Game population by the numbers.

[Xatsh]

GW2 biggest issue I have right now is it sounds like a 100% solo game with some form of Semi-auto group feature which is really just a bunch of people soloing on 1 mob which scales up depending on how many ppl are beating on it.

If that is right I will never touch that game. Sick of solo mmos.

[Skeeter]

Holy assumptions batman.

I understand that a few angry players will have by now thrown their copy of the game into the trash and vowed never to come back, however i will argue that those people were also most likely to quit no matter how good the game was at launch.

Some people would have quit because the game probably wouldn't have been to their taste but not the astronomical amount that did, the game was/is just bad in its current state. The game sucked so they quit, that simple.

I back this up by pointing out they would not have been willing to consider the game would eventually be good

Customers shouldn't have to wait for it to be good. If it wasn't good enough they shouldn't have released it so early. No one will convince me they actually thought this game was good enough for release. People are getting sick of Devs releasing half finished games with plans to patch, the past years of failed MMOs will testify for that. It isn't 2002. If the game isn't playable right out of the box they won't stick around. Look at Rift for christs sake, that game is booming right now, it hasn't even done anything new for the Genre but it was polished and worked.

Take for example the 'crowd' that waits for a new franchise product to come out hoping it will be bad so they can flame it. Or lets say, Boston Red Sox fans jeering at the Yankees, but only when the Yankees lose. Or perhaps Red Sox fans who jeer at the Red Sox at every loss.

Are you serious? You must be in denial. People didn't buy this game hoping it sucked so they can brag about it sucking on forums. They bought this game because they wanted to play in the Final Fantasy universe in a modern MMO. Most of the fanboys of other games will play in open betas and rag on it from that or wait for free trials. Maybe a tiny number of asinine idiots would do that, but that would be such a small number it would be insignificant.

The rest still own the game and have accounts. In fact, by the fortune of free play, they can, simply choose at any time to give it another try without even thinking about payments. Has anyone else noticed that every time there is a new patch, or every now and then, the 'Is this game worth playing yet' topics come up?

That is the boat I am in. I have this game installed and its free to play right now, and I still don't log in and play. It just isn't good right now. I don't even have an active sub to another MMO either. You can tell the game had loads of potential, and still does, I hope it gets realized so I check it out periodically.

Is it fair to argue that Final Fantasy is a console brand. That the PS3 sales were, prior to the PC launch, expected to be bigger than the PC sales.

I don't think so. MMOs are a genre almost exclusive to PC. The Final Fantasy franchise has a rather large fan base but that doesn't mean a lot of them are fans of MMOs, I'd be willing to bet only a small portion are.

How about the obscene system requirements to play this game at max settings with 30FPS or better in all areas. Does it seem ludicrous, or perhaps hopeful that 600,000 people somehow managed to purchase this game despite that at launch?

Tons of developers make this mistake sadly. Though I play this game rather fine on an average system. Phenom II+gtx460 and I get 30-60fps every where @ 1920x1200 resolution.

Given that FFXI reached about 500,000 at peak, do you think this game will ever better that total. Can it achieve 1 Billion?

Gonna assume you meant 1 million, and I highly doubt it. I've never seen an MMO released in really bad shape turn it around and be as big a success as that. Usually they kind of just dwindle with a small player base with slow updates and patches because dev resources get limited. SE has a second chance with the Ps3, if they can manage to make it as successful as FFXI I would consider them lucky, very lucky. If this game hits 500k I would very surprised, it its current state there is no way in hell it does. I would bet ps3 release is about a year off unless SE starts patching at a mad mans pace.

[Abriael]

UM sorry to sound like kind of an antagonist... but have you been living under a rock for the past 6 months?! lmfao

ArenaNet has released TONS of info within the past couple of weeks, and they continue to stay in touch with their player base and take feedback.

Have you been under a rock for the 6 months preceeding the release of FFXIV (or of the many games that were released in horrible/disappointing states in the past, like warhammer online, tabula rasa, age of conan and many others)? because they did pretty much the same.

There's no solid information about the quality and polish of the game, nor about the possibility that some mechanics will actually work as intended or even be fun (public quests in warhammer, from which GW2 is copying for their own, sounded awesome on paper, but didn't withstand the test of reality).

If you think you can predict the quality of a game just from PR, then I'm sorry, I see a big delusion here. And delusion normally pairs very fittingly with disappointment. And as I said, the track record of NCsoft is very far from being deserving of blind faith.

[Shelia]

Have you been under a rock for the 6 months preceeding the release of FFXIV (or of the many games that were released in horrible/disappointing states in the past, like warhammer online, tabula rasa, age of conan and many others)? because they did pretty much the same.

FFXIV is HARDLY an example for this. The devs BARELY listened to anything anybody had to say during Alpha and Beta. The game as it is right now is pretty much the same exact thing it was in Beta 1. While I'll agree Warhammer's devs were really in-touch with their playerbase, every company operates differently. As far as I know, every single one of the games you listed were rushed products. The difference with ArenaNet is that they're taking their time to make sure the product is enjoyable.

There's no solid information about the quality and polish of the game, nor about the possibility that some mechanics will actually work as intended or even be fun (public quests in warhammer, from which GW2 is copying for their own, sounded awesome on paper, but didn't withstand the test of reality).

