Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

[DakAttack]

Re: Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

it does well on the PS3 launch. Otherwise, it's just another Fantasy Earth: The Ring of Dominion.

Historically, the first month or two of launch (in a market area) pretty much predicts the subscription over the life time for MMORPGs. (EVE Online may be the only major title which has significantly bucked this trend.) SE screwed the launch badly by releasing a bad product. While just about anything written in code is fixable with enough time and money, SE will never get the initial launch back--much of FF14's 'potential' had already been wasted.

Hahaha, what the hell is that article you linked? Was that written by somebody who knows nothing about math?

"If the data doesn't actually match this curve, ADD MORE CURVES AND CRAM THEM TOGETHER!!!"

Wow.

[KingOfZeal]

Re: Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

Are you talking about the WoE mantle that starts with a K?

No, I'm talking about the piece I mentioned in my post, the Pantin Cape: DEX +6 Attack+15, Automaton Attack+15. It's classified as relic, not Empyrean but I classify it as JSE with AF, Relic and Empyrean and any other 'job only' gear.

That's why I say that it's not likely they can do better for a back piece for PUP, I'm sure some relic accessories will have the same situation. It would be nice if they could, but I'm not going to count on it.


Then again, if they do, I'm going to be very ticked since I literally just got my cape a few weeks ago.

[Romyro]

Re: Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

Hmm…maybe…
It does seem to work with my 4 jobs now that I think about it.

Bst gets Monster Belt ( & Ferine back/neck)
Pup gets Pantin Cape ( & Cirque Neck/waist)
Smn gets Summoner cape ( & Caller’s Neck/waist)
Blm gets Sorcerer’s Belt ( & Goetia Neck/back)

Does that match up with every job?

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

Hahaha, what the hell is that article you linked? Was that written by somebody who knows nothing about math?

"If the data doesn't actually match this curve, ADD MORE CURVES AND CRAM THEM TOGETHER!!!"

Wow.

The proposition stated is actually: For each market the game is released to and for each major update/expansion, the subscription/userbase over the life time of the MMO will have *that* shaped curve. So, of course they are added together when talking about the total subscription/userbase.

It's pretty elementary.

By the way, the author, Raphael Koster, is a long time online game designer/developer (since at least 1995). He had direct access to Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies' subscription histories (because he worked on those as designer/director), and of course through industry contact probably had knowledge of other games' subscription histories.

I'd give his theories some serious thoughts before dismissing them.

(Also, the 'data' he was referring to was gathered by Bruce Woodcock (MMOGCHART.COM) from (mostly) publicly available info, and Woodcock himself rated the data he presented for various games at various level of trustworthiness--as in the data for some games may be vague or inaccurate.)

[DakAttack]

Re: Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

The proposition stated is actually: For each market the game is released to and for each major update/expansion, the subscription/userbase over the life time of the MMO will have *that* shaped curve. So, of course they are added together when talking about the total subscription/userbase.

It's pretty elementary.

By the way, the author, Raphael Koster, is a long time online game designer/developer (since at least 1995). He had direct access to Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies' subscription histories (because he worked on those as designer/director), and of course through industry contact probably had knowledge of other games' subscription histories.

I'd give his theories some serious thoughts before dismissing them.

(Also, the 'data' he was referring to was gathered by Bruce Woodcock (MMOGCHART.COM) from (mostly) publicly available info, and Woodcock himself rated the data he presented for various games at various level of trustworthiness--as in the data for some games may be vague or inaccurate.)

I give actual statistics serious thought, not somebody claiming they're one way or the other.

[Omgwtfbbqkitten]

Re: Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

By the way, the author, Raphael Koster, is a long time online game designer/developer (since at least 1995). He had direct access to Ultima Online and Star Wars Galaxies' subscription histories (because he worked on those as designer/director), and of course through industry contact probably had knowledge of other games' subscription histories.

So the very first MMO and then an MMO that FFXIV isn't quite down there with. SWG had THE worst launch in history aside from the more recent APB, even with the problems FFXIV has, its not nearly as bad as when SWG started out.

