Can't find DAoC box at your local game shop?

[Cyfr]

Yup, thats a great idea.

Like he said, kemor you MUST market TOA correctly, DONT leave it too late like you did with SI, a poster in a mag wont help (like SI).

You need real reviews, colums ect.

 

[-Nxs-]

How about a free downloadable trial ?

I remember everquest provided a downloadable trial
Planetside are doing this now
Anarchy online do this with a 7 day trial

With the development of broadband it really helps to provide a "click here and play NOW" page, There are many spur of the moment people out there who once they start to play the game would be hooked.

Granted like Chodax stated above providing such an option is useless without marketing

 

[cHodAX]

Let me add to what I said before. Those review copies you send out, make them active for a year. Reviewers might not get to look at something right away but if you give them a freebie they can play at home when they have time and you will get good results.

 

[)nick(]

Originally posted by kemor
Tell us about it...

> Name of the shop
> Town
> Country.

> All the shops
> Every city/village
> Holland!

 

[tripitaka]

Originally posted by shu_ayala
Well I know this sounds silly Kemor...

But how about just banging LOADS of copies of the games to a central ONLINE purchasing distributor like Play.com?

Thats where I got my last copy of DAoC Classic and SI (a month after that they had run out of stock too)

At least then if its handled correctly - ie making sure the distributor keeps very detialed records of stock levels and shows the stock levels on thier website... poeple will then be able to keep tabs on if the stock is getting low? Rather than having the last remaining few copies being spread around the UK 'willy-nilly'

Play.com tend only to sell the US versions of Games - (i got SWG from them not realising it was the US version) - i then asked and they said its cheaper to import the US games.

 

[oblivion_6]

very hard to get the game in glasgow

lucikly i got it with a magazine but i know of peeps who tried to join game and gave up coz couldnt find it

 

[Spinky]

Re: Re: Can't find DAoC box at your local game shop?

Originally posted by Tilda
> Name of the shop - GAME and PC World
> Town - Gloucester
> Country - UK

> All shops
> Blackpool
> England

 

[Progenie]

play.com mainly sell UK Games, SWG was one of the few US Imports they have ever had on the site for sale and was clearly listed as being and import.

My vote goes with Play, there cheap reliable and if u don't receive the item or it arrives damaged they don't mess you about over replacements.

Only down side is the slightly slow delivery time compaired to mainland UK companies.

 

[old.Kerosene]

Originally posted by kemor


> Name of the shop
> Town
> Country.

> Any shop within a 2000 mile radius
> KaiPing
> China

Since I'd already had a copy shipped over with me, I ended up amazon'ing a new copy to my parents in the UK and they gave me the CD keys. This was last week.

 

[Khalen]

Not hard to find a shop who still has daoc+si. But the shops that display the wrong info is more annoying to me. I ordered my 2nd copy of daoc at a wellknown internet book/video/games store and all the info on the website suggested it was the UK/EU version of DAoC + SI but once I got the package it turned out to be US SI version and not even DAoC with it. (Ofcourse I sent it back and didn't have to pay for it, luckily I hadn't paid for it yet).

But NL has still shops selling DAoC so don't think they need special deliveries. Maybe once ToA is out but until then it's fine.

 

[PJS]

A new player can play Trials of Atlantis NOW on US servers. Or they can play it sometime after World of Warcraft etc releases in Europe. What good reason do they have to buy a copy of Euro Daoc at the moment?

If I was looking to start my first MMO now, Euro Daoc would NOT be it.

PS. and November is no where near summer

 

[NetNifty]

Gamesworld (Dover, Kent, UK)
GAME (Canterbury, Kent, UK)

Dixons, Currys and PC World also don't stock it in Kent at all.

 

[Brannor McThife]

Amazingly, there are a few places in South Africa that sell DAoC and the expansions online.

Not that I'll be coming back. But it is possible to get them here.

<goes outside and enjoys some lovely African sunshine.>

-G

 

[cHodAX]

Originally posted by Brannor McThife


<goes outside and enjoys some lovely African sunshine.>

-G

Bleh, bloody showoff

 

[old.Tohtori]

Originally posted by Brannor McThife

<goes outside and enjoys some lovely African sunshine.>

-G

Piss off Quartermain

 

[darzil]

Recently checked them out, thinking about a tailor account <grin>.

Only look online these days. In the UK :

Amazon - marketplace only (3 small sellers)
Play - Sold out
Game - None
PC World - None
Virgin Games - None

Anyone else the websearch turned up - None

Getting them in stock and doing an advertising campaign will work, I suspect. One or the other is doomed to fail, though.

Darzil

 

[asorek]

this is a funny thread cos as far as im aware..when my shop went out of stock I HAD TO PHONE an order thru to my wholesaler to get more copies.. what are GOA going to do? hand out free copies to shops that dont stock it? i think not..this is pointless nothing will come of it...so great they know who doesnt stock theyre games....hmm great now we know that lets get back to feeding that monkey to work the servers!! if the shops dont BUY copies of the game then they wont EVER stock it...sure you can send out flyers to retailers to make them aware you have an uber game going..but they still dont have to buy copies..i fail to honestly see what this will actually achieve..not a flame against GOA but honestly Kemor...given all the shops what will you do with the names? id like to know.

 

[old.Vae]

I would guess that the idea is that there might be a supply problem, i.e. shops can't get hold of any stock, which GOA are unaware of since they don't distribute the game - Wanadoo distribute it. Therefore so that they can get wanadoo to solve the problem they need to know where's getting supplied and where's not.

