Dyvet population - some questions for Requiel

[Awarkle]

the underlying problem with daoc at the moment is that the starting towns are a bit sparse. When you have a bit of down time do a /who 1 19 and go help out new people with some aurulite equipment problems they having with the game.

Even invite them to join a guild JUST so they dont feel as if they game is empty.

I try and hang around magmel as often as i can but at the end of the day ive got a game to play as well as the new people.

SO help them out. GIve out a bit of money when someone asks for some 10gold is nothing

i try and i hope i keep people interested in the game but this is just on hibernia the other realms need peeps to do the same.


ps dont let horner near the starting zones

 

[Pirkel]

pirkel, you are a moron but shouldnt be offended, its all in the genes :/

My mum agrees

 

[Vladamir]

My mum agrees

So do i

 

[Gamah]

Now I've been in Pirkels mum's jeans..nothing wrong with em :<

 

[Kvadi]

Hooray for jetlag! It means I'm awake and replying to posts in the middle of the night when I should be getting some sleep for work in the morning.

Ok. I've been on holiday for 3 weeks. I got back Saturday evening, I've spent a good part of today asleep. I've not been to the office yet and I don't expect an answer will be waiting in my inbox when I get in tomorrow. I know that high-level discussions were started before I left. What, if anything, has come from those I don't know. I know what you want - for that matter I know what I want - I don't know whether the contractual and technical obstacles to delivering that can be overcome. Those are questions that get answered a long way over my head. As soon as we have information for you, it will be in the Friday News as always.

Regarding advertising and marketing DAoC. We are pushing the new expansion in the press, expect to see previews, reviews and promotional stuff in the major magazines and on the European gamers' websites over the next month or so. This is something we do for every release - I know this because I've done all the press tours and briefings since ToA. I know how hard we try to get the press to cover our game.

On that subject I'd like to say a few things. I often hear people say that we never advertise, that they never saw an advert and people hear about the game mostly through word of mouth. Well, frankly, that's how advertising a game like this goes. Most people who start playing an MMO do so because they hear about it from their friends. Launch hype gets you a certain amount of interest from people who take notice of such things but frankly you cannot continue that kind of marketing for very long - it's simply too expensive. The only exception to that rule is Blizzard who has a trillion times more money than everyone else. So what we do is we make sure that our game is listed everywhere that it should be, that when journalists are looking to cover the genre (which they generally aren't), our game is available to them and whenever there's an expansion or a major milestone we crank up the publicity machine and get the press on board. It's not as simple as putting a full page ad in a magazine. If that's all you're doing then it's basically wasted money. Advertising is nothing without coverage and coverage is very hard to get for any game that is an MMO and isn't new. Many magazines have a policy of not covering expansions, some won't cover MMOs at all. Our marketing team and our PR agency work very hard to try and get column inches in as many magazines as possible. I wish it was as easy as simply block-booking advertising pages.

Thanks at least for taking the time to post a reply. Doesn't really answer too many questions right now, but if discussions have begun that does at least seem to me that you're acknowledging there's a problem. Guess we just have to wait and see what you come up with. Meantime I'm going to read between the lines where your second paragraph's concerned and keep my fingers crossed...

Re advertising, I don't see that as being the answer either. In my opinion we're not going to get many new players through that route. I think it's likely to be more relevant to concentrate on attracting former subscribers back, as well as retaining the current base.

 

[Kvadi]

Anyone get the feeling Kvadi loves Requiel?

Quiet day at work/kindergarten* today?



























*delete as appropriate

 

[Pirkel]

Now I've been in Pirkels mum's jeans..nothing wrong with em :<

yep yep ... it was about time for a new sig

 

[Bahumat]

Quiet day at work today?

Thats the beauty of working in IT, get to browse websites all day

 

[kiliarien]

Lots of good issues raised here. I think we all know the problem is with numbers, but I'm not entirely sure advertising is a big enough solution. I have recently got a few people into this game (even at this level of game maturity) and they've had no problem levelling, exploring etc. enjoying themselves.

