What happens when mythic stops daoc

Danya

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Well when you consider that US peak server pops have dropped about 30%, and EU peak server pops have dropped about 20%, it seems logical that the subscribers have dropped by about the same factor. That puts current subs at somewhere around 185k. If subs had dropped by a factor of 3 like you suggest, I'd expect the server max pops to have dropped off by a similar factor.

It's not uncommon in the least for MMORPGs to have 3-4 times more subscribers than people online at the busiest period.
 

Fana

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Morchaoron said:
wonder how many % of all subscribers are buffbots, most digusting marketing tactic ever :\

Id say at least 25%
 

Morchaoron

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cHodAX said:
Dark Ages RvR was more fun than normal DAoC has ever been, damn shame they closed down, would be still playing there myself if I could :)

Mythic has good reasons to fear such things, long time ago people made UO emulators and started hosting their own servers, of which some proved to have a MUCH better ruleset then the original servers had, its cool to see that sometimes when people start hosting their own games they manage to tweak and balance the game just perfectly!

I've seen this before in many other games, where players made small 'mods' which tweaked the rulesets and stats of the game a little bit and made it into something which the original devs could never accomplish (ofc this is usually done by hardcore players who actually know how the game is played)

If mythic doesnt stop the emulator projects then we may see such daoc servers aswell, and imagine mythics pain: better game then theirs + free!! :p
 

cHodAX

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Danya said:
Well when you consider that US peak server pops have dropped about 30%, and EU peak server pops have dropped about 20%, it seems logical that the subscribers have dropped by about the same factor. That puts current subs at somewhere around 185k. If subs had dropped by a factor of 3 like you suggest, I'd expect the server max pops to have dropped off by a similar factor.

It's not uncommon in the least for MMORPGs to have 3-4 times more subscribers than people online at the busiest period.

No, you misunderstand me. I am saying that since day #1 of retail there may have been 250k+ subs but there has never been at any time 250k active players. At there start of live retail there were tens of thousands of casual players but a great many of those dropped off the radar and never came back. The people who stayed are the regulars like myself who play on a regular basis, ToA drove more of the casuals away and NF didn't bring them back, the falling player figures show that. The problem is compunded by all the regular players and 'hardcore' players who have left since NF went live. The game is in decline, not 'terminal decline' most likely but decline none the less, when they say they have 250k subscribers when so few casual players play anymore it really is laughable.

I suppose we could argue this over and over, I doubt anyone can really prove the numbers either way but I can see with my own eyes how few casual players are around and how many regular players are leaving or have left. Will Catacombs turn things around? I honestly don't know but I would think the odds are against it, it is so hard for new players to start up on an established server and the competition grows stronger by the day. DAoC has always had huge potential, if they ever managed to really turn things around I might be tempted to come back but I honestly don't see Catacombs as being the thing to pull me back.
 

Danya

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But Mythic has stated they had 250k active subscriptions some months back, they may bend the truth a little, but I don't think they'd outright lie about that. I'd guess there have been a lot more than 250k accounts activated total over the years that daoc has been active.
I also think you're massively underestimating the number of accounts that make up the casual playerbase. Because they are casual players, and don't log in much, they account for relatively little of the peak server population numbers. If you're only one for an hour or two a week, you make a huge amount less impact than someone who's on for 10 hours every day. Also because they're not on much, you often won't see them at all, thus you don't realise they are there.
 

cHodAX

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Danya said:
But Mythic has stated they had 250k active subscriptions some months back, they may bend the truth a little, but I don't think they'd outright lie about that. I'd guess there have been a lot more than 250k accounts activated total over the years that daoc has been active.
I also think you're massively underestimating the number of accounts that make up the casual playerbase. Because they are casual players, and don't log in much, they account for relatively little of the peak server population numbers. If you're only one for an hour or two a week, you make a huge amount less impact than someone who's on for 10 hours every day. Also because they're not on much, you often won't see them at all, thus you don't realise they are there.

Oh come on, who in their right minds pays £8 a month to log in once a week for a short time? So few people as to be negligible, thats how many. The vast majority of players play at peak times, even if they only logged on a couple of times a week at peak times all those extra 'active' accounts would be making a massive difference to the server populations which are now at an all time low. You say I am underestimating but it could be said that you are grossly over-estimating the amount of casual players. I play on a nightly basis and I see the same names night after night, the vast majority of the active player base would have to be described as regulars and many of them have been around for years. Quite simply DAoC is no longer a game where a casual player can thrive so the casual player goes else where if they can't stand the grind.
 

