Camelot is far from dead at the moment.

[Gamah]

Thats for the reply requiel..given me a bit more confidence about the state of the game.

 

[Minau]

As Catacombs is probably the most eagerly awaited expansion for the game ever, I see no reason why this should be different even in the face of the increased competition we are facing. Add to this factor the huge upswing in marketing effort and much stronger distribution partnerships (I was in the meetings with the marketing, PR and distribution agencies, I know how much money and effort is being poured into this release) .

No offence Requiel, but all the UK peeps say the havent noticed any
difference in marketing, and the shop where i order all my games (very popular
store) has Catacombs as the 8th most pre ordered game(just popped up on the top ten list), ALL the other daoc
expansions have been number 1. So frankly i fink some1 is blowing smoke up
ur bum.

EDIT: I still enjoy the game and hope peeps will come back. I do fink it need
a few adjustments tho.. clustering etc

 

[Helme]

Thinking a 3(soon 4?) year old game will just roll over and die is stupid, DAoC will survive

 

[UndyingAngel]

No offence Requiel, but all the UK peeps say the havent noticed any
difference in marketing, and the shop where i order all my games (very popular
store) has Catacombs as the 8th most pre ordered game(just popped up on the top ten list), ALL the other daoc
expansions have been number 1. So frankly i fink some1 is blowing smoke up
ur bum.

EDIT: I still enjoy the game and hope peeps will come back. I do fink it need
a few adjustments tho.. clustering etc

I have to admin its not even in the top 25 of pre ordered games on amazon.co.uk
and all the others where in the top 5. only 16.99 when you preorder

 

[cHodAX]

Requiel I hope you are right, I have always said that DAoC is game with huge untapped potential and maybe Catacombs goes someway to fulfilling that. However I do feel that the timing has been most unfortunate with the E.U. release of Catacombs being sandwiched in between the E.U. release of WoW and the Battlegrounds expansion, it has taken away an awful lot of limelight from what looks to be a very nice expansion in Catacombs. In many ways the U.S. release of Catacombs also failed to revive the fortunes of the U.S. servers, it has been live almost 3 months and yet their population numbers have never recovered from the release of U.S. WoW. If the same is not to happen in the E.U. then I think that GOA needs to find a way of luring back the lost sheep, perhaps with some kind of special offer subscription rate or incentive of some kind.

 

[Dubaxter]

The UK Marketing strategy is the worst shit I have ever seen Requiel ( this requires stepping up big time with your comment of "As well as this we are also expecting a significant number of brand new players to join".
. Today I went into 3 stores in Oxford all heavily branded names and not one of them found the game on a list and not one of them could pre-order me the game.
Infact workers from two of the stores say I used to play DAOC its shit, you should get WOW we wont have any DAOC games in here its dead. To whihc my reply was simple WOW is absolutely comic book material and if i wanted bloody WOW i would have asked for that.

Yes I can order this on the net but as everyone has mentioned due to the stupid UK gaming laws and Friday release even if i was to order it on the net I can not get it until at least Tuesday. (not your fault, just a rant)

 

[IainC]

No offence Requiel, but all the UK peeps say the havent noticed any
difference in marketing, and the shop where i order all my games (very popular
store) has Catacombs as the 8th most pre ordered game(just popped up on the top ten list), ALL the other daoc
expansions have been number 1. So frankly i fink some1 is blowing smoke up
ur bum.

EDIT: I still enjoy the game and hope peeps will come back. I do fink it need
a few adjustments tho.. clustering etc

To be fair though March is a busy month for releases. There are a lot of games being launched over that time and so the sales charts are busier. It doesn't mean that Catacombs is less popular than ToA or Si, it just means that the amount of sales needed to get to number 1 is higher due to the increased vlumes stores are expecting to shift over that month.

As for marketing, the magazines wil be out soon with the adverts, the reviews and the features. There is a lead time for printed magazines and the things we were doing three months ago are only now starting to make it to shelves. Over the next couple of weeks as the launch date gets closer you'll hopefully notice the increased visibility of the game - TV and cinema adverts, websites, magazines and many other platforms will all be used to get the game recognised. The main thrust will happen at about the same time as the actual launch for maximum impact.

 

[Minau]

I would trust the guys who acually buy and play the game rather some fat
guys in suits who cant even tell a luri from a kobbie. OFC they tell u everything
is going great... We the players can see the truth tho.

