Monsters and Memories (Project_N) - Old School Indie MMO
- Thread starter Flobee
- Start date
Quaid
Trump's Staff
- 12,659
- 7,297
The server list in the pic fanaskin posted clearly includes the beta server numbers. They're included.
Maybe folks are 'waiting for EA' or whatever, but the MMORPG gaming market is tens of millions of people. These test numbers not increasing appreciably every time indicates to me that customer curiosity and interest are low at this point in the development cycle. They haven't really done much marketing, but it feels like either the word that's spreading is negative, or worse it's just not spreading at all.
Dropping 8% in peak CCUs on a playtest over a 10 month span after I had sent out tens of thousands of invitations to engage would definitely give me some concern. Hell if one of my restaurants dropped 8% in bodies through the door I'd be freaking the fuck out - and I ain't giving food away for free.
Fanboy disclaimer: I am not saying there is something wrong with the game or the development of the game. I just find it interesting that interest seems to have plateaued. Yes, content is limited and the earliest test participants have likely churned out (I'm one of them) over the course of a long alpha/beta period, but given the overall size of the market I do find the numbers now surprising, and it may be time to start thinking about it.
Last edited:
- 1
Quaid
Trump's Staff
- 12,659
- 7,297
fanaskin
Well known agitator
- 58,540
- 144,004
It still messes with it because the peak was acheived first day last year and beta servers were offline for days
- 1
GuardianX
Perpetually Pessimistic
- 8,243
- 21,457
Thats the more interesting metric to me. I don't care about DOD trends on a 7-10 day test. Thats natural fall off, even decent fall off for a short test where people do the things on the day they want and then don't log back in because their group isn't online.
What would be good data is the trends for the beta servers from beta start to now given that they have been injecting 1000-2000 players a week since it started (with a couple week slump during the NH lag issue).
Quaid
Trump's Staff
- 12,659
- 7,297
I’m not sure how interesting that is at all.
Everyone here knows the old school mmo enthusiast audience is a captive one. We’ve been here talking about EverQuest for an entire lifetime. We know there’s 10,000-15,000 people who still give some amount of shits about the ‘genre’ - in whatever form it still exists. A persistent 1000-1500 dudes playing an EQ homage over the course of a year shouldn’t be surprising to any of us.
What would be interesting is if they’re actually growing that audience. As of now looking at the numbers they’ve released for tests, I’m not seeing evidence of that.
moonarchia
The Scientific Shitlord
- 31,476
- 62,149
I'm mildly interested to see how quickly or slowly development falls off when they start charging and realize that the vast majority of them will never see a penny for all the work they have put into this. Without instancing or something similar to get rid of soft PVP, that 10-15k is going to cannibalize itself in a hurry. The devs are also going to get assraped on taxes. Unless their company incorporates in the US, they are going to all be 1099, and responsible for their own taxes and benefits. Which means they will be as expensive or moreso than normal devs if they want that to be their full time job. With 15k subs that is a max of $2.7m annual revenue.
Still hope they find some way to make it all work, but definitely not buying in until it gets to 1.0 and has shown much faster content generation than they have to date.
GuardianX
Perpetually Pessimistic
- 8,243
- 21,457
Ehh I look at it as data and player interest and, to me, those are interesting numbers purely because people say a lot without numbers and having the numbers gives substance to theory.
if you are injecting 500-2000 players a week, you expect the daily / weekly numbers to trend up by roughly the percentage of accounts added.
if you aren't hitting those numbers, what is the reason? (Incoming class changes? Implemented class changes? Game rules? Player policing?)
Because, like you said, the old school market isn't growing and having a shrinking player-base AND downward-trending player interest in your game isn't good.
---
Edit:
Add in week over week retention and that's another interesting metric. Sure things like class changes and other things are gunna alter that metric but it's still "useful" data in the sense it gives you an understanding if your foundation likes or hates your changes.
- 11,210
- 12,114
People Ive talked to about the game most commonly say something like "waiting on #####" .. theyre waiting on a change to happen. A change thats been talked about and now.. theyre just waiting on it to take place, or finish. Sometimes its something like Early Access. Other times its the class changes. Etc. But what theyre really saying, and Im guilty of this too - is that until the game stops making major changes, Im not putting any time or concern into it.
