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Stop the fear mongering please, the game isn't dying.
arazith07
Member, NW M9 Playtest Posts: 1,719 Arc User
"Fourth, the game is nearing the end of its life cycle. They will continue to update it and make additions while the game remains profitable, but I would not be surprised to see it go into "maintenance mode" in a couple of years. You do not make major changes to something if you have already decided to let it die slowly."
Too many times I am seeing messages similar to those above, especially when they do not have proof to back up what they are saying.
They are making changes to the game, they are actively investing back into the game, they are wanting our feedback on what the players would want to see in the game going forward. We have a roadmap showing these things, we have interviews in which these things are being said. This needs to be more widespread. However, as misinformation often does, the opinions are spreading faster than the facts and people tend to trust the word of a guildmate or friend over that of some internet nobody.
I welcome anyone who wants to add to the discussion or to debate what I presented.
Video interview with Chris Whiteside and Nova:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YdQMYNBMqo
Written interview, also with Chris Whiteside: https://bleedingcool.com/games/interview-chris-whiteside-for-neverwinter-avernus/
Updated Roadmap for PC: https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1257330/updated-neverwinter-roadmap-stream/p1
Too many times I am seeing messages similar to those above, especially when they do not have proof to back up what they are saying.
They are making changes to the game, they are actively investing back into the game, they are wanting our feedback on what the players would want to see in the game going forward. We have a roadmap showing these things, we have interviews in which these things are being said. This needs to be more widespread. However, as misinformation often does, the opinions are spreading faster than the facts and people tend to trust the word of a guildmate or friend over that of some internet nobody.
I welcome anyone who wants to add to the discussion or to debate what I presented.
Video interview with Chris Whiteside and Nova:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2YdQMYNBMqoWritten interview, also with Chris Whiteside: https://bleedingcool.com/games/interview-chris-whiteside-for-neverwinter-avernus/
Updated Roadmap for PC: https://www.arcgames.com/en/forums/neverwinter/#/discussion/1257330/updated-neverwinter-roadmap-stream/p1
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Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
To explain how this works for all online games;
A man is on a train 100 miles from home. The train travels 50% of the remainder of the trip and stops for 1 second and the resumes at 100 mph instantly each time. How long does it take to complete the entire journey? Answer: Forever. If you keep chopping the distance in half, the man never arrives at the end.
Game population is the same. The game (any game) comes out new and hits the ceiling in the first few months. That population never returns. After that point, it is all downhill. The people come and go and there is swells and ebbs but it slowly trickles away until you have a loyalist fan base remaining. As for Cryptic games, Champions has the fewest but this is where Cryptic started. Seldom does Star Trek Online see numbers higher than Neverwinter, but they do get a swell here and there with new content or when a new show appears on CBS. The last time their numbers rose above Neverwinter was January when they held the 10th anniversary and Picard was announced to be airing on CBS in March. New media punches up the numbers, but the decline always continues.
Champions is still here, so is Star Trek, and Neverwinter will be too. PWE tends to announce closing games well in advance. PWE has other sources of revenue and the only reason for them to shutdown the game would be for profit and loss. Another reason for all of the games to fold up would be PWE selling Cryptic off, unless someone has 50 million dollars in their back pocket, I don't see that happening anytime soon. Even if another company bought them out, it would be to make a profit, I would expect the games would change but not go away.
Should PWE ever sell Cryptic Studios to any other gaming publisher, let's just hope it is not Konami.
Obviously all games eventually peak, then decline, then die, but not all games peak within the first few months. The peak in this picture is February 2020 and is 132,000.
Now if you excuse me, I am off to watch the Perfect World blockbuster movie Shadow 2018 on NetFlix.
Have fun!
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
As far as communications go, we have been seeing an uptick of communications and we even have a long term roadmap where before we would be lucky to know what is more than a month or two ahead of schedule. Unless there is a new thread on reddit that I am unaware of, I reread the AMA thread and did not see what you were describing, he answered most of the questions put forth and didn't have a long answer over how good hunts were. Do you have a link?
btw the movie was amazing, I loved the under lying plot about the princess.
It's not going anywhere for many years.
I feel as though the developers have been more engaged. Sure they don't pander to everyone's wish and don't answer every single question directly, but their answer do tend to cover multiple questions at once. Even when the Redeemed Citadel first came out...most of the information was in that blog, but people didn't read it all the way through or only skimmed it and jumped to conclusions. When they put out the forum post to answer some FAQs and clear up some confusion, aside from the dates there wasn't anything that wasn't already stated before.
Keep in mind they are located in one of the most expensive areas on the planet. So, even if we said all employees were making the same amount of money that would be 150K each. But we all know anyone with a C in front of their title is making multiples of that. That leaves a small pool for everyone else including the tech talent who make well over six figures in the SF Bay Area.
