What PvP Players can look forward to

I'm sorry this isn't making any sense. So many factors play into the whol MMO changes...I was there for many if not all the launches a long the way.

You aren't factoring in the change of internet over the time and I have no idea how you seperate the 250k subs after the split as a win for fel.

 

Your numbers show the total number of people paying the monthly subscription increased by about 55k people once Trammel was introduced, nothing more.

 

So does that chart reflect all the people that maintained their account so they would not lose their house? Even though they never play.

 

You should be talking about EQ numbers, though. The MMO industry was small back then. There weren't many people willing to pay monthly subscriptions for a game (ah, the days when subs were only $10!), and reliable internet access wasn't nearly as widely available as it is now. The chart shows that EQ and UO were in competition, and EQ won in terms of growth, which is certainly an appreciable cause for the slowing of UO's growth in an industry which itself isn't growing all too quickly (just yet) and which services consumers who are likely to subscribe to only one service at a time.

It doesn't matter what current numbers of MMO players look like. WoW was a game changer in the industry, as it bridged a gap between Blizzard's enormous strategy game player base and the player base interested in MMOs and introduced a super duper accessible game to the market at the same time. Those changes came in 2004, by which time internet infrastructures were much better developed in most demographics to better support models for online play. 200,000 is a drop in the bucket compared to 12 million, it's true, but there weren't 12 million MMO players (or anywhere close to that many) participating in the market by 2000.

 

It's fun to throw around numbers and swear by how good Trammel was....until the graphs and concrete evidence start showing up. Then it's, "Those are just numbers, they don't mean anything". It's funny how the tune changes when the virtuous reveal the truth.



Instead of growing with the new internet population. Trammel tanked. It didn't just go sideways, because you have to compare the available customer population with the UO user's graph. It TANKED!

 

Yes, that's what subscribers are, anyone who pays the monthly fee. And yes there were TONS of house maintaining non-playing peeps back then just as there are now I'm
guessing as last time I logged into UO it was a ghost town. Tons of property slumlords owning up as many castle & luna plots as possible, un-lucky for them those castle
& luna plots are worthless now heheh.

 

With all due respect, I think your logic is flawed. Just because the raw number of internet users increased over that 10 year period does not mean that UO's sub base should have kept up with that growth. There are countless other factors involved.

 

It's weird putting a graph like that up...ignoring any other mmo's...and showing that the game grew 50k subscribers after the split....did it blow every other game out of the water? Nope, because by that time it was behind the curve.

Bizarre choice of words to say virtous, implying the rest of us are liars.

 

That's a great point, with the increase of internet users the game could've tripled instead it hit a peak of 250k in 2003,
but to be fair China never had UO in those days as China is very restrictive on what they allow their population to be
exposed to, no skulls or bones showing, no gold coins, they have a lot of restrictions, heard they have released a UO
specific for China not too long ago with these changes but haven't heard anything since meaning it probably didn't
do well, they probably compared it to 3d games like Wow and never gave it a chance.

 

Well, a lot of factors, the only thing we do know is UO hit 190,000 subscribers without trammel, hit 250,000 once trammel was added. but it never achieved the success of many others that came out after it.

It was a pioneer for it's time, yes I had played graphical muds before UO came out, but it was so much better than any of those. However, it did not grow and adapt well compared to other games, like EQ.

The best thing we can do now is look at the mistakes and successes UO(and other MMOs) had and try to apply those lessons to SoTA.

Giving players what they want is the only way you'll achieve long term success.

Giving players the same experience they have in other games but not as well executed wont work. We aren't going to capture WoW players by having the same gameplay. We aren't going to get masses of players by having non-consensual pvp. I think the dev's have outlined a winning combination of different, interesting, and better solutions than what other games have designed before it. Selective Multi-player, choose your pvp (or lack thereof), crafting, great story, story driven consequences for your actions, persistent world. Now.. if we can just do something about our overworld map..

 

Oh, so you are saying that it's possible that 100% of those subscribers didn't play the game at all. They just maintained their sub for their house.

The numbers on that chart are just that, numbers. Injecting any kind of "why" people subscribe can't not be proven in this chart.

