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The Mog Log: The two-way community street in Final Fantasy XIV
If there's one thing that hit me after the live letter this weekend, it's that the Final Fantasy XIV community is kind of a mess. I've been working around this game since before it launched, and there have always been weird issues going on with the way the community has worked. Part of this is because the game's community has a weird sort of isolationist streak, as if the online installments of this particular series are the only online games in existence, but part of this is also a matter of dealing with a community team that reports to bosses who aren't speaking the same language as the US playerbase. Community management is a two-way street, and this weekend's antics served to remind me of how many elements of this really need to be addressed. So let's talk about how both the players and the community team can improve our overall culture from both sides.
Path of Exile boasts 7 million registrations, 154k peak concurrency
New Zealand studio Grinding Gear Games has announced today that Path of Exile's Taiwanese release and second expansion have pushed to the game to seven million total registered players. The studio claims that Forsaken Masters, August's expansion, has been "extremely well-received" and led to a peak of 154,000 concurrent players. A new patch for the F2P OARPG will deploy early next week; it is expected to include new cosmetic pets, tweaks to missions and skills, and new maps designed by supporters.
EVE Evolved: Growing the EVE Universe
For much of EVE Online's early history, the playerbase saw consistent organic growth with no end in sight and developer CCP Games was able to stay laser-focused on its single game. The EVE universe has even had to grow several times to accomodate the increase in players, most notably with the opening of the drone nullsec regions and Apocrypha's addition of 2,499 hidden wormhole systems. EVE has survived the launch of countless high-profile MMOs in its lifetime and even weathered the monumental industry shift toward free-to-play business models, but it hasn't been plain sailing. While subscriptions have reportedly grown year-on-year, EVE's average concurrent player numbers haven't really increased since 2009. The active EVE playerbase isn't really growing, so it should come as no surprise that CCP has been trying to expand the EVE universe on other fronts. Though the first attempt with console FPS DUST 514 was an unmitigated disaster, EVE players still seem quietly optimistic about its PC reboot as EVE: Legion. Dogfighter EVE: Valkyrie has also piqued the interest of the emerging virtual reality community and has the potential to introduce EVE to thousands of fresh faces. EVE's Creative Director Torfi Frans Olafsson even hinted during Fanfest 2014 that EVE Online, Valkyrie and Legion might all share a single login and that characters may eventually be able to switch between games at will. In this edition of EVE Evolved, I look at why I think a shared login could be a stroke a genius, and interview EVE's Creative Director and Valkyrie's Executive Producer to find out what the future holds for the EVE universe.
The Mog Log: There's nothing to say about Final Fantasy XI
At a glance, Final Fantasy XI is doing all right for itself. It's been running for over a decade and has had to deal with only occasional server merges. It launched another new expansion this year. It certainly doesn't have the population that it used to have, but the people who are playing seem happy enough with the game, and that's what matters. And yet for all that I ostensibly write about both of Square-Enix's online games, these days it's pretty much all Final Fantasy XIV. Some readers have asked me why this is. Have I fallen out of love with Final Fantasy XI? Yes. And no. It's complicated. And I think discussing why I'm not writing more about XIV's more classic sibling also bears some discussion in the context of the game as a whole. So let's talk about why there's so little to say about Vana'diel these days, even while Vana'diel continues to be an active environment.
Mythos Europe attracts 250,000 players in two weeks, throws double XP weekend
It's only been 15 days since Mythos Europe launched, but the resurrected action MMO is already seeing impressive results. According to Frogster, over 250,000 players have jumped into the game for some hectic hack-n-slash fun. The company also provided some revealing statistics as it monitored its quarter-million playerbase. Apparently, the most popular class is the Bloodletter (40% of players), followed by the Pyromancer (32%) and Gadgeteer (28%). A full third of the playerbase chose the human race, with 28% going over to the Gremlins, 27% to the Satyrs, and 15% to the Cyclops. Finally, 66% of the characters created are male. So if you want to be a rarity, rolling a female Cyclops Gadgeteer is the way to go! To celebrate this auspicious milestone, Frogster is rewarding its enthusiastic players with double XP for quests and monster kills this weekend. You can catch all of Mythos' double XP action from now until Monday at 12:00 p.m. EDT.