As for marketing, the magazines wil be out soon with the adverts, the reviews and the features. .

less then 1 month be4 release ? tbh that doesnt sounds like clever adverticing.

lol at the Sims is ahead of Catacombs

EDIT: again, i do hope im wrong and the servers will get a upswing again.
DAoC is still my all time favorite game.... next to Zelda

 

[Belomar]

Sounds good, Requiel.

 

[Gamah]

heh daoc adverts on TV cool...I saw a WoW advert on tv..even made me wanna play it again...but the i remembered its as dull as paint drying..

However watching eastenders and all of a sudden a kobold pop up on your TV..might make me think I been playing to much of the game , or might try amy slashing my TV...

 

[Gamah]

lol at the Sims is ahead of Catacombs

!!!!

When did they make Age of empires 3!!!!! weeeee.

 

[cHodAX]

To be fair though March is a busy month for releases. There are a lot of games being launched over that time and so the sales charts are busier. It doesn't mean that Catacombs is less popular than ToA or Si, it just means that the amount of sales needed to get to number 1 is higher due to the increased vlumes stores are expecting to shift over that month.

That is very true, February figures are in no way comparable to March which is traditional a very solid month for gaming releases whereas February is always a quiet month and that was certainly the case again this year.

 

[cHodAX]

!!!!

When did they make Age of empires 3!!!!! weeeee.

Slated for a summer release iirc, looking forward to that myself, uses a very nice DX9 graphics engine.

 

[Shanaia]

lol at the Sims is ahead of Catacombs

how dumb are you?

The Sims is the most succesfull game serie in history

 

[Minau]

oh and just for the record, that add on top for Catacombs came up like 2 days ago.

AoE3 Is surely crap Gamah, dont go away

how dumb are you?

The Sims is the most succesfull game serie in history

Love u too

And no Sims expansion has ever been more pre ordered then a DAoC expansion
be4.

 

[IainC]

I would trust the guys who acually buy and play the game rather some fat
guys in suits who cant even tell a luri from a kobbie. OFC they tell u everything
is going great... We the players can see the truth tho.


less then 1 month be4 release ? tbh that doesnt sounds like clever adverticing.

lol at the Sims is ahead of Catacombs

I play the game. I can see what is happening on the servers. I have friends who play the game who live in many different countries they tell me what they see as they percieve it too. On top of that I get to see stuff that normal players never notice. I know there are hundreds of brand new players because they ask me for help. I know how many new subscriptions there are and I know what percentage are people buying second accounts and how many are genuinely new players - I think it would come as a major suprise to most established players.

I've also spent the last couple of months running around Europe as part of the massive effort the comany is putting into the Catacombs launch. I've seen the beautiful quality box sets, I've been in the meetings with publicity peopel where marketing strategies were discussed, I've been part of the effort to schmooze journalists and I've seen the distributors talking about numbers and visibility and all of that info. I doubt very much that all of the 100+ people from various different companies were telling me lies.

And to be honest, I'm not in the least suprised that The Sims is ahead of Catacombs. Last I checked, The Sims was the most successful game franchise ever. You're comparing totally different products, aimed at totally different markets. I bet there were more copies of Championship Manager 2005 or GTA: San Andreas sold than Catacombs too. What does that prove?

 

[cHodAX]

oh and just for the record, that add on top for Catacombs came up like 2 days ago.

AoE3 Is surely crap Gamah, dont go away

Love u too

And no Sims expansion has ever been more pre ordered then a DAoC expansion
be4.

Probably because no Sims expansion was ever due for release around the same time as a DAoC expansion before. The Sims and thier expansions have sold a cumlative total well over 20 million units iirc. Compare DAoC expansions with expansion packs for other current MMORPG's and DAoC always fares pretty well, I would imagine that sales Catacombs will total at least 70,000 (I am sure that Mythic/GOA will say at least double that) copies worldwide which is larger than most of the current competition apart from the behemoth's that are UO/EQ.

 

[Oboy]

best thing to do if u want some action is move to us servers
catacombs already releases and clustering is a big success there.
if i where a beginner or old player that starts over i would choose us instant
eu servers are and will die, us wont

 

[Minau]

Im gonna do what no other FH abuser has done be4. Yes u are prolly correct
and im wrong. I admit that i didnt think of sum things. Now les just hope that
things will be better and the pop will rise again

 

[Gamah]

Probably because no Sims expansion was ever due for release around the same time as a DAoC expansion before. The Sims and thier expansions have sold a cumlative total well over 20 million units iirc. Compare DAoC expansions with expansion packs for other current MMORPG's and DAoC always fares pretty well, I would imagine that sales Catacombs will total at least 70,000 (I am sure that Mythic/GOA will say at least double that) copies worldwide which is larger than most of the current competition apart from the behemoth's that are UO/EQ.