Every game on that chart has a rise in population then a decline to the end of data. About the only thing you can pull from that info is that a few of the games saw a surge in subscribers during their decline. There are unlimited reasons for such a boost in subs, like maybe the game finally allowed a free trial. (which may or may not be calculated in this chart. Does it stat these are all paying subs or are some free subs)

 

Well we do know 100% of the house owners are depicted on the sub chart as 100% of house owners were subscribers. Speaking on this they recently changed the housing ruleset before Trammel. Pre-Trammel (at least when I played) You could own 100 houses on 1 account, 1,000 houses if you wanted to, but about 1 year or so before trammel they made the strict rule 1 house per 1 account, I let my houses fall and gave my large tower to a guildmate & I quit the game. Those who enjoyed their many houses needed to purchase additional subscriptions and many did, and when Trammel came out these house owning addicted town owners couldn't help themselves and bought up as many plots in the new world (Trammel) forcing a spike in subscriptions, can't say who bought the new houses, who maintained them, but someone did and that spike is related to the house owners.

 

My official start date, I was there for beta

 

They grandfathered all the accounts with more than one house. Also, when was this change made? The earliest I can see is 2009 so if you say there was a spike, this chart is worthless in proving that. It only goes to 2005.

Anecdotal evidence really should not be used when interpreting statistics.

 

Nope, my browse is not broken, but I think that was pretty clear that it was not about to be pvp or not, but about that this thread could be duplicated/triplicated or even more in content, even in ths same page. Something that is against the forum rules.

But if everyone found the thread useful and filled of new info should be ok. I was wrong.

 

+1 man !

I have a hundred friends which are very disappointed.
The beginning of the end ?
Maybe.

 

I remember that being the case as well. I had one house per character (5) on my main account and a couple houses on my second account when the changes in home ownership rules came about.

 

1. Your graphic doesn't account for competition within the MMO industry.

2. The total number of internet subscribers does not speak to the speed or reliability of those subscribers' connections.

3. Your graphic doesn't describe the number of MMO subscribers relative to the total number of internet users.

4. In addition to the above, your graphic does not identify Trammel as the principal cause for UO's decline of growth.

People who don't understand how to interpret statistics should stay far away from numbers in general.

 

Then clearly this isn't the game for you. I've said it before and I'll say it again, SotA was never strictly about PvP nor was it mentioned as a highlight of the game when advertised. Where in the KS campaign did they spell out "all out PvP here, come join the free for all!!"

I mean, why even post something like this here? If you're not interested in the game, don't be interested. There will be plenty to interest others who want a rich RPG experience. I find posts like this to be completely unconstructive, pointless and negative.

 

Well... I see it this way.
Who needs charts and statistics? Do you all really think that game developers are creating games based on some bar graph? Theres a video game out there for everyone. Many people who are musicians, movie makers, writers, artists are well-known for not attracting the most business. But everyone knows that the crowd they DO happen to attract REALLY likes their work. Its not that they didnt want a larger following, its just the following they got. When an artist is passionate about what they want to do, they do it. They also hope that their work will be liked by many... but the idea is to do what they are passionate about. Getting rich or famous from the project is a fringe benefit.
We can argue on and on about what is most popular, but in the end its really kinda irrelevant. I think to try and make the game the biggest hit, or to try to knock WoW off the shelves is not the goal we should have in mind.
The goal is this: To create a selective multiplayer online game, a fun one!
No one knows how popular that it is going to be. But im as passionate about the project as the devs are, so ive contributed to the project.
I love those full loot pvp/felucca/ seige perilous style MMO games and all.. I really dont keep track of how many people play them because people are always there to play the game with me. Just like theres always someone at the blackjack table in the casino willing to put their money on the line. The people who develop these full loot pvp MMO games create them because they like them. People create consensual PvP only games, because they like them... Population should never be an issue, because im sure both consensual and non-consensual pvp based games have the potential to be complete flops.
SotA is a completely new idea, one that sounds very interesting to me! And I cant wait to play it. Dont care if theres 1,000,000 players playing the game or if theres 15 players playing the game. I don't care if its "the game of the year" or "makes more money than any game in history!". It's SotA and it is what it is.