Sorro

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cHodAX said:
Oh come on, who in their right minds pays £8 a month to log in once a week for a short time? So few people as to be negligible, thats how many. The vast majority of players play at peak times, even if they only logged on a couple of times a week at peak times all those extra 'active' accounts would be making a massive difference to the server populations which are now at an all time low. You say I am underestimating but it could be said that you are grossly over-estimating the amount of casual players. I play on a nightly basis and I see the same names night after night, the vast majority of the active player base would have to be described as regulars and many of them have been around for years.

Lots of my danish friends do, those are the only ones i can speak for, but they for sure are casual players (2 of them plays like 2-5 hours per week, 1 have had his account for 2 months and is lvl 22, go figure).

There are a huge amount of casual players i "think", but i ofcourse do not know it, just like you have no clue about the amount either.

Far from all people are hardcore players, and casual players i "think" actually enjoys the game more than some others might do, since they simply play to have fun, not to be the best, have 200plat, and uber gear, yadda yadda.

Quite simply DAoC is no longer a game where a casual player can thrive so the casual player goes else where if they can't stand the grind.

Compleeeeetely false, dont assume everyone only plays to RvR in top toa'd equipment, ml10 & rr11. Not all are 17 years old without job, playing daoc 24/7 to be the best, some actually works quite much, and enjoys a few hours of daoc through out the week, very casually.

This is all however, just how i "think" things are, and what i know from my own friends. I dont know how things are, and quite frankly dont care, i play to have fun, and fun i have, but i would like if people didnt try to pretend they know everything about everone else, because they dont.

/wave
 

Indio

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Danya said:
..............

It's not uncommon in the least for MMORPGs to have 3-4 times more subscribers than people online at the busiest period.

Exactly where did you get this information please?
 

Jpeg[LOD]

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Sarnat said:
Ehh... DAoC is no where near it's death. Imperator has it's very own development team, Mythic has the resources to keep developing two games at the same time, trust me.
there will come a time tho when they have exhusted all there decent ideas. and when the patches/ideas become facrical . then it will decline rapildy and die a fast death imo .
 

Awarkle

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you can probbly say that on average most mmorpgs got a general life span of around 5 years .

Thats basically 5 expansions (free or bought) after the 5th year if your still running on the same game as you were in year 1 then it will die. Frankly mythic should revamp the classic zones the way they did the frontiers.

The mod scene things like dark ages and the freeshards (think it was oracle or ocean or somthign) had the major problems.

Dark ages was said to be more than just a free server the programmer basically used the classic client to write a server program, but running around an empty land with nothing to kill or exp on is not very fun, i tried writing a UO shard and populating it and it took a hell of a lot of time to get even a 5th of what the whole of UO was about.

However these free servers are basically pirating or reverse engineering an existing game it is basically illegal and thats why 90% of them get shut down. Tbh I give dark age around 2 more years of life after that i think most of the hard core players or casuals would have moved onto pastures new.

Support of the game will last for another 2 years probbly with a very very very small team of developers at mythics headquarters. You wont see expansions like catacombs maybe free stuff like darkness falls or housing etc. Patches will probbly be balance issues and long standing bugs :)

But they will have a line somewhere on the wall where the number of subscribers (not players) drops below this line then they will discontinue support. Goa wont really have much option but by the time it reaches that level then i would suspect that GOA have already discontinued or have merged the EU servers with american or somthing.

online games dont die they just disapear people still play them even if they are empty :)
 

SevenSins

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UO lost a vast %tage of their userbase to private servers.

Ragnarok Online lost a HUGE %tage of their userbase to private servers as their server software was LEAKED. (haha)

Lineage 2 is loosing her userbase to private servers because their server software (official) was leaked aswell. (Myself, I played on a Server with over 3000 players ONLINE.)

When Dark Ages was "released" to the public, a humongous ammount of accounts were made, and the word wasn't even widely spread, imagine what would've happened to DAoC today if Dark Ages was still running (and the creator had the recources to fund a Server w/ Bandwith) and almost everyone knew about it, hell, all that guy had to do was release his Server and you would've seen DAoC's main userbase drop by a nice 25%, again, to private servers.

This "era" is coming for DAoC aswell. DoL starts to look more promising and promising overtime (the server software itself, not their stupid ideas about making a total new game :p), so if that gets released when it's quite finished, or, Mythic (or GOA) become victimized by Hackers that are after the server software (this was the case for Ragnarok Online in further stages, and Lineage 2) and then resume to give away/sell that software, then DAoC's just got a sudden death.

