Guild Wars sells 6 million Units
By
Coin,
Posted on: 2009-04-24 24:44 in CoH and CoV General Discussions
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Listen. I'm the CEO of WoW. I am told by a fan the game is uncool. I lose sleep. Not.
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good point, but I'm one of those rare kinda chaps that if I were the CEO of WoW, despite the big piles of cash I'd feel dirty for pedelling such wares! :P
In-game and now on Twitter @Tsumiju Zero "The Nightmare of Dra'Gon"
"The flow of battle can only be influenced, not by realtime tactics, but by strategy."
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Echoing others in this thread, GW is my ultimate "fallback" multiplayer game, when I can't be arsed to play any MMOs. I've paid for it once and don't need to pay for it again outside of account services.
I did buy the PVP Skill Unlock packs, but that was when they had a sale (They were £1.99 each or something), and it was just after Christmas, so I had money to burn.
Still haven't finished Eye of the North's campaign.
People always mention WoW's graphics, but I actually prefer them to something like AoC. I'd rather have stylized graphics that look good on many systems than poor 'realistic' graphics that only look good on a monolith of technology.
Also, on Steam I see Guild Wars Trilogy has entered the top sellers list alongside such titles as L4D, Orange Box, Counter-Strike: Source and so forth.
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Also, on Steam I see Guild Wars Trilogy has entered the top sellers list alongside such titles as L4D, Orange Box, Counter-Strike: Source and so forth.
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Its quite good - I can actually stand in Shing Jea and Ascalon* and offer help again. there ARE new players.
*and OFC Spamadan, but its not like that isnt always busy
Yeah, the European districts were hella busy when I logged in a little while ago. Not down to silly levels like during the Winter Events (Welcome to Lion's Arch District 34, for example), but busy nonetheless.
GW sold 6 million units over 4 years. That's the total amount of boxes sold - IE: accounts activated. It has a big appeal in that it is "free", or being perceived as such.
Personally i don't count it as being an MMO at all, since the world where actual gameplay happens is instanced and capped at 8 players (or 48 in the largest PVP arenas, of which there are still only 2 i believe). It's much more like Diablo 2 than Everquest. That said, it's relatively easy to get into, it looks nice, and it's got a great word-of-mouth advertising going, even if just for the "free" thing.
Now, remember that CoX might only have 130k active accounts.... That is in no way the same as sold boxes, which is the number cited for Guild Wars. I bought the original Guild Wars CE, but i've only played for a month and never looked back. It still counts as a unit sold, even though that was 4 years ago - But i'm not playin it.
Given the average retention rate for mmo's (around 6 months) i'd say there are somewhere in between 700,000 to 1,000,000 units sold for CoX in total. It's still a lot less than Guild Wars, but it puts the numbers into a proper perspective.
For that matter, i'd estimate that there's around 25 million units sold in total for WoW, or thereabouts, given 9m active accounts (currently) plus the average retention rate taken over 4 years during it's growth. It may even be more, but that's pure speculation, i just know a lot more people that quit the game than people who are still playing it.
6 million boxes... would that be Prophecies, or all the boxes combined? Because in my case, I own Nightfall, Factions, Prophecies and will be getting Eye of the North soon.
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Personally i don't count it as being an MMO at all, since the world where actual gameplay happens is instanced and capped at 8 players (or 48 in the largest PVP arenas, of which there are still only 2 i believe). It's much more like Diablo 2 than Everquest. That said, it's relatively easy to get into, it looks nice, and it's got a great word-of-mouth advertising going, even if just for the "free" thing.
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Then funny enough CoH isnt a MMO either. Missions you can only do with your party, not with anyone else. Only the 'main hubs' you can see and interact with eachother, happen that CoH has some mobs there also. And CoH got even worse in that, apart from the US sewer hunts, 'streetwise' CoH is plain dead.
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6 million boxes... would that be Prophecies, or all the boxes combined? Because in my case, I own Nightfall, Factions, Prophecies and will be getting Eye of the North soon.
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Everything being a 'retail box'. Thus for your case, 3. Not sure if EotN is counted as seperate, as you need at least 1 of the first 3 to be able to play.
The new update of Guildwars is great, zaishen quests, your personal pet-place, i love it.
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
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Then funny enough CoH isnt a MMO either. Missions you can only do with your party, not with anyone else. Only the 'main hubs' you can see and interact with eachother, happen that CoH has some mobs there also. And CoH got even worse in that, apart from the US sewer hunts, 'streetwise' CoH is plain dead.
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CoH/V has enough persistent zones, that you can hunt in if you want, to qualify it as an MMO. It may not be the most expansive of MMO worlds for outdoor exploration/combat, but by my reckoning 43 persistent zones you can hunt in and only 3 non-combat persistent zones (Pocket D, Ouroboros, Midnight Club) adds up to more persistent areas than a lot of MMOs have.
