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MMOG Subscription Winners, Losers Analyzed
Thanks to CorpNews for its recent round-up analyzing and rating the biggest PC massively multiplayer games. Along with subscription estimates similar to the SirBruce analysis graph, there's sharp-tongued comments on performance for Ultima Online ("It's really all your fault. If you weren't a big hit, would others have followed?"), EverQuest ("Say what you will... it knew its target audience and hit it hard enough to make EQ part of popular culture"), and Asheron's Call ("Talk about the little engine that could.")
Why is puzzle pirates being neglected so much?
So far, every MMO I've seen (and I've seen most of them) is just a glorified chat room. It's IRC plus fancy 3d graphics and sound. Sometimes there is also a progress quest included as well. No MMO that I've seen actually has skill based gameplay, which is what makes something no longer a chat room, but a GAME.
Puzzle Pirates is the only MMOish thing I play. Why? Because success is almost entirely skill based. Theoretically someone who has a trial account and has never played before can defeat the person who has been playing the game since day 1 if their skill is great enough. Not only that, but the major factor in any victory is always skill. Not only that, but the people in puzzle pirates actually role play and aren't asshats. What started as random people on the net became my crew and now me hearties, arrr! You don't get that anywhere else.
Give puzzle pirates the attention and respect it deserves. It's probably the most original and well designed game to come out in a long time.
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These will be much more interesting once they're updated to include FFXI. From what I've heard of player numbers, it pretty much blows away all of the other games listed there, including Lineage, particularly since the US PS2 release. It also shares one of Galaxies' key strengths, namely that it's been able to draw in a lot of the people who wouldn't normally play a MMORPG. Plus, of course, it's release in the US didn't blow goats, unlike Galaxies' release, which sucked pretty much everywhere.
I'd bet that MMORPGs that launch badly suffer the greatest player losses over the first few months. Once people are hooked, they're hooked... the trick is to get them there.
I don't really care for this guy's article, while he seems to be telling what he thinks is wrong with MMORPGs, and it is true, his recommendations aren't what I would recommend for a few.
Take my latest MMORPG that's a non-beta, Star Wars Galaxies. His recommendation is to provide the Space Expansion to be perfect. That's not the case, because if so then the original game where you're still going to spend a minimum of 40% of your time is STILL going to be screwed over. Too many people can become Jedi, the Galactic Civil War is still overpopulated with Rebels, PvP is completely screwed up, the economy needs fixing, etc.
the Political Inquirer
Reading MMORPG boards I've worked out most of the slang - MOB, DOT, NUKE, phat lewt Kill stealing, PK etc etc etc.
But I've never seen a definition for "catassing" - what exactly is a catasser or catassing?
Skip the troll replies please, I really want to know.
- World of Warcraft, simply put, is going to change everything. Subscription numbers for UO, FFXI, DAoC, AC, AC2, and EQ are going to fluctuate wildly when WoW comes out as people cancel their subscriptions to give Blizzard's game a shot. I don't know how many will stay, but I expect World of Warcraft, by the middle of next year, to be comfortably within the 250,000 - 300,000 area.
- Star Wars Galaxies will continue to hemmoraghe players until this fall, when the space expansion comes out. Regardless of how good it is, their subs are going to skyrocket as people flock to the game that has X-Wings and TIE Fighters. This influx of players will sustain them at least another 2 to 3 years as they continue to patch in new content and....(shhh) fix the game. SWG has passed the point where they could have failed. It isn't going anywhere anytime soon.
- Anarchy Online is going to be a sleeper comeback kid late this year or early next year. Their upcoming expansion sounds good, Funcom has finally managed to start to move beyond their disaster of a launch, and people are getting tired of Fantasy MMOGs.
- Lineage 2 is not going to do very well at all in the states. US gamers just don't like being ganked.
- AC and AC2, despite losses to WoW, are going to continue on quietly and happily. Jessica Mulligan is no slouch, and despite aging graphics and a tiny playerbase those games just keep getting better.
- City of Heroes is going to be a success...for a while. CoH is going to draw a whole bunch of newbie MMOGers into the fold who have never picked up a MMOG before. 6 months down the line if they don't have villains patched in they're going to start losing people as the fact that there is nothing to do besides combat starts to wear on the playerbase.
- Middle Earth Online is going to be a middling success. Their design concept is only so-so, but they'll attract enough attention via newbie MMOG players lusting after Legolas to stay afloat.
- Warhammer Online .... ?? I don't know where it's going to pull it's playerbase from. Have to wait and see on this one.
- EQ, one year from now, will no longer have such a commanding lead over all other US MMOGs.
- EQ2 is going to do "okay". It's a very different game but the branding alone will be enough to keep it going. Despite what SOE says, EQ is going to lose players to EQ2, futhering the WoW effect on the original Everquest.
- The Sims Online should be put out to pasture. That creepy melting pot of social darwinism was doomed from the get-go. EA should let it die.
- Shadowbane will continue to slowly exist as a team of dedicated and talented developers rescue a game that had almost as bad a launch as AO. People will always want to "Play to CRUSH!" so SB will always have players.
My 2 cents. I spoke a little more about this here: Quality over Quantity.