The reason there's no solid info yet is because they don't even have a release date yet. hahaha
You can't expect "polish" if there's not even a deadline in sight (although summer released is rumored, considering beta testing started recently). ALTHOUGH. There are a lot of videos online that display ArenaNet's progress with the game, and showing off dynamic events. As far as public quests go... all MMOs copy each other, and ArenaNet has even blatantly stated things like "Yeah, we liked this feature from left for dead, so we did something similar with it in GW2". It's not like they try to hide it, they just want to incorporate the best from games into one big awesome MMO. ArenaNet is doing their damndest trying to figure this out so people have FUN, and it's not just a cookie-cutter, grind-until-you're-bored MMO.

Btw, don't confuse ArenaNet with NCsoft. The only games ArenaNet worked on was the Guild Wars series, which seemed to be met by good feedback.
http://www.giantbomb.com/arenanet-in...veloped_games/

NCsoft has the bad track record.

GW2 biggest issue I have right now is it sounds like a 100% solo game with some form of Semi-auto group feature which is really just a bunch of people soloing on 1 mob which scales up depending on how many ppl are beating on it.

If that is right I will never touch that game. Sick of solo mmos.

No, GW2 isn't solo. ArenaNet made an enormous emphasis on team cooperation in almost all their articles and interviews. They want people to be compelled to fight alongside each other, craft together, and participate in events with each other. They stated several times that they want to establish community.

[Kilta_Firelotus]

Oi don't be dissin our wicked team. Red sox fan win or lose... its how the players look in their uniforms and red soxs got yankees beat.

:P

anyway. I tried guild wars and was not impressed. Sorry seeing that corny stripper dance made me question the rating of the game. I played Aion and honestly I question NCsofts game making abilities.

I personally don't care how high the subs go, as long as ppl play for 10+ years i'm good

[wingiehai]

Have you been under a rock for the 6 months preceeding the release of FFXIV (or of the many games that were released in horrible/disappointing states in the past, like warhammer online, tabula rasa, age of conan and many others)? because they did pretty much the same.

There's no solid information about the quality and polish of the game, nor about the possibility that some mechanics will actually work as intended or even be fun (public quests in warhammer, from which GW2 is copying for their own, sounded awesome on paper, but didn't withstand the test of reality).

If you think you can predict the quality of a game just from PR, then I'm sorry, I see a big delusion here. And delusion normally pairs very fittingly with disappointment. And as I said, the track record of NCsoft is very far from being deserving of blind faith.

Dude every post you make you disagree with everything, let me tell you for starters ARENANET IS MAKING GUILDWARS 2! Not NCsoft, you clown, read before you actually comment on something. ArenaNet are ex blizzard designers with alot of new talent, and I just watched the pax east clips and the game looks amazing. If they can release it in the right window it will be extremely successful. FFXIV has very very little chance of being reborn, I still read these forums in the hope of some amazing news but I can't see it happening before the next waves of MMOs are out. SE didn't learn to adept mostly because they have silly people like you Aberial telling the designers not to have jump in a game, silly silly people. I wanted this game to blow me away, instead I blew away 50 bucks buying, and that even makes me sad to think that SE made a game I class a waste of money.

[Abriael]

The reason there's no solid info yet is because they don't even have a release date yet. hahaha

Which is my point exactly. There's no release date. There's no beta. We know nothing else about the game than PR. PR is nowhere a good indicator of a game's final quality.

Every developer of every MMO out there (including the ones released in horrible states) swept the internet with tons of pictures and movies that looked fantastic. This is what PR is for.

Also, if you think that a developer cannot and will not influenced by it's publisher, then you don't know very well how development works.

In the end, you're completely free to have all the blind faith you want on GW2's success and quality. And i'm completely free to roll my eyes when I see that

Dude every post you make you disagree with everything, let me tell you for starters ARENANET IS MAKING GUILDWARS 2! Not NCsoft, you clown, read before you actually comment on something. ArenaNet are ex blizzard designers with alot of new talent, and I just watched the pax east clips and the game looks amazing. If they can release it in the right window it will be extremely successful. FFXIV has very very little chance of being reborn, I still read these forums in the hope of some amazing news but I can't see it happening before the next waves of MMOs are out. SE didn't learn to adept mostly because they have silly people like you Aberial telling the designers not to have jump in a game, silly silly people. I wanted this game to blow me away, instead I blew away 50 bucks buying, and that even makes me sad to think that SE made a game I class a waste of money.

Again. Publishers aren't exactly uninvolved in the development process of a game, you know? Even just marketing decisions by the publishers influence development and content radically. you may want to get a little more informed about how it works before you go around calling people "clown" (lol)

And the pre-beta clips from FFXIV looked amazing as well "oh my god! look at those graphics!" "oh my god! look at that depth of field!" I still remember the absolutely enthusiastic comments on every forum when they were released.

Funny how some people simply don't learn from the past.

[Skeeter]

Publisher != Developer. ArenaNet is making Guild Wars 2 not NCsoft. I don't buy into the hype of MMOs anymore but if they actually deliver what they are saying, it will be a massive success. Big if though.

[wingiehai]

Which is my point exactly. There's no release date. There's no beta. We know nothing else about the game than PR. PR is nowhere a good indicator of a game's final quality.

Every developer of every MMO out there (including the ones released in horrible states) swept the internet with tons of pictures and movies that looked fantastic. This is what PR is for.

Also, if you think that a developer cannot and will not influenced by it's publisher, then you don't know very well how development works.

In the end, you're completely free to have all the blind faith you want on GW2's success and quality. And i'm completely free to roll my eyes when I see that

Dont worry, it will do better then FFXIV

[Punxsutawney]

For a week, yes.