How much life left in the game ?

unitakira · October 2015

With all the paywalls,nerfs and stripping out of reward and content..and simple blatant abuse of players self respect.
How much longer would you say the game has left in it? Its really sad the game was fun its a great game yet the rate of player population leaving and the massive paywalls and cash grabs, i kind of worry if the game has any future.

cambo1682 · October 2015

I think as long as Xbox is making bank it will be around. Think of us as the preview shard for Xbox, and we are just the subjects of experiments to see what will float and what will turn large numbers of people away. In a way that is probably the only savior of PC version, that the stuff that truly hits them where it hurts, on the bottom line, should be somewhat mitigated before they roll it out on Xbox. As far as them truly caring about how many test subjects are here, I think it's obvious that that isn't even a factor.

ironzerg79 · October 2015

Well, you can stick around and find out. Or if you're not having fun, there's no shortage of great games, including F2P MMOs out there.

Heck, if you're feeling burnt out, just take a break and see what Module 8 brings, which will be out before the end of the year.

But I think it also depends on who you play with. My gaming community has been really active since Stronholds launched, and we've been having a blast building the castle. We get together regularly to run dungeons and do the Stronghold Dragon Speed Dating.

So your mileage may vary...and the same is probably true for any MMO.

jugger71 · October 2015

Plenty of life left. Chicken Little is alive and well and continues to wail his famous catch phrase everyday.

novakk1 · October 2015

just move on like the rest of us and make sure you never spend any real money on this - there is no point.

bioshrike · October 2015

Champions Online is a testament to how an MMO can keep on chugging, even after a significant drop in its playerbase.

tripsofthrymr · October 2015

novakk1 said:
just move on like the rest of us and make sure you never spend any real money on this - there is no point.

You haven't moved on if you're still reading the forums.

As for player stats over time, Steam Charts shows the trend (though most players don't log in through Steam, so the actual numbers are much higher).

http://steamcharts.com/app/109600#All

deathbeez · October 2015

Maybe not anytime soon.
You really don't need to pay for the leveling stage, and the story is pretty cool.
It's free till end-game. So some will enjoy the free lunch and maybe stick around, maybe leave.
So it's hard to say. A free to play game player base looks like a deep sea current. Hard to tell anything is happening till you watch in high speed and notice the landscape is completely different a day later.

Alot of people are saying their friends' list dried up after mod 6. Well mine dried up after mod 4. So things change, ebb and flow.

If it wasn't for the ToSC contract, I'd say put this puppy in maintenance mode and figure out a solid roadmap. These last few months have been like watching a blind man walk across cobble stones. I hope they can figure out a new strategy that makes players happy and fulfills external obligations.

Either way, it's just a game though. I hope mod 8 is the best mod ever, but I'm not betting my retirement on it.

osterdrache · October 2015

Summer 2016.
At least than the game will become unplayable because of further server capacity reductions and constant player base drop.
All because the reputation of PWE and so Cryptic is very low nobody will spend real money except the new starting players.

d4rthd00fus · October 2015

Unfortunately Cryptic has no idea how to make money so they make huge mistakes with misguided changes trying to push players into spending and then blame bots. This has gotten tiresome and unfortunately has caused most players to go into spending lock down or leave the game entirely. Perhaps the ones in charge of these recent changes will get run off and trust will be gradually restored and new life may come to the game, but usually bad leaders get a pat on the back and good employees get fired instead. I just watch from the sidelines, train wrecks are safer that way but still morbidly fascinating.

mentinmindmaker · October 2015

It is obvious that they have done some unfortunate things recently that has affected the playerbase badly.

Or rather, they fixed some things that should have been fixed MUCH earlier. Since they have a very relaxed attitude to fixing bugs and problems in game, issues tends to become big before they are fixed. Issues are allowed to gnaw away on the playerbase for much longer than really needed.

However, I think NW PC as a development frontend for NW XBOX will make sure we get new and big mods even if the economy of NW itself cannot pay for it. What really kills off most games is when they stop releasing good updates for it.

romotheone · October 2015

The playerbase is at an all-time low. It is about to break below the 2000 player number on steam.

http://steamcharts.com/app/109600

bernatk · October 2015

romotheone said:
The playerbase is at an all-time low. It is about to break below the 2000 player number on steam.

http://steamcharts.com/app/109600

Most of us don't use Steam. Just sayin...