John Smedley thinks Free Realms is on track for 100 million players
If you think World of Warcraft's 12 million players is impressive, SOE dares you to think bigger -- a lot bigger. John Smedley told GamesIndustry.biz that he sees Free Realms growing to up to 100 million players over time. Before last week's PlayStation 3 launch, Free Realms boasted 17 million players, a number that is sure to increase now that the game is available on a console as well. But 100 million? Smedley doesn't think that's so far-fetched: "[Seventeen million] is a phenomenal number, and we're very pleased with its success -- and it's really keeping going. I don't see this thing stopping until it hits 100 million. I think it could take five or six years -- that should give you some idea [of the time frame we're looking at]. But I don't see any reason why it can't go to 100 million, because there are so many kids out there." Smedley also hopes that the PS3 won't be the only console to which Free Realms and other SOE titles migrate, citing the recently announced NGP as a potential candidate: "Sony's announced the NGP, and if that isn't a perfect machine for doing MMOs on, then I don't know what is. So it's too soon to tell for sure but I think you're going to start seeing free-to-play gaming on consoles as well."
The WoW Factor, page 2
Correct answer: d – older men Men are 4 times as likely as women to gender-bend in WoW. The older a male player is, the more likely they are to gender-bend.
The WoW Factor: How much do you know about the players behind the avatars?
How much do you think you know about your fellow WoW gamers? WoW Insider brings you this exclusive quiz designed by MMORPG researcher Nick Yee, based on actual U.S. data from the PARC PlayOn 2.0 study linking player survey data with their armory data. Think you know what players are really like? Come find out what your WoW Factor is. (Answers and conclusions following the quiz.) 1. The average age of WoW players is: a. 18 b. 24 c. 30 d. 36 2. Which of these groups of players is most likely to be gender-bending? a. younger women (<30) b. older women (>30) c. younger men (<30) d. older men (> 30)
Wrath expected in China in mid-November
Because of all the chaos (from switched providers to government approval) on China's version of World of Warcraft, they haven't actually had a chance to release the Wrath expansion over there yet. They were planning to bring it out ASAP, but that obviously never worked out. But we hear now, finally, that the wait is almost over. They are still going through content checks, and Netease (WoW's new provider over there) says it has some more work to do, but at this point they're aiming for a mid-November release. This doesn't mean much for us in the rest of the world -- and before you commenters mention goldsellers, know that most "Chinese goldfarmers" actually play on NA/EU servers anyway, and have been doing so even with the outage overseas. It does, however, mean that China's guilds and playerbase at large will finally have access to all of the content we've enjoyed for almost a year (the expansion was released in North America and Europe last November 13th -- remember that?), including death knights, the new Naxxramas, and all of the other Northrend content. The release should be a nice bonus for Netease as well -- they've been working hard to try and get the game up to date, and releasing the current expansion should help bring in a nice group of new customers.
Age of Conan server merger was requested by the players?
Early last week we discussed the upcoming server merge coming to Funcom's Age of Conan. Announced by new game Director Craig Morrison, the merge will combine a few of the lower population servers and (hopefully) will give players a more vibrant play experience. Jørgen Tharaldsen, Product Director for the game, has now stated publicly that they went ahead with plans for the merge only because of a vocal outcry from the playerbase in that direction.Speaking with the site Strategy Informer, Tharaldsen stated "I think that people who are playing Conan are actually very happy about the news, and indeed it's been one of the most requested things from our playerbase. The essence of any MMO is the social experience, and right now people are spread out a bit too thin across the servers." He goes on to note that server merges only primarily help players that are already in the game. Convincing new players to try out the title is the next step, one they're currently working on behind the scenes at the company. We'll follow the story of AoC's server merge as it moves forward.[Via 1up] Having fun in Conan's homeland? Make sure to check out all of our previous Age of Conan coverage, and stick with Massively for more news from the Hyborian Age!