Then they hit the ToA brick wall of not knowing enough people to get stuff done. Now the classic server was a kind of an alternative to that, and that with some of the LoTM items you can really compete (I've been on US servers and seen some of the stuff to be had). But couldn't we just make stuff easier?

Kvadi has asked many questions, I for one don't expect answers but could GoA speculate with us players by asking us more detailed questions when we log in? I don't mind clicking a few more buttons if it's in the interest of imrpoving gameplay.

I doubt anything will be done pre-LoTM, there will be people piling in there and lots more PvE ofc, 'let's wait and see' seems to (depressingly, and me included) be the viewpoint of most.

 

[Esselinithia]

Kiliarien: Like most good MMORPGs, DAoC is built with a communities in mind, there are several levels of community we can speak about:

Group
Guild
Alliance
Realm
Server
Playerbase

In the beginging the game worked well, not because you seen massive amount of ads, but for other reasons. Since that we see more daoc vids on video sharing portals, we can inivte people (and they don't have to buy the game), DAOC got better ratings, the whole MMORPG "scene" gets more attention and more people are looking for games, etc. We can blame lack of advertisement for the initial population, but we can't blame it for how people is leaving.

Word of Mouth advertisement and "viral marketing" are effective, and can be both done by playerbase. and we can speak about fansites, fan art, fan fiction to attract people, yet I think the problems stand at a lower level. The game can't keep most of the people and can't motivate players to invite their friends and promote the game.

People don't help newbies, they don't help players who need something etc. we have a lot of greed in the game, and noone cares for the future, but everyone is goes after his own interest. Lots of people care more about the RP they can make in a week, than about the future of the game, and want outside forces to make people play the game, for their own fg fights and their own RP.

They want to see more groups, but they say: If we don't help new people to catch up and dominate the fights with RAs, experience, gear that is fair, if they join the fight (add) that is bad, so the new people see they have no chance to be equals. Why would they stay? Why would they invite? And if the same FG people don't care about new players, they just want the "Numbers" not the people, and don't invite, don't try to recruit, what can you say?

What can you say, when you see set fgs all the time, and not a community, where the high RR people pick up some low RR people to help him to catch up with RAs, etc, and have more good groups in RvR? The low RR people won't have much fun without such set groups, and people will leave.

The level of service provided by GOA matches this standard, with all the problems it means. In most cases the lowest score for DAOC is with service and in most such tests they say, it is much worse in EU and somewhat betterer in US for more specific informtation. But if the community is makes the game dead anyway there is no need for better service here.

Edit: Added the following:

Both playerbase, server and realm level community is mostly missing, people don't act as a community anymore on these levels, while in the begining it was different. Lots of strong guilds and alliances are closed to the new players, and they can't get much help from groups either. DAOC has strong tools to make community working for common goals, RVR, Guild houses, alliances, merit points, etc. to encourage and enforce community since without the community all MMORPGs die. Yet, the community ignores these tools, and kills the game.

 

[Vonwar]

Dear Esselinthia,

I think your post here is very good, it thoughes some of the reasons behind why people leave or stay, in a very objective way, and like the thread starters tone, your post is objective, informative and neutral, something one is not used to see on FH.

In a way you confirm my own view of DaoC and what is going on, and partly wrong.

I can only inform about how we deal with different matters in the guild i have had the pleasure of beeing guildmaster of, since short time after release, namely Danish Huscarls (MID/PRYD).

We have right from the beginning tried to welcome ppl to the guild, in form of:

(Buddies) Certain players with some kind of interest, expirience in the game, were buddies of the newbee players that joined, these buddies reported to me, and I or another person then hosted the needed raids, help in epic quests advice on template, etc.

For a year or so after the release of ToA we did more artifact raids, ml pre steps and farming of scrolls than was healthy hehe, not because we are pve nerds, but because it was nessecary for "The guild".

