPG game called PlaneShift (http://www.planeshift.it). The MMORPG engine is fully Open Source (GPL). This game is still in development and the current released demo is getting old. But even if you can't do a lot in it yet (only explore, chat, hunt crystals) it still has 100000 registered accounts. The next version which will soon be released will have magic, combat, ...

    The game is fully free. You don't have to pay to download the game and you don't have to pay to play it.

    Greetings,

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