Private servers dominate a lot of retail games mainly due to the fact that the owner of a private server modifies things to his likings, or, to his communities likings. Thus games tend to get higher exp rates, higher drop rates, making it less of a grind and drag to get up, or, they could even go further with DAoC: Make all chars created 50/with TOA kit and ML line of their choice, and just head on RvR (this would be very resourcefriendly for the owner :p).

And about the illegal parts of running a private servers; there's always something to cower behind, and lots of loopholes to be taken into advantage. Usually with Emu's it's the client (user) that's violating Mythic's CoC by modifieing client files in order to be able to connect to a different (private ran) server, but hell if they are going to hunt down all the individuals who play on private servers, for Mythic it'd even be illegal to obtain such information.

Lots of loopholes, lots of loopholes :p

But it's coming.
 

Chronictank

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dol servers are running NF so its unlikely people are gona start tha over again




as for new players, catacombs looks very promising opening up many new avenues for new players. I rescently re-rolled on prywden and tbh have had grps all the way so far, capped thid at lvl 25 now on the xp train again.

Provided they fix the OT problems i see more people coming to catacombs if there is a sufficient PR campaign
 

Poon

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Chronictank said:
dol servers are running NF so its unlikely people are gona start tha over again




as for new players, catacombs looks very promising opening up many new avenues for new players. I rescently re-rolled on prywden and tbh have had grps all the way so far, capped thid at lvl 25 now on the xp train again.

Provided they fix the OT problems i see more people coming to catacombs if there is a sufficient PR campaign

The problem is that even though they have put a new engine in it looks messy and certainly isnt as polished as the WOW engine which if you like the style or not runs like lightning compared to daoc.

Also DAOC is very very solo unfriendly unless you know what to roll and you know what your doing, its harsh slow and boring which will put new players off unless they get a guild rapid not to mention the main draw of DAOC its great PVP is pretty much dying off with few RVR guilds left and has been catered to messy zerg warfare.

Like TOA this expansion really isnt going to drag new players in, WOW seems to be grabbing players like mad, even forced me from city of heros which i love to WOW because its cleared the servers out so i just cant see any decent numbers of people buying it :/

As for PR, well we all expected SI to be plastered around the place, we waited, it wasnt, same for TOA, same will happen for this one aswell no doubt.
 

Poon

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But then thinking about it who knows, maybe it might bring some people back stranger things have happened, but alot left due to RVR related things and they arnt being changed
 

Flimgoblin

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Poon said:
Also DAOC is very very solo unfriendly unless you know what to roll and you know what your doing, its harsh slow and boring which will put new players off unless they get a guild rapid not to mention the main draw of DAOC its great PVP is pretty much dying off with few RVR guilds left and has been catered to messy zerg warfare.
.

at the moment - possibly.

DAoC at Catacombs release is incredibly solo friendly - I hate soloing, but I managed to solo a heretic to 50 in beta...

all the new mini quests + ease of transportation around the catacombs (to decent xp areas) + the ease of levelling in 1.71 makes the feeling of progress much easier to notice.

I also think catacombs will encourage more xp groups - all the obelisks are like the south gate of avalon city :) a nice convenient place to look for and form groups....
 

IainC

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Chodax.
I think you vastly underestimate the number of truly casual players and it's easy to do. When I play, I talk to the same people. I have my guild, my alliance, a circle of friends. I've been playing a while (probably about as long as you have) so I know the 'regulars', I know who the 'important' people are in my realm.
When I am being Requiel though I am outside that sphere. I see and talk to a lot of people who will never show up on the social radar of people like you or another long-established player. These people may actually play quite a lot, however they usually spread their playtime over several characters or even several servers. They playa character until it's no longer fun then delete it and start again witha new class. They may have no real interest in getting to 50 or RR5 or being a ML raid leader. They play as a diversion and things that they achieve along the way are secondary to the fun of just playing.
 

Shanaia

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cHodAX said:
I play on a nightly basis and I see the same names night after night, the vast majority of the active player base would have to be described as regulars and many of them have been around for years. Quite simply DAoC is no longer a game where a casual player can thrive so the casual player goes else where if they can't stand the grind.

Hmm strange I play on a nightly basis and I find that outside of my circle of friends I see new people all the time. Yes the deadspams are usually from the same people/groups and those are the hardcore players ... but beside that I meet characters and even decent sized guilds I never saw before on a regular basis.

Eye of the beholder?
 

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