[ItazuraNhomango]

Re: Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

More off topic, FF14 stuff. (Minimal reference to FF11.)

I give actual statistics serious thought, not somebody claiming they're one way or the other.

Fine, fine.

Sep 19 to Nov 18 (From: Poor, poor FFXIV. =( - FFXIAH.com )


Sep 23 to Nov 3 (excluded holidays)


There's no growth; any way you look at it, iit looks peaked. That should be alarming, given that SE has waved the subscription fee for the moment.

The next update may (or may not) give the population a boost, but it's almost a sure thing when SE starts to charge for subscription fee there would be a drop in the number of players. (Bug fix update and subscription fee probably will at best just cancel each other out, and most likely continue the decline in totality, IMO.)

It's an open question whether the PS3 release can raise the number of players to a new peak or not, I think. The precedence isn't good, though; if I'm getting this right, the xBox360 version of FFXI was released in 2006 (along with ToAU), but the peak subscription was reached back in mid 2005.



* * *

The chart is also interesting in that it indicates that the time to hit peak has increasingly shortened. Ultima Online, released in 1997, didn't peak until 2001 (or 2003, depending on which data point you prefer). Likewise, Everquest needed early 1999 to late 2004 for its full growth period.

Compare those with the more recent "A title" releases like Warhammer, Age of Conan, Lord of the Rings, Aion--every one of which was better received by the critics at launch--if you would. (Hint: FFXIV - Win or Fail - FFXIAH.com )

* * *

Metascore fun: Metacritic

Warhammer: 86
Age of Conan: 80
Lord of the Rings: 86
Aion: 76
Final Fantasy XIV: 51

It's not like I wish FF14 a massive failure (though I do complain that FF11 got shafted in terms of resources due to FF14), but it's hard to ignore all the signs of doom. Heck, the JP players were complaining about how the chat system was broken in Japanese--and this is a Japanese MMO. An MMO where the chat UI prevents users from communicating... it's like SE wasn't even trying to release a decent product.

---------- Post added at 03:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 03:10 PM ----------

So the very first MMO and then an MMO that FFXIV isn't quite down there with. SWG had THE worst launch in history aside from the more recent APB, even with the problems FFXIV has, its not nearly as bad as when SWG started out.

The point is that he had intimate, longer term knowledge of player subscription data (both first hand and from industry connections), not that he had the Midas touch with MMORPGs.

Edit: SWG quickly reached 300k subscribers in 2003, and remained above 250k nearly half way into 2005. That's not a horrible launch, is it? It is better than City of Heros, and nearly matches EQ2's peak (325k ish reached early 2005) while out lasting EQ2's prime period (EQ2 dropped below 200k before 2006).

SWG launched OK; the jab-punch combo of "Combat Upgrade" and "New Game Enhancements" was what killed it.

[Karinya]

Re: Heroes of Abyssea Official Site Unveiled! (11/17/2010)

Hmm…maybe…
It does seem to work with my 4 jobs now that I think about it.

Bst gets Monster Belt ( & Ferine back/neck)
Pup gets Pantin Cape ( & Cirque Neck/waist)
Smn gets Summoner cape ( & Caller’s Neck/waist)
Blm gets Sorcerer’s Belt ( & Goetia Neck/back)

Does that match up with every job?

I think it does. None of the relic accessories were neck pieces, but IIRC every job has Abyssean accessories (that match the name of the AF3 main 5 slots set) for neck and whichever of waist/back wasn't covered in Dynamis.

...wait, does that include MNK? They were obviously given a relic cape in the first place so it wouldn't conflict with brown/black belts, but continuing the pattern that Abyssean accessories cover the two slots relic doesn't would mean one of them *did* conflict with brown/black belts (and would have to be pretty damn awesome to compare).

...Upon checking the wiki a bit, it seems SE resolved this dilemma by giving MNK a JSE ammo item instead.