Pebblebrook

Cohort
  • Posts

    398
  • Joined

  1. Might want to run over the Ouro exploration badge marker again in the hero side ouro before going through an alignment change.

    That's the advice from support for my alt, apart from checking your storyarcs and things.
  2. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Quasadu View Post
    I think they're still looking for a balance between too short and too long. They probably feel that a month is too long and players will get bored of the event. I think it's a no win situation because there will always be some players who want it to go on longer, and some who want it to just end already.
    perfect.
    Yeah, that's part of why i think they're trying to manage player density.

    Though for those wanting to end the event to end sooner, that can be a player-controlled task by stopping to participate.

    Last 2 weeks of December has end of quarter/year rush on top of the holiday tasks. Last year was actually perfect for me. I was able to do RL responsibilities then the first 2 weeks of January i got into the winter event.

    My RL stuff is not the devs concern, but still hoping they change their mind.
  3. Quote:
    Originally Posted by shaggy5 View Post
    I have tried to have the conversation with other players about why they like traps.
    As someone else said, compared to ff, traps feels more active. And before they bugfixed (or nerfed...depends on who you ask heh) poison traps it was a very effective set...still is but not as much as before.

    With ff, i might have been fine with it except single-target, short-term buffs are annoying to reapply to a team or your pets...and ff has two of these.
  4. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Noyjitat View Post
    Cant wait. Seems shorter than last year though.
    It is shorter by 2 weeks. Last year's event was close to a month. Maybe they're managing player densities for events this year. But like the shortened halloween event felt somewhat pressuring, i might not be as into this one as well, especially with the holiday stuff i need to do.

    Oh well.
  5. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Mr. DJ View Post
    Things being postponed isn't a new concept, **** happens, get over it. You are paying for a luxury, you are not entitled to a thing besides access to the servers.
    I'm sure the devs are well aware of the implications of delays from a customer relations perspective, (might even cost them dev dollars internally when a project gets extended), so if they stop a release because of a "show-stopping" bug then i agree we should be relieved that didn't go live.

    Though it's understandable some would complain. It's like my cable tv service. It doesn't matter how many hardworking people are out there maintaining the wire, relay stations and programming uplinks...doesn't even matter it's been up for months, if it goes down for a short time when i'm expecting something fun to watch, i end up complaining too.

    But the part about only being entitled to server access is not completely accurate. The subscription entitles people access to the game service which resides on server hardware but includes all content that service provides short of the paid extras.

    If the devs thought that people will be satisfied with just server access they wouldn't keep incurring further development costs and would've just stopped at the original CoH box content.
  6. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bloodspeaker View Post
    I'm not going to except JUST new sales numbers, or new subscription numbers, or numbers of microtransactions, or any OTHER numbers BY THEMSELVES, as evidence that any MMO is doing well OR badly. By themselves, they can only represent one facet of a game's success.
    I don't know about others but i didn't mention anything about success in this instance...just saying what is. If you prefer not seeing it, the option of not looking is always available.
  7. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man View Post
    Which, again, people need to keep in mind, as the US dollar--the currency by which the vast majority of CoH players use to pay for their accounts--has become severely devalued in the last few years.

    Ofcourse. You get a relatively similar graph if you convert to USD.


    Code:
    Yearly Sales
    KRW       USD                Year
    31,475    27,607,023      2004 *Not full year (3 quarters)
    34,265    33,199,783      2005    
    25,016    25,770,998      2006    
    23,446    25,059,657      2007    
    24,217    22,335,820      2008    
    22,909    17,760,819      2009    
    12,548    10,711,107      2010 *Not full year (3 quarters)
    
    
    
    
    Quarter        Sales (mn KRW)    Exchange Rate        Sales (USD)
                                              KRW (Avg Ask price)
    Jun-2004        11,135         1166.46923          9,545,901 
    Sep-2004         9,403           1155.43587           8,138,054 
    Dec-2004        10,937           1102.17935           9,923,067 
    Mar-2005         6,341           1027.27389           6,172,648 
    Jun-2005         5,806           1009.23659           5,752,863 
    Sep-2005         6,412           1030.00163           6,225,233 
    Dec-2005        15,706           1043.65467          15,049,039
    Mar-2006         6,523            992.63858           6,571,375 
    Jun-2006         5,532            964.91358           5,733,156 
    Sep-2006         7,429            970.11465           7,657,858 
    Dec-2006         5,532            952.37930           5,808,610 
    Mar-2007         5,954            953.81251           6,242,317 
    Jun-2007         6,370            935.85595           6,806,603 
    Sep-2007         5,721            929.76053           6,153,197 
    Dec-2007         5,401            922.05946           5,857,540 
    Mar-2008         5,416            957.24200           5,657,921 
    Jun-2008         5,743           1020.13255           5,629,661 
    Sep-2008         6,193           1066.12848           5,808,868 
    Dec-2008         6,865           1365.35609           5,027,992 
    Mar-2009         6,837           1415.61656           4,829,698 
    Jun-2009         6,673           1288.31418           5,179,637 
    Sep-2009         5,471           1243.32370           4,400,302 
    Dec-2009         3,928           1172.12370           3,351,182 
    Mar-2010         3,348           1149.27733           2,913,135 
    Jun-2010         3,491           1167.69275           2,989,656 
    Sep-2010         5,709           1187.31793           4,808,316
  8. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bloodspeaker View Post
    That was not my assertion. Try reading what I typed again. Preferably the entire post, rather than just part of it.
    Sorry if i missed something, but trying to understand this branch of the discussion is a bit tricky.

