Slashdot Mirror
MMOG Subscription Analysis Provides New Insights
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.")
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.'
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.
This is the sig that says NI (again)
By requiring a paid subscription, you virtually eliminate the industry-standard scapegoat of "piracy" when your game fails...
When modding "Informative", please make sure it both has a source and IS actually informative.
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??
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.
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 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.
occultae nullus est respectus musicae - originally a Greek proverb
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.
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.
* Winners compare their achievements to their goals, losers compare theirs to that of others.
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!
"Music is everybody's possession. It's only publishers who think that people own it." - John Lennon.
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.
1 - all info on each game is provided by the game maker, so take it with a grain of salt.
;) But I doubt the makers would provide that data.
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
------- "From bored to fanboy in 3.8 asian girls" ----------
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 actually just registered for Second Life 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.
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.
They will just force you to run it at a resolution of 65536 x 49152 with 16x antialiasing, and there, you got it, bullet time on your PC.
This unique feature gives real strategic depth to an FPS game, because you can think a minute for every move.
And it will contain a programmable backdoor so that you feel how it is to be in the Matrix when it is hacked.
I'm still trying to figure out what people mean by 'social skills' here.
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?
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.
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.
- Jack
If I see a spider in my appartment, I run and scream like a girl. (Not too difficult cause I am a girl!) Then I go play my MMO, kill things, and pretend they're spiders in my appartment.
I would say it was the 35 year occupation(1910-1945) and colonial Japan's attmept to wipe out the Korean language and culture(people were given Japanese names, the Japanese language was the only language allowed in schools and official forums), Korean comfort women etc. Plus the fact that unlike Germany, Japan made very few renumerations to the victims. The youth of Korea seem a lot less angry at Japan than their parents/grandparents. Off topic but if you do get the chance, I recommend you talk to both Germans and Japanese about the war, you will get some very interesting opinions...
ah...so they're still pissed about the whole WW2 thing huh?
It's been going on longer than that. Korea and Japan have been invading each other about as often as England and France have.
"They redundantly repeated themselves over and over again incessantly without end ad infinitum" -- ibid.
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.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
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
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 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.
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,
Project Manager of Crystal Space (http://www.crystalspace3d.org). Support CS at http://tinyurl.com/cb3x4