People who say's WoW had a better launch then this game makes me laugh ........

[Bearssi]

snip

I think current subscription numbers on mmo games suffer with most players not returning to that game title and basically jump to the next mmo.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

I think current subscription numbers on mmo games suffer with most players not returning to that game title and basically jump to the next mmo.

True.

Final Fantasy XI did not really suffer from that though, as you can see in the second chart of my post above (#41 in this thread).

Since ARR seems to be attracting about as many players (in the vicinity of 500-600k), and both had a quite steep adoption curve (a few weeks) and in the case of FF XI a stable player base (time will tell for ARR…), I suppose it's fair to assume that these 500k are the core fans of the franchise who happen to like MMO's as well (of a grindy nature). So I guess it's a sound business plan that Yoshi-P choose by aiming at "a minimum of 400k players" in order to sustain ARR.

However, being the #9 best-selling franchise in the history of video games, it is my contention that the Final Fantasy franchise could do much better as a MMO, in the vicinity of ~1 million subs (half being the core fanhood already here, the other half being MMO players being genuinely attracted by the game itself regardless of its IP, much like Rift or Lineage built their own player base without any prior positive bias towards their IP). Look at Star Wars also, for instance, which sold less than half what FF did ("only" 38M): SWG was a top-dog in its time, and TOR did as well as ARR at launch, and these players were certainly not just Star Wars fans (fact is TOR tanked because it was shallow and more of a cash-grab probably aimed at becoming F2P by EA from the very beginning, so our comparison should end here I guess ^^; )

Anyhow, I must say I'm somehow disappointed that ARR seems to be geared towards following a business/market path akin to FF XI —that is, quite niche/grindy/specific, potentially unable to attract and subsequently retain much more than the FF+MMO fanhood at around 500k. I'm pretty sure that, given the right design, a broader appeal, SE could please their fans all the while attracting other players of the wider MMO market (which, as you said, could fluctuate a bit more, but could overall help setting ARR above the 1M subs mark).

[Tiggy]

In WoW, you can zoom out further. Maybe people think this is why it had a better launch....

I'm so sick and tired of this stupid, stupid joke. It wasn't funny the first time, and it isn't getting any funnier. It's a textbook example of taking something out of context.

[Alcyon_Densetsu]

I'm so sick and tired of this stupid, stupid joke. It wasn't funny the first time, and it isn't getting any funnier. It's a textbook example of taking something out of context.

LOL. You must mean that about Yoshi who told us that AoE's were easier to dodge by tweaking the camera? Now that is taking things way out of context when we're addressing the netcode and general responsiveness of the game and he replies by dodging (pun intended) the issue.

I'm not mad at him or whatever, I understand he must have meant well (it's actually sound advice, just totally unrelated to the issue), but nevertheless… As I said in my open letter, "Players can be quite forgiving creatures. We know MMORPG's are art-in-the-making, we certainly don't expect perfection. But defensively coping-out of criticism isn’t the way to go about it —the « zoom out » gimmick is a harsh testament to that fact."

And besides, it's better to have a light laugh at it than to rage and get mad over it, isn't it?

_____
EDIT (post limit for today)

Would be okay if it was funny the first time but it wasn't so it should just die out for being a bad joke.

These 63 people would like to disagree: sometimes it's fun to take a swing at both SE and players! No jealousy! >_>

[Allyra]

I'm so sick and tired of this stupid, stupid joke. It wasn't funny the first time, and it isn't getting any funnier. It's a textbook example of taking something out of context.

Considering the devs don't want to publicly address the real issue, this joke needs to keep happening until they do.

[Tiggy]

LOL. You must mean that about Yoshi who told us that AoE's were easier to dodge by tweaking the camera? Now that is taking things way out of context when we're addressing the netcode and general responsiveness of the game and he replies by dodging (pun intended) the issue.

The problem is that they physically sat there and watched people fail over and over because they couldn't even see the AoE's on their screen. The solution to that very specific problem was to zoom out. It was a comment about players they literally watched fail due to having a zoomed in camera. The players on this forum reading what he said and taking it as a comment about the net code is completely taking it out of context. It's completely ridiculous.

[Ispen]

Considering the devs don't want to publicly address the real issue, this joke needs to keep happening until they do.

Would be okay if it was funny the first time but it wasn't so it should just die out for being a bad joke.

[LoLo]

How about give us reference to your claim? All I can find right now is t TGS in October, it is one million unique subscribers and Ocoter 30, it reaches 1.5 million yeah.

Are you telling me that subscirption drop by almost 50% within 2 weeks? You need to do a better job at giving out reference to support yoruself.

Its really funny how some people are determined to claim this game is failing even thought they never do their research. They always just pull facts out of thin air because they "feel" its failing, not that they actually know.

[DeeJayImut]

This game was at 1.5mil just a few weeks ago... 600k and diving.

idk man, i just log in in mordhona

and theres not too many people there like usual

man, people really get bored

[Baneus]

The only reference I've seen about WoW in regards to this is people saying it wasn't any better.. Also, you realize that WoW came out 9 years ago right? OF COURSE they had a worse launch than this game, do you not remember how shitty computers were back then or what? Let alone the internet speeds people were dealing with..

TBH I ran WoW 9 years ago on dial-up with pretty much the same ping that I run it today. 200-300ms.