Subs down 25%

This is a reasonable discussion free zone. No need to bring reasonable facts into the argument.

Quote: Originally Posted by Erishumlol
ATM SWTOR is the third most played MMO in the world behind WOW and Aion.

http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/Subs-1.png

1.3 Million is 10% less then 1.7 million? 400,000 = 10% of 1.7 Million?

I'll take any bets now that Q1 2013 is down another 25%

Since I know BW is monitoring this thread closely because it has to due with player perception of a declining subscription base I recommend you read this article from someone who knows about community building in a star wars IP that failed due to poor community relations after the designers moved on and a halfwit named Smedley stuck his foot in it.

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Business Week Online just published an article on new media and community that’s an excerpt from Henry Jenkins‘ new book. Edit: Looks like it came originally from Next Generation. It heavily references the work that we did early on in SWG in building community.

These days, it sure seems like there’s a mixed reaction to how the community is handled, but I do think we did a pretty good job back then, and at the time it was widely referenced as a model.

The premises under which we operated were:

Be open to the players: both in terms of telling them what you are doing, and in terms of listening to what they want
Communicate daily
Communicate honestly
If things change, tell them why — they’re smart people, they will understand
Have weekly events of info release so that there’s a reason to come back regularly
Ask questions, and listen to the answers
Celebrate and highlight the best contributors

Some have since decided that it was listening to the players too much that caused some of the design problems with SWG. I am not sure I agree. If anything, I think that many subsequent problems came from not listening enough, or not asking questions in advance of changes. Walking a mile in the players’ shoes is a difficult trick to pull off even if you have the best of intentions.

The tensest and most difficult moments in SWG’s development — and they came often — were when we had to remove something that players really liked. Usually, it was against our own wishes, because of time constraints or (rarely) orders from on high. But we couldn’t tell the players the real reasons sometimes. That sucked, frankly, because the open relationship really did matter. As often as we could, we laid everything bare.

These days, it’s accepted wisdom that you don’t reveal a feature until it’s done, so as to guarantee that you never let the players down. Of course, even finished features sometimes fall out for one reason or another…

In any case, I think I don’t agree with that philosophy. I’d rather have prospective players on a journey with the team, than have them be a passive group marketed to. Yes, they will suffer the ups and downs, and see the making of the sausage… but these days, that’s getting to be an accepted thing in creative fields. There’s not much to gain, to my mind, in having the creators sitting off on a pedestal somewhere — people fall from pedestals, and pedestals certainly will not survive contact with Live operation of a virtual world.

Instead, I’d rather the customers know the creators as people who make mistakes, so that when one happens, they are more likely to be forgiven or understood.

How did the experiment work out? Well, bottom line in SWG’s case is that we certainly overpromised and underdelivered. But the curve for active community users was an exponential one aiming at the moon, and until the day when I had to go out there and tell them that the game was being released, they were working with us — contentiously, but all pulling in one direction. And the result was that registrants to the game on the first weekend was exactly equal to the number of active community users, and the sales curve simply continued that trend over time.

Simple question to all.

Do you feel there is less people about now compared to when there was in the first 3 months?

Stop talking about 1.3 million subs, they don't have them, they know that.

1.2 killed pvp for a huge amount of players, funny that pvp takes up a very large % of the population.

Those who think they have 1.3 mil subs considering they offered free time for lvl 50's after 1.2's failure need to take the red pill, seriously look at everything that's happened in the last 5 weeks and honestly you believe they have that many playing?


Lol got love the forums for delusions of grandeur.