It's looking basicly like no-one in the UK is getting supplied - the stocks out there appear to be old stock.

Oh and you might recall that it was Wanado who screwed up the Uk launch of DAOC as well hence it being launched later here.

 

[old.Jable]

You can't buy Dark Age of Camelot in WH Smiths, you will be lucky to order one through game and electronics boutique.

again, the time to ask this was either after release, or shortly before the Shrouded Isles release. of coursde, with more advertising, the retailers would come to you,

 

[cHodAX]

The biggest problem with the lack of stock is perception it creates, if people can't find a copy on the shelves of a major chain then they start to wonder why. That leads to many people having second thought of playing a subscription based game that isn't widely available and may suffer from the problems associated with poor distribution. i.e. a lack of new players to replace the old. A very dangerous situation to find yourself in when you are running an MMORPG.

 

[Uriron]

Best idea is to put them on the games magazine cover disc like this months PCZone (DVD version) DAoC and SI full games with free months trial. Bet it pisses those off who paid for theirs

 

[Skaven]

I work for a GAME store ::legs it:: .
Basiclly, anything that doesn't sell doesn't get reordered - simple as that. We still have 2 copys of the SI expansion that has been sitting on our shelves for months.
If you want a copy just ask someone in the store - they'll be able to order you one in from head office - they'll either tell us yeah ok we'll get u a copy, or they'll tell us the nearest branch to us that has a copy and we'll get it from them - usally takes a max of 3 days to get it (postal strike maybe longer atm).

Most of the shelving, stands etc are paid for by the publishers. EA for example have their own little shelve space which they pay us to use, so we have to set it out as they want it - Hence why sometimes u get a great game with little shelve space compared to something u think is utter crap but taking up 3 shelves. We usally have to be quite strict about this - we reguarlly get publishers in checking the store out, specially as Take Two (gta vice city etc) are around the corner and they come in most days. <baring free game gifts for us sometimes >
If Goa decided to ''buy'' some shelve space I would guarentee their sales would go up big time. But I don't think it comes cheap, hence why they proberbly haven't done it already.

As for advertising, it's been quite poor. With the general feeling TOA will be released in a few months time (feb at a guess) there is still NOTHING in way of a release date on our books.
GOA needs to do more Magazine advertising (PC gamer being popular) maybe as someone suggested putting some kind of free 7 day trial disk on the front. And also bring out a bundle of Classic+SI+Toa deal at the same time as the TOA launch so if new ppl want to start the game they won't have to hunt around for an original copy of classic camelot. (Toa is useless without si, and si is useless without cam so makes sense eh?)

 

[Keogh]

Seems to me the only place you can easily get DAoC now is ebay

 

[-Nxs-]

Skaven, well said. It cant hurt the game stores to keep one or two in stock tho - theres nothing like imbpulse buying.

 

[Skaven]

Very true. I'll proberbly be badgering my manager on monday anyway to order some of the classic client in - proberbly why the expansion aint selling.

 

[syri]

Originally posted by shu_ayala
Well I know this sounds silly Kemor...

But how about just banging LOADS of copies of the games to a central ONLINE purchasing distributor like Play.com?

Thats where I got my last copy of DAoC Classic and SI (a month after that they had run out of stock too)

At least then if its handled correctly - ie making sure the distributor keeps very detialed records of stock levels and shows the stock levels on thier website... poeple will then be able to keep tabs on if the stock is getting low? Rather than having the last remaining few copies being spread around the UK 'willy-nilly'

copies need to be in the shops, on the shelfs for people who don't know the game to pick it up, think "that looks good", play it, and keep playing. putting it online order only means only people who are actually looking for it will find it

 

[Mid - Kirinia]

I've also noticed that while many shops (such as PC World) don't stock Dark Age of Camelot, they do stock many other online games, like Ultima Online and Planetside etc. Why they don't stock Camelot I don't know.

 

[vesania]

Well, for my second account, I looked in all the chains of shops available in Bristol, Manchester, Chester and Wigan, then kept checking back with Amazon (sold out _at supplier_) and play.com (sold out) before giving up and getting a mate in Sweden to buy it (easy for him!) and MAIL the box to me.

Most of my friends love MMORPGs as long-term players, but merely shrug when I mention DAoC. If they can't get hold of it to try it out and don't see any advertising, then they're never going to play it and turn into new customers.

 

[sundra]

I live in the Uk and most shops ie pc world have never heard of DAOC i actually took time to send a report in to right now well over a year ago that maybe uk servers are low pop cos not many people in the UK know the game exists.The reply from GOA was we will inform our marketing people.I have to buy from amazon.

 

[Javai]

The game is very hard to get hold of in England, even on-line retailers sold most of their stock off cheap (got SI for a fiver from Amazon). But there doesn't seem much point getting stock in shops while registration pages are down at weekends. You go to shop on Saturday and buy the game you cannot play it before Monday by whch time alot of people would've simply returned the game.

2 more positive suggestions

ALot of new accounts seem to be created by existing players, since you don't need a new copy of the CD why not make it possible to apy 15 quid on-line to set up a new account?

On a similar vein, why not make the game available direct from the website? If GOA don't have resources to manage shipping at least make it downloadable, it's not as if you'd miss the manual which was out of date 4 patches ago.