The guild is like my family, and i only have the right to be the head (boss) of it or whatever if i set the guild before my own goals/time etc. The reason why is, if ppl are happy, taken care of from they enter until they reach lvl 50-ml10-cl5 or how to put it, there is a slight possibility that they have learned a somewhat good behaviour ingame, and they might both help other newcommers and stay in the guild, to form groups in RvR and pay back the help they got, in form of RP-Merit Pts-Bounty Pts for the guild.

This is the way i see it, others have another view of what DaoC community is, it is their opinion, i have mine.

I would of cause like to see other guilds doing the same, as for alliances and realm, in a perfect world all would do so.

In a way i must have had a bit right in my suggestions, cause when i took on the job as a Guildmaster i had 7 players, we just declined from 70. Then we slowly rose to 137 accounts, and things have been going up and down ever since, but recent numbers show that we still have 80 accounts in our guild, which i am very proud of, especially when there is so much whining about lack of players, and surely there is.

Apart from helping ppl ingame, we have a 24/7 guild ventrilo active since 3 years, and soon we will have our 5th guild gathering, where there will appear 23-25 players. I know that it is easier for a national guild like ours to host player gatherings, but just think of it, to put heads on ppl you might have played with for years, thats good, and again keeps ppl in the guild.

The guildmaster:
Must from my expirience not play for himself more than 50% of the time, he must always be aware of where and what ppl are doing, so he can coordinate, help, advice etc.

I is a job, not just fun

But when you succeed you get payed back 10 fold.

The officers:

Must be trustworthy, loyal, helpfull and not play the game for themselves more than 75% of the time, they have hard work, in helping advicing like the guildmaster and in his absence they take over, if needed.

Its also a job, not just a title. The reward will be long term memberships, a lot of fun, and many good hours of entertainment.

The guild:
Must be openminded, helpfull, play their game, and know that they are taken care of as good as possible, within reason of cause, nobody gives away 10plat and a complete template for nothing.

I am sure that if the guild has 10 members or 100, the strategy of having a place where ppl log in, play and have a good time, the principle for running are much alike.

I have seen too many guilds not spending enough time in their members for the past 5 years, and it is a pity, one can only hope that ppl learn from their mistakes.

Ok all for now, not shooting at anyone, be positive, be happy, we have a great game here, so let us take care of it as long as possible.

Best regards

Vonwar
Guildmaster of Danish Huscarls (MID/PRYD).

 

[kiliarien]

Esselinthia: nice post. Not really sure why it's addressed to me, not once did I mention communities. And Vonwar, again you make some excellent points which I agree upon but where is your subject topic related to the original questions of the post?

The biggest problems many starters have is competing in main rvr with arti's and abilities, could that be addressed further? What is GoA's position on why we can't stay a little closer to the US in service and maintenance? What are peoples' ideas on ways to continue innovating the game to avoid it being 'stale'?

I did relate that to game maturity, I think that some may consider 'way too late'.

You're both rep'd for making lots of valid points, at a loss as to why one was responding to me when I never mentioned communities or the complexities of guild workings, the latter of which I could go into a lot of detail being a Co-GM in one of the longest (and largest) guilds in hib/exc which I've been in since I started the game.

I'd just love to know the answers to some of Kvadi's questions.

 

[gervaise]

Well November numbers were worse than October, December was worse then November and January was worse than December as far as the Excal and Prydwen goes. Maybe they all shifted over to Glastonbury!

Like Requiel says: there is no simple publicity fix for a game this old. 4 to 6 years is what EA give as the average lifespan of a game franchise. ....

I can't see LotM setting the world on fire; if anything it has resulted in less players in the US (good have been the general decline but there were people who cited it as the last straw).

And there are a number of other releases this year; lots of releases unlike last year - which was pretty barren,

Merge the servers with Cumbria - that will the population.

 

[eble@work]

Well November numbers were worse than October, December was worse then November and January was worse than December as far as the Excal and Prydwen goes. Maybe they all shifted over to Glastonbury!