    The original poster you replied to was saying there are less people "playing" now than a year ago but using sales figures as reference.

    (Maybe Championess meant less people subscribed?)

    Then you were pointing out that sales from the latest quarter is about the same as the same time last year.

    (Maybe implying that 3Q10 has about the same subscribers as 3Q09? If not, please clarify)

    And that led to my response you quoted from me.

    Now if you were focusing more on the other part of Championess post that was trying for a direct cause/effect relationship with server load, that's a different matter i didn't go into because it needs other information that was not referenced.

    /edit: Oh, you were wondering what the y-axis represents in FatherXmas' graph was....that looks like south korean won (millions).
  9. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bloodspeaker View Post
    I would, if there were any accompanying data that specifically stated that were the reason. There isn't.
    So is it your assertion that that CoX sales figure in the quarterly report only reflects subscription revenue and not sales of expansions and other things?
  10. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Bloodspeaker View Post
    Numbers may not lie, but they can obviously be misinterpreted. I look at the graph you tout as evidence, specifically at Q309 (3rd quarter of 2009) and Q310 (3rd quarter 2010), and see virtually identical numbers, with Q310 being slightly HIGHER.
    You should also consider that though both of those quarters are about the same, 3Q10 has an uptick in sales due to a major expansion release and 3Q09 doesn't.
  11. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Arcanaville View Post
    One of the oddities that I'm trying to figure out is that the data suggests very few players prepurchased Going Rogue. I wouldn't have guessed that.
    I don't know about the majority of GR buyers, but waiting for the complete box meant a free month...so value-wise that seemed better.
  12. Think i'm getting some things mixed up...memory is spotty (end of year craziness here)

    Anyways...wasn't there a dev post (maybe a tweet) saying something like 75% of the active playerbase has a praetorian? Maybe someone can confirm that. And (also fuzzy) i think there was a jack emmert interview or something that said CoV brought in additional players.

    I'm sure there are other factors i'm leaving out, but that could be a reason?

    Will see if i can dig up some links unless someone helps me out.

    /edit: Oh, does anyone remember what the launch price of the CoV box was?

    * Found it, box price anyway...CoV MSRP was $49.99
  13. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Father Xmas View Post
    Then GR was a strange beast. We had online pre-purchase going on since late 1st quarter and the store box mid third quarter along with the online extras pack for those who pre-purchased. At the very least it's the reason we didn't get an distinctive sales spike like we saw when CoV was released.
    Well to see if or how much of a spike, we'll need to see the corresponding decrease to its increase, which means have to wait till 4Q.

    But if you're comparing the leading edge of the spike from CoV's launch and GR's then not sure what you mean by a lack of a distinctive jump in sales. The quarter CoV launched (4Q 2005) saw around a 44% increase before it and almost a corresponding decrease after.

    GR so far we see around a 62% increase from previous. If 4Q sees a drop close to that percentage, i'd say that's more of a distinctive spike than CoV. Sure the exact amount differs a great deal but that's likely because we have fewer subcribers now.


    *Ignore the percentages in this post, they were made by a crazy person with a demented calculator. Yep, it's the calculator's fault...that's right.
  14. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Silver Gale View Post
    Or it could mean about the same amount of people are paying subscriptions, but more of them are in-game more often.
    Always possible, but might not be probable. While back, the servers used to go yellow around 1400 +/- 150 unhidden and red around 2800 +/- 200...with the i18 build, i see it go yellow around 200 +/- 30 and red around 1000 +/- 75.

    After NCSoft stopped publishing their server access numbers i can no longer extrapolate the hidden players to confirm, so i suppose it's possible at i18's launch there was a flood of hidden players that outnumber the unhidden ones by 7 to 1 for yellow, however historically that hasn't been the case.

    EDIT:
    I don't know about game builds in relation to server load, but anyone know if it's possible the GR build causes more load per player than previous builds?
  15. Yes just looking at NCSoft's total sales CoX is usually around 2% of that, which doesn't seem like much. But another thing to consider is how much they want North America sales. NA sales to date is 40,645 mn krw which CoX comprises a little less than 31% of that. I'm sure that counts for something, or i'd like think it does.
  16. Quote:
    Originally Posted by TheJazMan View Post
    I think the 4Q will also be quite telling. Stay tuned, true believers!
    Well like other box releases, 4Q sales will probably drop back to about the same level as the quarter before the box sales spike. Maybe even a tad higher depending on how the origins pack does and if the incarnate system in i19 would convince people to resub. But guessing 4Q would be closer to 2Q than 3Q sales wise.