Unknown · October 2015

This content has been removed.

kromryl · October 2015

bernatk said:

romotheone said:
The playerbase is at an all-time low. It is about to break below the 2000 player number on steam.

http://steamcharts.com/app/109600
Most of us don't use Steam. Just sayin...

It's still a tool used to indicate player movement, even if it's not the complete picture. If you had a running graph of the steam tool since Mod6 launch...what would it look like?? like someone dropped off a cliff...

niadan · October 2015

Or they moved to ARC?

Unknown · October 2015

This content has been removed.

soltasword · October 2015

Well, I know a lot of players don't use steam to play this game but still, that chart should be a real good indicator to Cryptic that the leadership change hit the game really hard. And they need to get on the ball and get more AD changes into the game. Don't wait months like they do on everything that needs fixed. They need to put mod8 on hold and rework the rest of the game to get people back playing again and being able to make actual AD by playing the game as they put it. How we have to make AD now is all boring as heck and anyone that doesn't want to just run dungeons/skirmishes/pvp don't even make AD at all. Who wants to play a game you need millions of in game money to progress your character and if you play the regular content, you get none at all. Nobody wants to play that kind of game. And new players here will eventually find that out and leave. Where the game is at, mod8 will not help. It will just make a larger rift between those that are already geared up ( and have made a lot of AD ) and those that aren't ( and have none a very little AD ) and no good way to make any.

kahfa · October 2015

jugger71 said:
Plenty of life left. Chicken Little is alive and well and continues to wail his famous catch phrase everyday.

+1

urabask · October 2015

niadan said:
Or they moved to ARC?

Why would you do something so stupid O_o

I bet even PWE hates Arc.

iandarksword · October 2015

Using the PvP ranking, there are 626 pages at 20 players per page. 626x20=12,520. Given, not everyone PvP's. I am seeing a trend leaning to a population filled with more eastern Europe players and far fewer North American players. Just in general observation of guild names/player names.

tronquesperto · October 2015

ironzerg79 said:
Well, you can stick around and find out. Or if you're not having fun, there's no shortage of great games, including F2P MMOs out there.

Heck, if you're feeling burnt out, just take a break and see what Module 8 brings, which will be out before the end of the year.

But I think it also depends on who you play with. My gaming community has been really active since Stronholds launched, and we've been having a blast building the castle. We get together regularly to run dungeons and do the Stronghold Dragon Speed Dating.

So your mileage may vary...and the same is probably true for any MMO.

Man, I really like how Cryptic handles any complaint: "don't like, go away! Everything is fine"

This shows how Cryptic treates their PC players: they don't give a fluffy kitten about us, only the XBox ones really matters to them.

deathbeez · October 2015

arcofortep12 said:
but they need to fix a lot and to be more generous with rewards.

Agreed. They really went overboard with the RP, AD, and drop nerfs.
Playing in regards to character progression, has never been more unrewarding then it is now.
I've not left PE in 3 weeks now. I don't see getting 2 white perls and maybe 2k AD worth the mouse-clicks.
Too much is account bound so there is nothing to sell, leadership is gone, events got destroyed and replaced with play for pennies system. IMO, end-game is not playing and watching to see if things get fixed.

ironzerg79 · October 2015

tronquesperto said:
Man, I really like how Cryptic handles any complaint: "don't like, go away! Everything is fine"

This shows how Cryptic treates their PC players: they don't give a fluffy kitten about us, only the XBox ones really matters to them.

Heh. First, I'm not an employee. I'm a volunteer.

Second, you have to consider the F2P model. Let me give you a little insight. This is from an interview Jack Emmert, the CEO of Cryptic did with Forbes when Neverwinter was launching.

Do you think the MMORPG playerbase is more of a transient group than they have been in the past? Do they go from game to game instead of settling down?

That’s kind of hard to say. Because of the nature of free-to-play, there’s going to be a large percentage of your players that are just coming in and out. They’re just checking it out. But then you do have your core users and they are essentially your subscribers, and they do stick with you. With the subscription model that’s all you have, but with free-to-play you’ve got the advantage of getting these looky-loos. If you can find a space for those players you’ve got a much higher CCU, and the more people you open up to play the more will come in to play because they hear their friends are playing and so on and so forth.

They understand the transient nature of MMOs (CCU = Concurrent Users, as a measure of activity). People come, people go. Most people play for a while and leave, some people stick around and become fans. That's simply how the landscape operates. Retention is difficult for any MMO, especially in such a crowded space, with very little "costs" for players to switch from one MMO to another when they get bored, given how almost every major space has a "free to play" or very low cost to buy in. That's simply a fact.

