What is the general consensus on server emptyness?

Are you new to the internet?

I was hoping to have an appropriate discussion with a great community, but with people like you on the forums devolving every thread into ignorant nonconstructive statements it makes it difficult.

no u!

i am rubber u r glue whatever u say bounces off of me and sticks to U!

server merge threads tend to take the stance of "OMG THE GAME IS DOOMED", so even the ones that aren't get tarred with that same brush

For a game this far along in it's life cycle, server merges aren't as ominous as people seem to think, so I wouldn't be too concerned if it happened so long as they figured out the name thing.

I think a lot of people feel like server merges are the first step toward shutting the game down though, so they will react with venom to the slightest suggestion.

For me personally, I wrote off your initial post when I read this paragraph:

I'm one of the folks that honestly does enjoy playing solo and playing on a less populated server. And in that one paragraph, you basically called me a liar, that you couldn't believe anyone could enjoy empty servers, and you dismissed us all as apologists. And THEN you condescendingly state that despite us all being apologist liars, you're still awesome enough to not hold it against us.

I don't think I posted a reply in this thread or sent neg rep (but I could be wrong, as that paragraph rankled me a bit). But honestly, you came off as a troll who thought himself quite witty for making a thinly-veiled attack on his fellow players, not as someone interested in actual dialogue.

Does that answer your question?

d

You're missing the point that a number of us don't see any problems with the servers. Maybe people got tired of CC's? Or are chilling in PD rather now? AP isn't the game since most of the level restrictions have been lifted for zones and there is SSK. Add on that we can set our own diff to team-like levels, the need to team on various things is reduced some.

There are tools available. Like Grey Pilgrim pointed out earlier, there is a sticky for Victory. We tell people about the globals (like when I am on a PUG and see new players). I would agree with people that a better communication of the globals should be made, like in the tutorial or a new contact in starter zones that you can meet and read about Globals.

Stuff is going on all the time.

There are also the people that not only bought the digital GR Pre-Purchase, but have also ordered the physical copy.

Angel Red
"We're heroes. Fighting injustice is the thing we do." ~Rebel Scum

No you weren't. You made it crystal clear to everyone that you were only looking for people to agree with you. You categorically dismissed and insulted everyone who disagrees with your conclusions by saying this.


Furthermore trying to claim that you wanted to have "an appropriate discussion with a great community" is a load of crap. To have a discussion with the community you have to participate in it. You made one initial post on 7/9/2010 and then abandoned the thread for 12 days.

When you do finally decide to grace the thread with your presence it's not to "discuss" your initial post but to again insult everyone by claiming

Which tells us you haven't even bothered to read the thread because if you had you would have seen that there are a few respondents that agreed with you.

This was nothing more than a troll thread looking to start a flame war and since it hasn't devolved into what you were hoping for you are now trying to stir up negative feelings again by claiming people sent you mean PM's in hopes that it will start something.

If you received nasty PM's or Rep comments petition them. We don't care what was said to you in private. That's an issue to be settled by the Mods and doesn't belong in the forums.

Hey Flea.

I did some quick googling and found something related to Tabula Rasa:

"ROI = Vf-Vi/Vi
where Vf equals money saved/earned and Vi equals your initial investment.

So let's consider this, please change the numbers and recalculate if you know more accurate numbers. Using Tabula Rasa's rumored $100 million price tag (may only be $20 million, lol, who knows). In 2007-8 it was estimated there was 88k paying customers (see article below). We'll estimate that 200k bought the game initially. Obviously, these are gross assumptions, but it is a starter, as players come and go, some paid a month or two, and more may have purchased it originally, etc etc.

Money going out:
Initial Investment: $100,000,000
Monthly cost to maintain, server upkeep & hosting, pay support, devs, etc $2,000,000

Money Coming In:
Initial Sales: $50 box, say $25 directly back to developer: 200k*$25 = $5,000,000
Monthly revenue from subscriptions: 88,000 * $14 = $1,232,000

Therefore the game would be bleeding money of over $700,000 a month with the possibility of never paying for itself, that is why it was shut down. Even if the monthly maintenance was closer to 1 million (based on Frotus' estimate), it would take over 400 months to repay the $100 million dollar initial investment. So essentially, what we need to know is what it costs to maintain a game monthly including the cost for hosting, server maintenance, customer service, development team, keep the water in the crapper flowing, etc."


From MMORPG.com...where it was claimed WoW cost 50 million a year to upkeep (?).


If we're at 50K-70K paying subs...we need more subs and recurring subs to keep the game afloat.

