Guild Poaching, Server Populations and Wanadoo

[Cedig]

Other than Alts, there seems to be very few new games joining our realm (Hib/Prydwen). Is this typical of other realms/servers? Competition for new recruits is very high, and some guilds are actively trying to poach members from other guilds.

This worries me a bit, as we are seeing a trickle of folks quiting DAoC, and I'm wondering whether server pops will eventually get too low to support a community (especially if lots switch to a PvP server). So I guess that brings me to the question of Wanadoo, anyone seen any advertising or active promotion of DAoC?

From a GOA point of view, they have committed to providing a PvP server, but without a large influx of new subscribers, they will be out of pocket.

Thoughts?

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Thoughts?

Why do the German servers have such a high number of subscribers?
Press - good press actually.
PC Games, a magazine with over 1000k readers here gives DAoC amazing publicity.
DAoC is no. 1 MMORPG in their shopping guide.
Rank 6 (or so.) in the reader's top ten RPG's. etc. etc.

Dunno... Kemor and Zargar are checking the boards on a regular base- how about kicking the guys in your marketing department in the arse?

Do some fecking advertising campaigns in the rest of Europe - your run the european servers - not just the French and German ones.

Heck .. a flame

 

[ivan_tribbiani]

Originally posted by sickofit...
Thoughts?

Why do the German servers have such a high number of subscribers?
Press - good press actually.
PC Games, a magazine with over 1000k readers here gives DAoC amazing publicity.
DAoC is no. 1 MMORPG in their shopping guide.
Rank 6 (or so.) in the reader's top ten RPG's. etc. etc.

Dunno... Kemor and Zargar are checking the boards on a regular base- how about kicking the guys in your marketing department in the arse?

Do some fecking advertising campaigns in the rest of Europe - your run the european servers - not just the French and German ones.

Heck .. a flame

Yup i had a post about this some time ago. So i second that.

 

[Damon_D]

" Hauls in some barrels of gasoline for Sick to use "

 

[deadparrot]

The only advertising i've seen in the uk was the PC Gamer open beta, without that I would have never started playing.

 

[Addlcove]

Sickofit for GOA(tm) PR management

:lick:

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

There's a whole lotta luv going on in these forums!

 

[old.Xarr]

I totally agree, GOA needs to advertise more in the UK, scandinavia etc. At this rate I don't want to know what the server landscape is gonna look like when the PvP servers go live

:lick: sickofit

<^_^>

 

[Generic Poster]

In the UK, two of the more popular PC gaming mags(PC Zone, PC Gamer) have run articles on the Euro version of DAoC. Unfortunately, it's always against GOA and list the complaints of the players.

Now this was true at the time, but imo, GOA have improved alot recently, so far as their handling of patches and server/lag issues go. Not that this makes a difference to people in the UK, who once read a review of Euro-DAoC and were told of it's bad points.


More magazine publicity, or perhaps '1month trials' are in order. I'd rather not see Prydwen die before I hit lv50

 

[old.Biffsmash]

Hopefully they will use the expansion pack to bring in some new players. Its the perfect opportunity to advertise the game as a whole

Lets hope they throw everything they can into advertising this time

 

[old.LandShark]

PC Gamer has really been very, very harsh on DAoC as a game and GOA as an operator. Send letters in folks, "all publicity is good publicity" just doesn't work when it comes to a pay-to-play game.
When the PvP server goes live, the german servers are going to come down to Excal levels of population. I have to say I'm slightly dreading Excl (and even more so pryd, though i don't play there) becoming complete ghost towns....

 

[mele-nko]

The european beta was included with one of their most read games magazine's. That's why there are so many Germans playing.
I Think it was begin January when i heared of this game, so i was like: hé i'll give it a try. Took me like 3 / 4 days alone to find a place where i could actually download the beta. It was on some french site or something.

I think the problem with this kind of game is the following:
When u buy the game, u spent €35 then u can play for 1 month free, if in that time u decide to start paying for it and really continue with the game evrything is fine. U bought the game and now u play it. But what if some1 bought the game and after 1 month he doesn't like it or doesn't wanna pay each month. Then he is stuck with a worthless copy i mean u can't play any other way then on the internet. So to prevent that from happening the ppl who are not sure wether or not they are gonna like the game won't even buy it.

This problem could be solved quite easily i think, GOA or Mythic should make a small new zone accesable only by demo players, make it have a max lvl of something like lvl10 (all monsters grey from then on or something) give it some nice quest and maybe even something to connect to other realm for some very basic rvr.
This zone should be a free zone, every1 with the demo (demo only zone) can play in it aslong as they want, for free. Then distribute the demo in various ways like gamesmagazine's and the internet.