Like Requiel says: there is no simple publicity fix for a game this old. 4 to 6 years is what EA give as the average lifespan of a game franchise. ....

I can't see LotM setting the world on fire; if anything it has resulted in less players in the US (good have been the general decline but there were people who cited it as the last straw).

And there are a number of other releases this year; lots of releases unlike last year - which was pretty barren,

Merge the servers with Cumbria - that will the population.

whats the primetime population of Cumbria 20-40 max?

and I bet almost all of those are albs, which leaves mids/hibs with an extra 2/3 players

A merge is needed but to where or with who is the question, merging with the Spanish/Italian servers would have zero effect as the populations are so low.

Merging with the Franch/German servers, ah well let be honest they wouldn't want us unless the RVR zones stayed in 'there' native language.

Were all doomed, but until then I'll try and defend Hib from Horner and his french empire rolling thru at 5am everyday.

We actually had hibs on yesterday that bascially couldn't be arsed to go into NF to claim stuff, took alot of talking to get enough to claim a keep.

Mids took Crauch T4 to farm hibs but no-one went to attack it, so no rp's from hibs.

Eble

 

[Flimgoblin]

Merging with a german/french server involves making _everyone_ currently playing have to play in german or french.

Not everyone will mind but I'm pretty sure a large majority will - "fs I can no longer understand the game text" would be a far more valid reason for quitting than most...

This is not a good solution while there are still a sizeable number of people playing on the server.

 

[Flimgoblin]

I can't see LotM setting the world on fire; if anything it has resulted in less players in the US (good have been the general decline but there were people who cited it as the last straw).

Looking at the graphs there's not a huge jump in US numbers from LotM which is a shame as it's a far better expansion than Darkness Rising was.
(though there was a fair dip at the start of december which recovered again - graphs are a bit patchy for that time though)

People looking for an excuse to quit will just name the latest fad - that said being farmed by bainshee's in a dungeon with no LoS could be somewhat frustrating.

I'd hope we're getting the los-fixed version...

 

[Gamah]

Merging with a german/french server involves making _everyone_ currently playing have to play in german or french.

Not everyone will mind but I'm pretty sure a large majority will - "fs I can no longer understand the game text" would be a far more valid reason for quitting than most...

This is not a good solution while there are still a sizeable number of people playing on the server.

What about mytic coming up with a way to ONLY cluster the NF zone and having everyone play on thier own server. That way the NF zone will be in German only...people wouldn't really care about that I guess.

 

[Bahumat]

What about mytic coming up with a way to ONLY cluster the NF zone and having everyone play on thier own server. That way the NF zone will be in German only...people wouldn't really care about that I guess.

Bit like with WoW, they have the BG's set so you can access them from any server.

 

[scorge]

as bahumet said clustering NF and to an extent the BG's but keeping the PVE areas free might be an option.

Although dont think this will atttract an new blood to the game. Just existing subscribers that have gone away.

I hope GOA are not doing the marketing for WAR in europe though, there marketing for DAOC in the UK was terrible.

 

[Esselinithia]

The TOA Brickwall is a brickwall because the community doesn't support the new players. TOA has this effects, since one of its goals is simple: make sure people recognize the need of teamwork and community, since without that the game is dead.

The qestion is: what would you say? TOA is bad since you need the community to help? Or Community is bad, since helpfull and active community is important if you want to see any future for the game, and they refuse to act as a working community, even if TOA provides a lot of strong reasons on levels of immediate goals...

 

[Flimgoblin]

What about mytic coming up with a way to ONLY cluster the NF zone and having everyone play on thier own server. That way the NF zone will be in German only...people wouldn't really care about that I guess.

That wouldn't be nearly as bad, though it'd make the new Labyrinth quests rather tricky (other than that there's not a lot of questage in the frontiers...). They'd also have to fix the bugs with wallclimbing and replies... (assuming the wallclimbing one is still there?).

It's still turning a good amount of the game into a language you can't read (such as your combat scrollback) and I imagine it'd piss off a lot of people still.