I think the game is probably floating quite well. I'd put the expenditure rate around $6M/year, which would put the break-even point at about 33,000 subs.

Obviously, getting more subs would be good, but I don't think the situation is dire. We should get a nice lift out of GR - hopefully that doesn't crash immediately, but goes back into the slow decline we've been having over the last years.

Actually, I think the situation will be exactly the opposite for quite a while. I think we will see unprecedented crowds in Praetoria, even more so than when CoV was released.

if the servers were based on a pay for server setup, then yes this would be a concern. as of right now, it doesn't seem to be. your very last sentence seems to imply that you grasp that.

Hopefully those new players all choose to start in praetoria.

considering it will be the only box on the shelves, i don't see this being a problem. even if they don't, there will be plenty of us still running around in the original zones to help out.

The thing you need to realize is a server (e.g. Victory) is not a single box. It's a stack of servers that together provide the appearance of a single server. Because of this, it's possible to scale the stack up or down to deal with a given load. So the Virtue server stack has more machines than the Victory server stack. If the Victory population goes down, they can shrink the stack, and use the box in a different server stack. Even for a different NC Soft property.

This means that there's not so much to gain be merging low population servers in terms of reducing costs. The main reason to consider merging servers is to improve the customer experience, but there doesn't seem to be a consensus that the low-population experience is undesirable.

Also, given the highly instanced nature of the game, I'm not sure it's easy to make the case that the high-population experience is that different from the low-populations experience.

You plan on leveling many new toons from 1-20 in the rogue isle/paragon city when GR first hits?

The box they are picking up is called Going Rogue, not "Praetoria".

I see two possible ways a new character will choose their starting world.

You either select the world you want to start in: Rogue Isle, Paragon City, or Praetoria. And then it takes you to character creation where the available ones are open to pick from.
or
You build your new character and when you hit create after naming it is prompts you as to which world you'd like to start in. Based on whether you have selected a scrapper for instance or a brute it will prompt you to start in Paragon/Praetoria, or Rogue Isles/Praetoria.

I'm interested in whether they plan to keep the initial hero/villain selector. If you pick a brute and start it in Praetoria is it actually a villain, or is it just in limbo like the scrapper that has started in Praetoria too?

The characters I intend to have switch sides have already been leveled to level 20 and are now patiently waiting for GR to be released.

I agree that the name could cause confusion to people new to the game. We'll have to wait and see how they decided to handle character creation and faction selection. If I had to guess I'd think it would be similar to what we currently have where the first thing we choose is a faction. However as far as I know they may intend to change things.

well, seeing as how praetoria most likely will be pasted all over the box, and even the desciptions for online purchases, most new players will probably start there. and you seem to forget that with altitis, many people probably have a few toons that don't have that many levels yet. i think it is time for you to lose these feelings you have and just sit back and wait to see what happens.

ya same. Any and all new characters I create during the blitz will start in Praetoria.
Ya I only brought up the creation and faction selection because I doubt a brute will have a different starting experience than a scrapper in Praetoria. So in that sense already assigning them to a faction seems a bit off. I got the feeling that in Praetoria we just "are" and you shape your own path.

I'm not the type to stick my head in the sand and hope the world is ok when I emerge. I'm identifying what I see as a legitimate potential issue.

I do indeed have a lvl 6 blaster that I eventually plan to level, but lets be honest; when GR hits that toon will either be deleted and rerolled in Praetoria to enjoy the new experiences or will remain on the back burner until I have satisfied myself with the new content. I don't think it is wise to think many existing players would behave differently.

"Most new players will probably start there". You are probably right.
-Most
-Probably
Those aren't decisive words of power that inspire confidence.

I'm absolutely sure that the 1-20 experience is going to be extremely lonely regardless of server choice if you aren't doing it in Praetoria during the first few weeks or even months.

I guess that's ok. It will probably be fine and the game will probably give most new players a great first impression.

well, i'm not a dev, nor can i read the minds of new players. therefore, i do not like dealing in absolutes, as only sith deal in absolutes, with content that we really have no idea about yet.

like i said, we will have to wait and see.

edit: oh yeah, it seems like closed beta is starting soon. just letting you know so you can be prepared to see less people on the game.

I haven't logged in for a few weeks. It isn't possible to see less than that

edit: I speak in absolutes when absolutely certain. I can say with absolution that the sun will rise tomorrow, just as I can say that there will be very few existing players that purchase GR rolling new toons outside of Praetoria. That means any new player that decides to take that path will be very lonely.