Never seen the excitement of sims..actully like the most boring game bar Microsoft Train Simulator that I have ever played.

 

[cHodAX]

best thing to do if u want some action is move to us servers
catacombs already releases and clustering is a big success there.
if i where a beginner or old player that starts over i would choose us instant
eu servers are and will die, us wont

Clustering is not the big success you claim, certainly not yet anyway but it is still early days. For every person that is happy with it there seems to be another who is unhappy with the implementation, However these issues seem to be performance related rather the actual way clustering actually works so it may work out well in the end. As for moving to the U.S. just to play on busy servers, well that just isn't viable for people like myself who have serious amounts of time invested in their E.U. accounts.

 

[cHodAX]

Never seen the excitement of sims..actully like the most boring game bar Microsoft Train Simulator that I have ever played.

Solitare is more fun than any of The Sims games, in truth The Sims is just for kids and sad bastards who like reality T.V. such as Big Brother. First you have T.V. for morons and now you have video games for morons

 

[Hellsvip]

And the old gem that ToA would not affect rvr.

Will have to see if the population does climb back up i suspect it will but that will depend how the marketing is applied if its truthful or if they are going to say what needs to sell it and then somehow not work out that. Adding ways to increase your damage cast speed strength etc would have no impact.

Marketing so far has not been so impressive as more of forcefully hinting you must get this to get the better items to even compete.

All it leaves is what hidden items are we going to have to end up finding on catacombs at some point.

But i believe Requiel is probably right but i still do not trust the idea that catacombs is not going to change rvr except for new classes i highly suspect like toa there is either plain idiocy or just flat out denial which they know we will eventually raise the standard to if it affects rvr.

 

[cHodAX]

And the old gem that ToA would not affect rvr.

Personally I would renew all 3 of my accounts tomorrow if they removed the abortion that is ToA and all the crap that came with it. ToA introuduced way too many 'I WIN!!' buttons for my liking. Sadly though it isn't going to happen and I don't see how they can repair the damage without upsetting a sizeable portion of the player base.

Oh and as for Catacombs not effecting RvR, well didn't they introduce the new one-shot killer class? Ok they might only be guaranteed one kill but that is one more kill than any other class is guaranteed when they enter the frontier.

 

[Minau]

and I don't see how they can repair the damage without upsetting a sizeable portion of the player base.

Double every1s HP ?

 

[cHodAX]

Double every1s HP ?

Nah just mine, then I will come back right away

 

[Flimgoblin]

But i believe Requiel is probably right but i still do not trust the idea that catacombs is not going to change rvr except for new classes i highly suspect like toa there is either plain idiocy or just flat out denial which they know we will eventually raise the standard to if it affects rvr.

Other than the new classes (which will of course have fairly major impact on RvR) there will be no direct effect... people going to the new zones and exploring instead of going RvR might well affect populations and the like but there's no uber must have items...

there _are_ some items along the lines of ring of zahur/ebon hide bracer - i.e. good quality resist/stat/whatever jewelery but nothing with wacky abilities and the like that you MUST HAVE to "compete".

 

[Shanaia]

And the old gem that ToA would not affect rvr.

I will personally deliver a plat ingame to the person who can find a link to a pressrelease/interview/article where Mythic says that TOA wouldn't affect rvr.

Imo they said it wasn't an RvR expansion which was true .. it's a pve expansion (ok ok except for ml10 if you want to be precise) that had a huge impact on all facets of the game .. PvE and RvR. But I can't find any proof they ever said it wasn't going to "affect" RvR.

Feel free to proof me wrong I'm just saying I can't find it.

 

[scorge]

It's not quite as bleak as you make it out to be. Many, many people are waiting for Catacombs to launch and we will see a large number of returnees coming back to the game to see what the new expansion is like.

This isn't just optimism. It's happened before every major expansion so far, there's been a lull just prior to launch and then a masive upswing in server populations following release.

Of course new people will be coming to the game, new expansion equals new people, and i agree that existing players will come back to try out the expansion.

Thats not a problem, the problem is keeping players in the game.

 

[UndyingAngel]

if they halfed caster dmg I would be happy..
I dont mind ToA and all the things that came with it.. i enjoy the PvE side, I dont like the fact that you must have it but you get over it =) im still waiting for mythic to give tanks some love double HP would be nice if they dont half caster dmg