    EDIT: Actually, thinking about it some more...4Q would be telling in more ways than one possibly. The server load indicators were green for all servers in 2Q, if the sales (which predominantly represent subscriptions) in 4Q turns out to be close to that of 2Q and if the load indicators are still yellow/red that could mean that the load threshold ranges have changed.
  17. Quote:
    Originally Posted by OPTICAL_ILLUSION View Post
    bad context in your 1st post leandro.

    follow the link, look at cox numbers, think about cox numbers with the "big picture" in mind, then come back and discuss cox numbers NOT other ncsoft numbers.

    By big picture, if you mean like in their sales goal for the year then i'd say i'm not confident they'll make their 2010 guidance figure of 19 billion won (which by the way, is the lowest sales goal corporate has set for CoX since launch). The first 2 quarters were down by half and the 3rd quarter sales didn't even double. So far they have 12.6 billion won with one quarter to make the remaining 6.4 billion.

    Yes 3rd quarter sales is about a 60% increase from the previous quarter but that quarter and the one before it were both down by about half each from their YoY

    3Q 2010 is a bit higher but close to the previous year of 5.5 billion won (3Q 2009) and that quarter didn't have a major expansion release like this one does.


    EDIT: To add some additional context, although it involves some "guesstimations":

    The increased amount from 2Q to 3Q is 2,218,000,000 won with the average exchange rate for that quarter being 0.00085 USD (ask price) that would be about 1.9 million US dollars. If that is entirely from GR sales (the $40 one) that would make about 47k units sold, or perhaps 47k ish accounts/players bought GR...ballpark figure i think.

    EDIT2: Oh just glazed over it the first read through but...the report's 5,709 number is in millions krw so it's actually 5,709,000,000 krw (hehe nitpick i know)
  18. They did say we get early access to 1 then 2 powersets and that there will be a separate item pack with the preorder but i recall there were threads asking what will be in the pack since its contents wasn't mentioned.

    It's a bit vague now though.
  19. Quote:
    Originally Posted by 33253 View Post
    I find that if you don't have an agenda, if you don't get involved with your community, if you don't voice and make a noise about what you want to keep...

    when it DOES change, you are gonna lose and its gonna SUCK.
    Heh, i can understand that. That's sort of similar to my philosophy. That's why i keep up on the quarterlies...IF something's going to happen, it's better to see it from afar instead of getting blindsided.

    What i can't understand is the evasive manner of your replies though. Nothing wrong with trying to discuss the state of the game through numbers if done with proper decorum.
  20. Anything is possible, but i try not to include possible ulterior motives onto posts. I just base my reply to posts based on its contents.

    Hope no one judges me by my short post history

    I can't justify two accounts at the moment so i let my main lapse, i kept this one because it has more free character slots hehe.
  21. He seems very evasive so not sure you'll get a link from him. But in general...NCSoft's quarterly reports are here

    /edit
    They stopped carrying the 2004 reports though but you can get those numbers from 2005. And they stopped publishing the server access numbers after 3Q 2008.

    All sales figures are in korean won and not US dollars...hence my last comment that i don't know where/how he got the red line figures in his chart.
  22. Did i say you made it up? I just said i'm not sure where you got it since i didn't see those exact numbers in the quarterly report...maybe calculated from them?
  23. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Scarlet Shocker View Post
    Of course it does. What is its source? How accurate is it? When was it last updated? How does it compare with known facts?
    I recognized the numbers on the blue line, it's the monthly server access numbers from NCSoft's quarterlies.

    Not sure where he got the red line figures though.
  24. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Nethergoat View Post
    Says the fellow who couldn't stop calling me a "troll" for disagreeing with his views until the mods started slapping him around?

    LAWLZ.

    Despite my better judgement, i had to check to see if you had something interesting to say, but alas.

    But since i did, you sure you didn't reply to the wrong person...where did i exactly call you that term?
  25. Quote:
    Originally Posted by Forbin_Project View Post
    While you do have a point it's also true that most of the player base were here when CoV was released and paid for those items, and just as CoV eventually merged with CoH becoming CoX, GR will most likely be merged with CoX in a year or two. When that happens the unique GR costumes will be available to everyone just like the unique CoV costumes are now.

    Yep, that's why i used the word "negate" since basically the pack side got the same amount as the issue side in relation to CoV pieces, albeit not at the same instant.

    And if they do the same with GR, that would be welcomed by me, though we might get back to the same debate if the post-wedding pack pieces are the only ones left tipping the balance scales over. Assuming they keep making packs in the following years.

    Edit: But i'll leave that to the future.