The Social Gaming Summit: Casual MMOs and Immersive Worlds
Friday the 13th: An inauspicious day for the superstitious crowd, but a great day for attendees of the Social Gaming Summit, held in San Francisco. The day saw a schedule full of great panels, populated by some of the industry's finest movers and shakers, among them representatives from Gaia Online, Nexon, Three Rings, and Gamasutra, among others too numerous to list here.A particular highlight of the conference for this blogger was the panel entitled "Casual MMOs and Immersive Worlds", which provided a lively discussion on what it means to create a virtual social space, how to monetize free-to-play content, and what exactly is a casual MMO? Trying to divide attention between listening raptly and taking notes is difficult; here is the result, along with the panelists, after the jump.
Funcom boasts 400,000 players in Age of Conan so far
An official release from Funcom has announced that Age of Conan is one of the most successful PC titles "of all time." Since the game's release last Tuesday the Oslo company says that some 400,000 players have stalked the lands of Hyboria. A full half of those players are from the North American continent. If you recall, the company said that it had put roughly 700,000 boxes into the retail channel. Though they don't give specific numbers, the release says "an astounding number of concurrent gamers were logged on to the game, making Age of Conan one of the busiest MMOs in the western hemisphere." The official website received heavy traffic as well, with "2.2 million unique visitors" in the last ten days.The release also notes the game's extremely positive reaction from review sites, with "the first 20 reviews [giving] Age of Conan an average score above 90%." Obviously that's some selective statistical selection, but generally the response among the playerbase seems to be fairly positive. Keen and Graev's decision to skip the game aside, everyone this blogger has talked to seems to be enjoying themselves. Even if Age of Conan isn't a "WoW-killer", or fails to retain these numbers beyond the next few months, it's clear that Funcom has a successful launch on their hands.
Player burnout and the next expansion
Hardcore Casual has a post up about his reaction to the news being released about the next expansion. As a player who left WoW, he's not impressed.Burning Crusade's effect on Blizzard's game was gigantic-- player who'd left came back in droves, and guilds and players who hadn't been playing together for a while all of a sudden found themselves online almost every night. And even out of the game, it had a huge impact-- Wowhead, the argument could be made, rode the wave of Burning Crusade, and it led them to their sale.So the question now is: will WotLK have the same effect? HC says no-- he says Hero classes as hyped were much cooler than the way Death Knights are being implemented, and that the next 10 levels doesn't appeal to him. They do appeal to his father, he says, and there's no question that lots of players are interested in the next expansion. Who wouldn't want to fight alongside and/or against Arthas? This expansion might get players to connect with this universe in a way they haven't since they played Warcraft III.Or it might be too late. Even Blizzard realizes the player base is headed for a rough patch-- they've started the Scroll of Resurrection program to bring straying players back with bribes. The game itself is far from over-- there is a significant core audience who still love this game (including myself), and can't wait to see WotLK. But the fact is that WoW may have peaked with BC. Even if there is a nice peak coming again with Wrath of the Lich King, all indications are that it won't be as high as the first expansion went.
MMO subscriber charts show what's hot
Bruce Sterling Woodcock of MMOGChart has been tracking the subscriber numbers for a variety of different MMOs for years; version 19.0 of his data was released about a week ago, providing numbers up to January 2006 in a long-awaited update. The chart's coverage isn't perfect; geographic information would be especially useful, but is near impossible to find, and the site explains the accuracy behind the data (there are differences between active subscribers, cumulative subscribers and boxes sold). However, it's interesting to see what this snapshot of the current MMO world is like.The graph above shows the largest MMOs, those with over 120,000 subscribers. The green line leaping towards infinity is World of Warcraft -- the yellow and red curves, declining slowly, are Lineage and Lineage II respectively. Many of the others stop in 2005, so it's hard to get an accurate up-to-date picture, but the light blue line representing Runescape seems to be finally taking off, cresting the 500,000 barrier -- an impressive feat for a game started by a couple of students.
