MMOG Subscription Chart Updated

Thanks to the folks at GameGirlAdvance for pointing to Bruce Sterling Woodcock's newest update of his MMOG subscription chart. This update has newer subscription numbers for many of the MMOG leaders, and has added games such as EverQuest: OA, Shadowbane, EVE Online, and Star Wars Galaxies to the chart, commenting that the recent market shows "...the market competition is fierce and the cannibalization of subscribers is now clearly evident... [but] there is still possibility for large success, as the more recent launches of Ragnarok Online in Japan and Star Wars Galaxies have shown."

Comments

Re:OH MY GOD EVERQUEST SUCKS

[jafuser]

I agree. Here's just one example of how screwed up things are right now...

Resource harvesters are player-built structures like houses which can be placed down on the land, and will extract resources from the ground 24/7 so long as they have power and energy.

Players can also "manually" extract resources by a process called "sampling", but it requires that the character stay in one spot while they gather the resources.

As of now, harvesters do not gather nearly as many resources as a player who is sampling in the same spot.

Also, resources in SWG shift around with time, so a "sweet spot" you have placed your harvester on may disappear all of the sudden, with no warning.

Now this would not be so bad, except that you cannot "re-deed" (pick up) your harvester and use it again without losing all of the energy and maintenance fees which you have fed into the harvester. You lose them all. Money and energy go *poof* when re-deeding.

So it is easy to see why many players like to sample instead of use harvesters to gether resources.

The problem is, many people are sampling since they can get over five times more resources in the same time period compared to harvesters.

The problem with sampling is that it is horrendously boring. To sample, you select a resource, then click the 'sample' button. After a few minutes and about 20-50 sample events/attempts, your character will run out of action and/or mind pools.

In the meantime, typically 5-10 minutes, you have absoultely nothing to do in the game but sit there and stare at your character. Sampling requires the player to do nothing after the process starts.

Suffice it to say, most players have begun to use macros to sample for them while they get up from the computer and go watch TV or nap or whatever.

To combat the macro samplers, the developers report that they are going to make the process a lot more "fun" by adding "critical events". According to players on the test server, these critical events only occur once every 15 minutes or so, but they pop up a dialog box, which we assume is there to stop the macro samplers.

So this "fix" does nothing to solve the problem, and even at that is a very weak solution to macro sampling.

Instead of fixing the problem (harvesters), the developers are implementing a system to make macroing more difficult.

So now, while sitting back in my chair staring in a zombie-like trance at the screen, I might occasionally get a dialog box which may improve my sample attempts. This is more "fun" how?

So they put all of this effort into slowing down the macroing, but they have so far given no indication of putting any effort into stopping the problem which causes the macroing (the harvesters).

In summary, they like to fix the symptoms, not the problems.

I could be wrong about all of this, but I tend to be pessimistic when there is no communication. I seriously hope that I am wrong, because I want to enjoy this game. My in-game profession relies a lot on resource gathering, and as it is now it's just more work than fun, and it looks like the next update will only tip the scales even worse in the same direction.