This way every1 could try the game without having to risk wasting € 35 on it. I'm sure a lot more players will try it out and some will get hooked. Since they don't really know how the real game is, u could just copy some nice parts of excisting zone's and quests. IMO every1 selfrespecting game should have a free demo that allows ppl to test it out without having to spent any money on it first.

 

[Flimgoblin]

they've tried something like that in france...

no idea if it's worked or not

Alrindel posted about it before... any news on it?

 

[Blood]

they should start giving the game away for free, with fx. 1 month free gaming, or even 14 days... just enough to get people hooked on the game

it worked with the beta.. thats why im playing.. heck thats probably why most of us are playing.

 

[Seyrcim]

Only way I heard about DAoC was through word of mouth, got hooked in open beta and bah, here I am still

It's a shame they din't promote it more, even tho the first copies that DID hit sweden in the first week in retail was sold out before the end of that week. Still, all that bought would have been ppl who played open beta and ppl who knew someone who played beta.

I sure hope they will have a huge promotion campaign when the expansion comes. GOA has really come out on top of the last few patches and for me everything has run very smooth the last few months.

Only thing I can say is : do something, and do it before it's too late!

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

Would be nice to get a GOA statement for a change.

After all - that's how they make their living and the lack of new players might (will) jeopardize our hobby at some point.
Can you imagine not signing on to DAoC?*shudder*

 

[Cedig]

a world without DAoC.... thats like...like... a forum without Sickofit

/em shudders

 

[Bodzilla]

Just out of interest, has anyone seen a copy of DAoC in a shop recently?
I have only seen about 6 in total, 4 of them were release day.

 

[Psy|:m00:]

Seen 4, in EB the day i bought it, other than that, never...

Only Amazon.com is in stock of it these days, no other online game retailers I've looked at have it

 

[Uncle Sick(tm)]

I recently (two months ago) purchased a copy for a friend in the US here in Nuremberg and shelves were still nicely stacked with clients.

How about French gamestores?

 

[Flimgoblin]

there were a few in game last time I looked...

 

[Mundokar]

I sure hope Shrouded Isles starts with a campaign to promote the damn product.

 

[ViscountC]

DAoC has never been actively marketted in the UK as far as I am aware - I've never seen any ads in the gaming press, for example.

And they got the bad press they deserved, when the service was particularly poor earlier in the spring.

It's probably too late in the day for them to be interested in remedying the situation or advertising, but if I were GOA I would be tempted to do a reasonable amount of advertising shortly before Shrouded Isles is released, and in the meantime drop the price of the client software.

In fact, I'd be sorely tempted to give the client software away - make it a free download or give it away with one of the PC mags, and make the documentation available online - but charge a subscription from day one for customers who get it free in this way.

 

[Marcus75]

I have to agree. When the PvP server goes live there are a big risk that a huge decrease in players will occur.

For all you non-DAoC-players out there, that can read Swedish, check out my review of game on a Swedish site. The link is in my signature.

Too bad that GOA aint realized that they need to beef up the server population on the English servers. Prydwen can be very empty sometimes...

 

[old.Glendower]

advertising and legal issues

From the perspective of a US consumer, I cannot imagine a lack of advertising!

If you really want to light a fire under the ass of GOA on this issue, I suggest that you contact Mythic with your concerns. Email some of the contact people there witha link to this thread. It is full of really great observations and remedial ideas

It is worth noting that if GOA is failing to adequately promote the product, then they are very likely in violation of the contract they have with Mythic.

 

[old.Trine Aquavit]

Hehe, it's all down to the UK games press, IMO. None of the magazine's have ever had any significant backing for MMORPGing (and I guess no fans amongst the staff writers). As such the games haven't had any decent press.

The truth is that (in the UK) very few people have ever even tried a MMORPG, and pretty much only the hardcore gamers among them. This is mostly down to mediocre coverage in the magazines. Why buy DAOC with a low 80's score when you can pick up any number of FPS's (much loved by the reviewers) with scores in the 90's? Add the fact that there's a monthy sub and very few are left willing to take the plunge into the unknown. As it is it's left to a few pioneers and the power of word of mouth to get people interested.

The truth is the mainstream gaming press hasn't latched on to the fact that MMORPGing is going to be huge. They are all convinced that the genre is of limited appeal, and that many of the the current games in development are bound to fail through the sheer lack of numbers. What they have missed (but the major software publishers haven't) is that the market is huge. Once the mainstream MMORPGs hit the stores (SWG, Sims Online) the gaming press won't know what's hit 'em. You multiply the success of Lineage in Korea by the population of the western world and you have a serious market. These games won't always be populated by MMORPG pioneers and a few of their mates, I'm convinced of it.

As it is we'll have to endure more mediocre coverage, more 'beard' and 'kobold' jibes, and a gaming press who fail to understand the main mechanism underlying the success of the MMORPG genre - community.