Ideally mythic could just make the game able to support multiple language clients on a generic any-language server, but the words "impossible amount of work" spring to mind.

 

[Nate]

Ideally mythic could just make the game able to support multiple language clients on a generic any-language server, but the words "impossible amount of work" spring to mind.

Impossible? Send in the A-Team, Mr. T told me "I piddy da foo who thinks programming is difficult in an MMORPG!" Since they've been cut from TV the A-Team have been saving the day in a different way. If you can't code it, if not even Bill Gates can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

 

[Cadelin]

Impossible? Send in the A-Team, Mr. T told me "I piddy da foo who thinks programming is difficult in an MMORPG!" Since they've been cut from TV the A-Team have been saving the day in a different way. If you can't code it, if not even Bill Gates can help, and if you can find them, maybe you can hire... The A-Team.

Shouldn't it be the C++Team?


I'll get my coat......

 

[Nate]

Don't let the door hit you on the way out

 

[Esselinithia]

impossible amount of work? Not realy. Mythic regularly replaced large parts of game (such as graphics engine, audio engine) and it would be possible to change how localizations work. But I doubt if it would be a profitable investment. Who would pay for the development costs? How many players would like to pay for it?

 

[Flimgoblin]

impossible amount of work? Not realy. Mythic regularly replaced large parts of game (such as graphics engine, audio engine) and it would be possible to change how localizations work. But I doubt if it would be a profitable investment. Who would pay for the development costs? How many players would like to pay for it?

Well nothing is impossible but "far too many coding hours to make it practical"

e.g. how more char slots were "impossible" once....

 

[Esselinithia]

If you move to US Servers, they make more money.

If they fix a problem specific to EU, when they don't have to fix it, and GOA doesn't pay for it, they spent money and got nothing for it. In fact, it makes less likely to see you move to US servers, which means they earn less money for it.

What do you think? How much time / money they should spend to make it work? And if they change it, GOA would have to redo some locatlization related tasks, extra work for them. Who knows if they would like the extra costs considering they don't have too many paying customers who would benefit from it...

So even if you can provide a patch that would work in 15 minutes, even that 15 minutes could be too much.

Back, when DAOC was new, a such thing would be good, and even better if there would be a possibility for other language packs, etc. it would atract far more players who would buy DAOC and it means a lot of extra money...

 

[gervaise]

US numbers are patchy around the time of the LotM expansion AND the come back to Camelot campaign free trial which was launched almost at the same time.

Numbers were in decline prior to the expansion,
they didn't go up when the expansion was launched,
then the numbers disappeared
and when they came back the numbers were higher but the come back campaign was in full swing.

Numbers crashed at Christmas and have now dropped to under 10k peak - down from about 11.5k in November. Vanguard could (has) taken a few - and when numbers are so low it all adds up I suppose.

The comment I made about Cumbria was deliberate and barbed. I am fully aware that the extra 40 people, if that, will do nothing to help the UK populations whatever realm they belong to. The barb is that this is a server that EA Mythic have with almost no people on it. Indeed the population was zero - again - yesterday for a period of time. When they launched it people could say give it time, it's only just launched and so on. Today the server is dead. If GoA continue with a server that has almost no people on it then why should they do anything when Excal and Pryd has many times that number. They are monitoring the situation but the trip wire for them to do anything must be set very low indeed.


Note: Any Japanese player that transferred had to play in US speak, there was no translation. they even had to change their character names.

 

[Ogrelin Blodig]

I Am currently trying out the 14-trial on the US classic cluster...and that cluster is packed with ppl this weekend I plyed the lvl 14-19 BG...and there must have been 40+ players there. and the starting town in mularn was alive and alot of newbies running around.... so that server is not in decline as far as I can see.

 

[Kagato]

God all these stupid population whine threads are so boring, yet they keep on coming !

Its funny, if people spent as much time playing as they did whining about population, there might actually be more people logged on the server