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MMOG Subscriptions Update
As he does every few months, SirBruce has updated his page detailing Massively Multiplayer Online Game subscription numbers. No major additions this time around, just some minor tweaks reflecting recent trends. FFXI is way up, with EQ taking a slight dip. No data on EQ2 is included yet. For slightly cynical further analysis, Anyuzer provides us with his opinions.
Yeah, no shit that FFXI would be "way up." They just finally got their asses around to releasing the European version of the game. So finally, three years after the original release, European players can play.
Except it to drop massively by the end of next month as the people still playing it to waste time until EQ2 and WoW cancel their accounts.
I think the next few months for SWG should be do or die time. They have had their Jedi re-structuring, JTS and I think they have a combat revamp coming up. If all of that doesn't fix it, nothing will.
Lineage? How can this game be so popular? I've played it...I've played it again...I just don't get it.
Yes yes yes, it's huge in Korea...that's always thrown at us, Korea. Every man, woman and child in Korea playes MMORPG's since the day they're born blah blah blah. I get that. But Korea doesn't have any other game to play there? I mean, are they forced to play this or something?
Ok, this isn't a troll, it really isn't. Do people here play that game and if so, what is the draw for you? Just because I don't get it doesn't mean someone else doesn't.
"Leo Fender was in a 'state of grace' when he designed the Stratocaster." -- Paul Reed Smith
I don't think World of Warcraft and Everquest 2 are going to seriously affect City of Heroes. The kind of quick-easy action, no crafting game-play that CoH exemplifies is pretty much unique in the MMO sphere.
In Seoul this fall, I visited a good number of their very cool "PC Rooms" (pronounced "PC bong" ... lol). I was determined to find out the Lineage - Korea Connection !! Gotta admit first this might not be the whole story because some of the details were lost in the language barrier. Yeah, it's true, Lineage is big-time popular there. However, I think I discovered at least part of the reason behind the popularity. Apparently, entering one's Korean ID number (might not have been a national ID number, maybe tied to a phone number?) unlocked one free Lineage / Lineage II account. As much as I wanted to play, no one had any idea how a westerner without this ID number could register on the Korean Lineage servers, and I tried about four crowded "PC Rooms" with the same results. One guy actually let me register with their unused ID number saying he was never planning to use his Lineage II account. Although a weird server problem kept it from working, I got to see the whole registration process, and it was remarkably unobtrusive (no immediate questions about credit cards, home telephone numbers, next of kin... American companies, are you listening?). While I don't think the game is entirely free to Koreans, I do think Lineage makes it very easy for Koreans to get started maybe offering an automatic free month or so. Even still, consider these regular players are walking out of their apartments down to the "PC Room" (generally one per two/three blocks sometimes more or less). It was surprising finding at even 7 AM Saturday there were people down there racking up XPs online!