I played Guild Wars and D&D Online when they first launched and both only had a single non-combat city hub with instances off that, which to me made them more like playing Diablo 2 on Bnet than an actual MMO. Sure, they've expanded on that since, but you can't seriously say CoH/V was ever that limited. Do GW or D&D Online have anything like our Mothership/Hami Raids now, where 30+ players can all fight together?
Outdoor hunting still happens. Sure, double debt and lack of mission/arc bonuses are no incentive, but you can only blame the game so far for community habits. You mentioned sewer teams, but I've seen players hunting outdoors in Cimerora (clearing the walls) and both soloers and teams in RWZ and other hazard zones when I've hunted outdoors there myself.
The last 7 levels solo outdoors with my EM/Elec in RWZ actually went faster than doing missions, with better drops (notably more purples at 47+) and enough Vanguard merits to get all the costume unlocks for him. Plus my friend and I did a warshade+fire/kin duo which hunted almost exclusively in blueside hazard zones (as they thrived on huge spawns) and levelled noticeably faster than our other dozen or so duos to date.
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Do GW or D&D Online have anything like our Mothership/Hami Raids now, where 30+ players can all fight together?
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Do they need to?
If you aks me its a lot harder organising a team of 12 skilled players than gathering thousands to win by sheer numbers.
Comparisons need common ground, in the same way you can't compare boxes sold to acounts that renew - you can't compare Hami raids with Gw. The system of play is too different.
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Do GW or D&D Online have anything like our Mothership/Hami Raids now, where 30+ players can all fight together?
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Do they need to?
If you aks me its a lot harder organising a team of 12 skilled players than gathering thousands to win by sheer numbers.
Comparisons need common ground, in the same way you can't compare boxes sold to acounts that renew - you can't compare Hami raids with Gw. The system of play is too different.
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Speaking on DDO's behalf; I also echo same question, do they need to?
All raids in DDO i joined is far more entartaining TFs of CoH (except Statesman TF which requires team work like that raids). Also you can start that raids without full raid team and enjoy/study the raids which gives another flavor to the players.
Don't try to size up CoH with DDO in terms of raids/TFs because most of CoH task forces are similiar missions as well as same maps normal missions use. DDO has unique but lesser missions and more enjoyable stories. Pity that game wasted in the hands of a company like Turbine which rushed it out with the half of things what makes D&D, D&D we know and like. Still they will introduce Druids and Half breed races (Half Orc and Half Elves) as they said they will be in game soon, nearly since the launch of the game.
On Topic; According to my knowledge of Turkish players, GW's biggest plus was Free to Play side of the game. IMO it is too late to drag new players into CoH as new and shinier super hero games are on horizon. Especially one is offering more freedom than CoH and one is offering a great comic world and its trademarked heroes.
I agree with both of you, but one of the things about massively multi-player games is that they are supposed to let you have massive amounts of players co-operating or competing together - while there's a tendency for MMOs moving away from raiding to grouping now (which I generally prefer - though I still like big events occasionally, like MS raids here), having lots of players together in a persistent world is a hallmark of MMOs.
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having lots of players together in a persistent world is a hallmark of MMOs.
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If this is the criteria that defines an MMO, then we only have one true MMO, which is EVE Online.
In most other MMOs the shared areas could often be described as semi-persitant at best. Interact with pretty much anything in the shared areas of the world except the players themselves and it will be something that will be reset to its original state in a matter of minutes or hours.
But whether a game like Guild Wars fulfills some specific definition of MMORPG or not is really beside the point. It is still close enough that it attracts the same type of audience.
And if discussing how many are actually playing the games, look at the play time statistics at XFire. Guild Wars has currently almost 11000 users per day, while City of Heroes+Villains barely 1000 users.
[url="http://adingworld.wordpress.com/mission-architect-story-arcs/"][b]My Story arcs[/b][/url]: [i]The Siren Supremes[/i] ([b]1143[/b]), [i]The Missing Geneticist[/i] ([b]2542[/b]), [i]Elemental Jones[/i] ([b]263512[/b]), [i]The Soul Hunter[/i] ([b]294431[/b]), [i]Heart of Steel[/i] ([b]407104[/b]), [i]Project Serpens[/i] ([b]434082[/b])
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And if discussing how many are actually playing the games, look at the play time statistics at XFire. Guild Wars has currently almost 11000 users per day, while City of Heroes+Villains barely 1000 users.
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Hardly a trustable metric, is it? You have to USE XFire for it to register, and don't know anyone who does.
@FloatingFatMan
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And if discussing how many are actually playing the games, look at the play time statistics at XFire. Guild Wars has currently almost 11000 users per day, while City of Heroes+Villains barely 1000 users.
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Hardly a trustable metric, is it? You have to USE XFire for it to register, and don't know anyone who does.
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I've never heard of XFire - but I play CoH most days 
@Golden Girl
City of Heroes comics and artwork
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Hardly a trustable metric, is it? You have to USE XFire for it to register, and don't know anyone who does.
