EC explains how the current progression system is flawed

[Zarzak]

And unfortunately nobody would ever play a game like that again.

Times have changed.

There are likely a million EQ/XI vets that would jump it like a free buffet at fat kid camp. Not to mention the milion + that would buy it to try it then quit.. Just like a majority of them do with modern MMOs too since you run out of things to do a couple months in.

Blizzards releases Twitter integration in a major content patch.

WoW STILL has the most Subs of any game in it's genre.

Clearly they are doing something right.

The fact that it is the gateway drug of MMOs doesn't make it a good game. That is like saying bud light is the best beer of all time because every 15 year old kid tries it out until they actually learn how bad it is.

WoW hemorrhages players like a Haemophiliac on blood thinners. EQ/XI kept players engaged for YEARS. Even serious raid groups replace large numbers of their force each year due to attrition in WoW. EQ losing more than 6-7% of your raiders a year was uncommon.

Much of WoW's success can be attributed to when it came out. It came out at an opportune time and reached critical mass quite early, and has been riding that wave.

^ So much this releasing when home computers/internet became widely accessible as well as people starting to trust the internet so every kid could get their parents to put their debit card online to pay for a monthly game sub.

[Fendred]

@Zarzak

It seems they want to take FFXIV:ARR in the general direction of earlier MMORPGs, at least to a point. Yoshida was supposedly surprised by how well received the Hunt system was pre-expansion, and in 3.1 they are introducing the FC airship content, which is somewhat related to burning circle notorious monsters from FFXI. They are experimenting with non-WoW instanced and non-instanced content, but I think it will be several years before we see them start to move away from dungeon grind as the primary engine of progress.

Edit: And I don't mean that as though I think they are sluggish as developers. It just takes a long time for features to come out. I think Ghostcrawler (WoW Dev) answered someone's question pertaining to the subject of competitor features and he said it would take developers 4-6 months to make a feature matching something in a competing product.

[Pooky_Pasha]

snip

Both EQ and FFXI peaked in mid-2004 at about 550k each. After that, EQ fell off the map, losing 100k within a year and then losing another 250k in about 6 months. So within about 1.5 years, they lost 350k (or about 63% of their peak). FFXI, on the other hand, held steady until late-2008 (yep, Pre-Abyssea by about 2 years) when it started losing players. Both games have hemorrhaged as many players as the logistically can. Now, if either hemorrhage any more players, they're dead. In fact, FFXI is about to die regardless. It would be amazing if either game still had near 50k active subscribers now.

WoW, on the other hand, grew steadily (from release) for 6 years to its peak around October 2010 of about 12 million subscribers. Over the last 5 years, WoW has been in steady decline with the occasional expansion bump. It still, however, can boast 5.5+ million subscribers. The truth is, WoW has kept far more players engaged for far longer than EQ or FFXI. It was never close, and it still isn't close.

Here are some charts for comparison purposes. You could make a retention case for FFXI, but only if you looked at 2004-2009. With EQ, you could make it from 1999-2004. With WoW, you can see steady retention from the start, even with the steady decline after its peak until today.

Edit: I played FFXI from 2004-2009, and off-and-on since. I played WoW from 2009-FFXIV 1.0 release.

[Zarzak]

snip.

You do realize a VERY VERY small number of people have been "kept engaged for far longer" right? Again I say.. it is the gateway MMO. Having every person teenager in the developed world try it for a few months to a year then quit doesn't make it successful as a game. Financially sure but again.. Just because everyone tries bud light in their life doesn't make it the best beer ever. The bottom of the barrel in quality always gets attracts the most. Want to argue that because McDonalds sells more hamburgers it makes better hamburgers than a 5 star restaurant?

[Pooky_Pasha]

You do realize a VERY VERY small number of people have been "kept engaged for far longer" right? Again I say.. it is the gateway MMO. Having every person teenager in the developed world try it for a few months to a year then quit doesn't make it successful as a game. Financially sure but again.. Just because everyone tries bud light in their life doesn't make it the best beer ever. The bottom of the barrel in quality always gets attracts the most. Want to argue that because McDonalds sells more hamburgers it makes better hamburgers than a 5 star restaurant?

Ok, where are you getting your information, except from pulling it out your arse? "VERY VERY small" and "try it for a few months to a year then quit" are not arguments unless you can show where it came from. Stop exaggerating the turnover rate of WoW compared to EQ/FFXI. It kept far more players, for far longer.

[Zarzak]

Ok, where are you getting your information, except from pulling it out your arse? "VERY VERY small" and "try it for a few months to a year then quit" are not arguments unless you can show where it came from. Stop exaggerating the turnover rate of WoW compared to EQ/FFXI. It kept far more players, for far longer.

well lets see...

Blizzard CEO Mike Morhaime said earlier today that 70% of people playing on a WoW trial account (which I'd imagine would be most new players) fail to progress past level 10 in the game.

http://kotaku.com/5469238/most-new-w...-past-level-10

or what I find more useful is actual statistics

40% quit after a year which goes up to ~70% at 600 days (about 20 months)


http://netgames2008.cs.wpi.edu/slides/chen-wow.pdf (scroll down to the sub time graph)

So yea... I stand by what I said.