Which, when we're talking about a game that you have to put hundreds of hours into to at least feel like you've done most stuff in the game - I completely understand and relate too. Or to be specific to the conversation, until they get to a point where they say "This is a build we're taking into retail and anything we do from here will be additions to the game" .. then I dont see the population making significant moves upward.
I know a good chunk of the guys that I play games with, that we've played together since 2009 - we all want to play this together when it "releases". We cant even do that now because not everyone has an invite. Never mind the uncertainty tied to the game as it currently sits.
Pantheon and Ashes of Creation are clear first hand examples of why we dont want to play MMO's "early" anymore.
Which, when we're talking about a game that you have to put hundreds of hours into to at least feel like you've done most stuff in the game - I completely understand and relate too. Or to be specific to the conversation, until they get to a point where they say "This is a build we're taking into retail and anything we do from here will be additions to the game" .. then I dont see the population making significant moves upward.
I know a good chunk of the guys that I play games with, that we've played together since 2009 - we all want to play this together when it "releases". We cant even do that now because not everyone has an invite. Never mind the uncertainty tied to the game as it currently sits.
Pantheon and Ashes of Creation are clear first hand examples of why we dont want to play MMO's "early" anymore.
- 2
- 1
GuardianX
Perpetually Pessimistic
- 8,243
- 21,457
I agree and I think this is gunna be a wild ride for the team.
They said they only need a small amount of subs but then the number i heard thrown out is 15,000? I don't think it's a wildly out of reach number but...that depends on a consumer that stops playing and keeps paying at this rate.
I know I don't do that.
---
To your point though; and I dunno if this is weird logic or a side point but I think it points to the concept of "perception" like you are getting at.
So many class changes and, really, game changes are gunna be happening for AT LEAST 2 more years because their EA is really just "beta". I made a note on their discord that "you need to really hammer home this is ALPHA not beta" because people have different sets of expectations for an "Alpha" vs a "beta" and people expect that since this is a "beta" that EA will be a "release". Any instability NOW points to a product that isn't ready for "release" but the reality is that instability NOW should be expected since it's an alpha.
I saw ONE dev say "you are basically playing on development servers"...that's not enough, that fact needs to be hammered home because people aren't testing, they are "previewing" or "playing a game for free" and the perception is that "this is the last push before release" and people are treating it that way with the raid "Schedules", the camp disputes, the information hoarding...ect.
I've watched several guilds now hoard bugs for later use (which is why I find it funny some of yall championing some guilds and being like "the other guy cheated!" when all ya be cheatin..).
People treatin this test cycle as the real thing with their expectations set as such.
- 1
Pasteton
Vyemm Raider
- 3,310
- 2,486
The bug hoarding is a real thing , but there’s other issues as well. I was regularly blowing shit up to the devs but what’s nuts is they still don’t change it. Stuff like enchant ally being stackable on a single target/tank, I’ve notified the devs dozens of times , they either don’t care or don’t have a good process for communicating things / getting things changed.
- 1
Quaid
Trump's Staff
- 12,659
- 7,297
Again, I don't find player interest or longevity among the 10-15000 enthusiast early adopters all that interesting. Anyone who has done enough research to know there is ongoing class rebalancing falls into that category.
I'm talking about the other 20+ million lapsed or current MMORPG players. There should be some portion of them, which I'd hope to be measured in the thousands, that find themselves at least curious enough to try something for free with each new public test.
They aren't that surprising. They are doing tons of changes to the game and people are doing other things at the moment. If their numbers continue to dwindle during their next playtest or w/e before EA then maybe that is an indication of something going on.
Pasteton
Vyemm Raider
- 3,310
- 2,486
I think part of the issue is Shawn is very tunnel visioned on the path he’s laid out for himself, maybe that’s a good thing I don’t know. So if you tell him about any issue even if it’s game breaking - if it’s regarding a class or thing that’s still pending overhaul , he’s likely gonna ignore it, as in his mind it’s getting completely scrapped anyway