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Of course it is not trustable to get actual number of players. It is still a metric that is the same for multiple games, rather than the apples and oranges comparisions one ends up with from various MMO companies. Everyone uses some number that sounds favourable for that type of game, if they give numbers at all.
[url="http://adingworld.wordpress.com/mission-architect-story-arcs/"][b]My Story arcs[/b][/url]: [i]The Siren Supremes[/i] ([b]1143[/b]), [i]The Missing Geneticist[/i] ([b]2542[/b]), [i]Elemental Jones[/i] ([b]263512[/b]), [i]The Soul Hunter[/i] ([b]294431[/b]), [i]Heart of Steel[/i] ([b]407104[/b]), [i]Project Serpens[/i] ([b]434082[/b])
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If this is the criteria that defines an MMO, then we only have one true MMO, which is EVE Online.
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It does partly depend on your definition of "lots" 
Imho things get far too chaotic with more than 30 and tbh I prefer an upper limit of 20 (and most of the time I am perfectly happy in a duo or small group of 4-6). Having led raids in EQ1 with 71 other people involved I'd rather not experience that again (the phrase "herding cats" comes to mind) and I'd rather my MMOs weren't too massively multiplayer. But every now and again it is nice to see 50+ players gathered in one place and lots of chaos (and lag) - like at Rikti zone raids when they were new - if only to know that your chosen MMO is healthy and thriving.
Though 400 player battles in Planetside (generally 167 vs 133 vs 100 players of the 3 Empires on a continent - I think those were the caps) were massively fun and the only time I've ever felt part of a real campaign with masses of people involved while playing online. Part of me would like that back one day (64 player instances in BF2142, 32 v 32, were not the same - more like a skirmish compared to a war).
EVE doesn't interest me - looks too much like hard work - I get sick enough of business and corporations at the day job
Ok so to drag this back on topic slightly, I'm guessing the concensus so far is that GW is a great "fall back."
Once you've bought the box and various expansions you can dip in and out whenever you like.
(to the question was the 6 million all campaigns I'd guess yes) but I'm guessing that is the case but even so, that's significant $$$
Imagine this model:
CoX free to play with 2 paid expansions a year. Would that really be so bad? Would it kill the game or would the game grow?
You tell me
Thelonious Monk
To be honest, with a few buffs here and there I personally think if they had a larger staff meaning more devotion to the game itself then yes it could stand on it's own two feet.
That is, if a lot of in-game correspondence happened. Which I think is the second main factor that attracts 'Guild Wars'. The events/lore exploration; key interactivity. Personally, I just love how they've woven their own laborious hands throughout every corner.
This however is not a dig at CoX and it's members by the way, 'Guild Wars' is possibly so different in every aspect.
Fury
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CoX free to play with 2 paid expansions a year. Would that really be so bad? Would it kill the game or would the game grow?
You tell me
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Would kill it.
Guildwars has always been designed to be a f2p game, the entire system is based on it (such as lower server costs since u only work with hubs) along with i must say a very very good anti-bot thing.
Now hold your horsies, they have bots i admit. But for a f2p game with no protection such as PB or GG, they do pretty good. Add the anti-farm code, they can beat down alot of f2p games regarding bots.
Now, what would happen if everyone could freely roam the worlds of CoH? For one, the farming/powerlvling/inf-selling will go CRAZY, there will be a flush on bots, auto-thingies and sortlike, why? because the system was never build for it.
Also, where would they get the money from? The 'stretch' is out of the game, you cant just ask 20-50 usd for a issue, if it aint that big as GW's faction, EotN or nightfall. So micro-transactions, but what on earth could u sell?
Basicly, this game isnt build for f2p, and probably never will. And without a UK office now, i dont think they could handle the overload of 'spam' on the servers all day long. (i dont know 1 EU f2p game that can do this).
They could give it a go, but my experience in f2p aint that great to want to see such good game going down the drain. Added, even with 1000 concurrent people lag already is going crazy, i dont wanna thing about 10 servers totaly full of it.
50)Sinergy X/(50)Mika.
(50)MaceX/(50)Encore
Sign the petition, dont let CoH go down! SIGN!
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It's seen as the "cool" MMO, and quite surprisingly so, in my opinion, since I never really saw the appeal.
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I'm sorry? Since WHEN was WoW cool?
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Since living in a basement ordering in Pizza through a chat system and shunning your friends has been. Its Hermit Chic
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I have got to say, If I was NC or abnother MMO publishing company, I would spend a million dollars hiring the best people on earth to study the market, analyse WOW and try to find out exactly why it is so succesful and why, 5 years on, it is doing better than ever.
The players arent andriods, commanded to play WoW. They have likes, dislikes, boredom thresholds, the same as everyone else.
What they have got is the understanding of MMOs and are happy to pay to play. So, they're like apples on a tree, waiting to be picked off.
There has to be a way of grabbing just a small % away from that game and I'd want to know what they way is.
Don't get into a flap. It's only my opinion and I'm thick
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