And all of the above does not take into account overhead costs, cuts to the parent companies and other expenses. They have to be in the red. There is no way around that.
Flash forward to the current financial year during COVID and massive unemployment and I highly doubt they will match last years numbers. I honestly can’t see them staying afloat much longer. Either they will be sold (most likely IMO), declare bankruptcy or go under altogether.
IMO, this is something we all should be preparing ourselves for.
2. I doubt they have 100 developers and no other type of staff.
3. I doubt their average salary is 150K.
4. I doubt they burn money year after year.
5. If they are losing money year after year, I doubt they still develop new game, hired a new head instead of laying off and start packing.
Each time we log in we parachute off of a dragon and paraglide somewhere on to the map, or how about "1st person shooter mode"?
I think the game is what it is and that is what it should be. Just improve on what we have efficiently and it will market itself for a long run with ups and downs as it sails into the sunset. This game has at the very least 10 years left in it... unless it is gets purposely replaced. The only thing that can kill it would be a reset. It would only live another 5 years IMO after a reset, and would not make 'more' profit that it does without one.
Truth is.. there are a lot of players out in the world looking for Neverwinter. You would think anyone interested already knows about it but NOT true. Lots of old D&D players are playing random games out there and have not tried this one. Also.. lots of new generation players are tired of the same old thing and want a game like this that is a little retro and has lasting power.
2. I never said that, I just said they had 100 employees
3. I never said that either, I just divided the yearly income by number of employees to show how little it is overall
4. I never said that. In fact I said upper management makes multiples of that and some of the devs make more than that. That does not mean there are people who make less.
5. I can tell you as someone who worked at the C-Level most of my career, upper management keeps certain details close to the vest until it's time to execute them, until then it's business as usual. Also, upper management Cryptic may be doing business as usual but they have no say if the company is sold, goes under or declares bankruptcy. That will be made by their corporate board or even the parent company with no interaction with Cryptic's management at all.
Whenever they tell us, the resources are not available or the budget will not allow it, this is reference to the monies granted to them from Perfect World to continue operating expenses. This system protects the assets of various properties from each others liabilities. If PWE was the Dad in the family, he gives all the children their monthly allowance, pats them on the back and tells them to make the most of it.
Perfect World has a division to make films, most are Chinese TV, some feature films, but did you know they had a hand in making the Robert Downy Jr. flop "Dolittle"? Universal Studios got the credit for the disaster but PW lost money too. The film lost the investors $100 million. One of them was Perfect World Pictures. Meanwhile Dad doesn't mind, as long as the family as a whole, is making profit to cover loss by others. This is why I stated above, it would take PWE either announcing the shutdown or sale of Cryptic Studios for the game to die or even change.
Any of my comments not posted in orange are based on my own personal opinion and not official.
Any messages written in orange are official moderation messages. Signature images are now fixed!
TOP 5 were WOW, FFXIV, ESO, GW2 and Runescape. The latter 2 actually have had rumours that they are dying for years too and their population is 5-8x that of NWO.
My personal view is that updates are very slow, something the GW2 community is concerned of too and class balance is a mess. There is a glaring difference between meta and non-meta. I went ahead and tried ESO, FFXIV and GW2 and none have combat as fluid as NWO. So i would have to say that combat is the defining feature of this game at least for me. I have recently been fantasizing that the dev's have introduced an option to have 4 encounters. I proceed to figure out the next meta class but it was too difficult due to the sheer number of builds available for each class now. That is what i call fun.
Even MMO itself stands for massively multiplayer online.
Then claims that Neverinter is dead game is not correct claim.
As game itself, Neverinter is just fine.
But when comes it's MMO part, well to be fair, it's hard even call this game mmo in first place.
Largest contents in game are Trials, there are Stronghold sieges, but who's doing them ? Even Dragon Flight or Marauder in SH, they are way outdated, and also it's so uninateresting that to get more than 10 players is very hard.
Now for most mmorpg games, 10 players group content considered as bottom line. And this is why players call Neverwinter as dead game, it's cuz game become too much solo play, which goes against very foundation of what MMO is in first place.
Who want to play solo MMO if you can simply play offline RPG game?
Players come play mmo to have multiple players content. And this part is where neverwinter have greatest weakness. Not, class, not loot/drop/rewards, but very mmo elements.
There is no trading between players, no crafting and selling, no grinding together. Game become solo play, thats why players claim this game dead.
“The masses have never thirsted after truth. Whoever can supply them with illusions is easily their master; whoever attempts to destroy their illusions is always their victim.
Gustave Le Bon.
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