Which is why, in another interview here, Jack had this to say:

In the free to play model, let's say you get in the game and you play Neverwinter for ten hours and then life happens, you don't come back to it for whatever reason. But then you get an email, saying 'Hey the latest update for Neverwinter is out, give it a try.' You're like, 'Oh yeah, I had a good time I'll think I'll go back.' It's frictionless, who cares, you've already downloaded the client it's just boom click on it."

That's why Neverwinter is putting out content every 3-4 months, because they know that's about the lifecycle of the "Capture, Entertain, Drift, Recapture" cycle. Every time an update comes out, player activity is going to spike as the new content captures new players or entices them to return. Most of them are probably going to be entertained for a few weeks. Then you see a cycle where the player base is going to experience a lot of drift, and what your left with prior to the launch of new content is your core players, which might only be 20-30% of your maximum audience. But then the cycle begins again with new content and your recapture people who've drifted, or entice new players to give Neverwinter a shot.

That's the model. And they're pretty transparent about it.

Hence my quote. And it was sincere, not malicious. If you're feeling burnt out or not having fun, just take a break...come back when the new content or bug fixes captures your attention again.

But the pessimsit is always going to see the people leaving and cry that the game is failing. The optimist looks at the new players coming into the game, and focuses on that. Neither is really wrong, but neither is really right, since it's a cycle that encompasses BOTH players leaving AND players entering.

That's just how things work.

kreatyve · October 2015

ironzerg79 said:

tronquesperto said:
Man, I really like how Cryptic handles any complaint: "don't like, go away! Everything is fine"

This shows how Cryptic treates their PC players: they don't give a fluffy kitten about us, only the XBox ones really matters to them.
Heh. First, I'm not an employee. I'm a volunteer.

Second, you have to consider the F2P model. Let me give you a little insight. This is from an interview Jack Emmert, the CEO of Cryptic did with Forbes when Neverwinter was launching.
Do you think the MMORPG playerbase is more of a transient group than they have been in the past? Do they go from game to game instead of settling down?

That’s kind of hard to say. Because of the nature of free-to-play, there’s going to be a large percentage of your players that are just coming in and out. They’re just checking it out. But then you do have your core users and they are essentially your subscribers, and they do stick with you. With the subscription model that’s all you have, but with free-to-play you’ve got the advantage of getting these looky-loos. If you can find a space for those players you’ve got a much higher CCU, and the more people you open up to play the more will come in to play because they hear their friends are playing and so on and so forth.

They understand the transient nature of MMOs (CCU = Concurrent Users, as a measure of activity). People come, people go. Most people play for a while and leave, some people stick around and become fans. That's simply how the landscape operates. Retention is difficult for any MMO, especially in such a crowded space, with very little "costs" for players to switch from one MMO to another when they get bored, given how almost every major space has a "free to play" or very low cost to buy in. That's simply a fact.

Which is why, in another interview here, Jack had this to say:

In the free to play model, let's say you get in the game and you play Neverwinter for ten hours and then life happens, you don't come back to it for whatever reason. But then you get an email, saying 'Hey the latest update for Neverwinter is out, give it a try.' You're like, 'Oh yeah, I had a good time I'll think I'll go back.' It's frictionless, who cares, you've already downloaded the client it's just boom click on it."

That's why Neverwinter is putting out content every 3-4 months, because they know that's about the lifecycle of the "Capture, Entertain, Drift, Recapture" cycle. Every time an update comes out, player activity is going to spike as the new content captures new players or entices them to return. Most of them are probably going to be entertained for a few weeks. Then you see a cycle where the player base is going to experience a lot of drift, and what your left with prior to the launch of new content is your core players, which might only be 20-30% of your maximum audience. But then the cycle begins again with new content and your recapture people who've drifted, or entice new players to give Neverwinter a shot.

That's the model. And they're pretty transparent about it.

Hence my quote. And it was sincere, not malicious. If you're feeling burnt out or not having fun, just take a break...come back when the new content or bug fixes captures your attention again.

But the pessimsit is always going to see the people leaving and cry that the game is failing. The optimist looks at the new players coming into the game, and focuses on that. Neither is really wrong, but neither is really right, since it's a cycle that encompasses BOTH players leaving AND players entering.

That's just how things work.

Ummm. Ditto.

Couldn't have said it better myself.

kemnimtarkas · October 2015

Not spending real $$$ until I see Mod 8's impact. Mod 8 will either offer me a reason to play this game more or it will give me the final push out the door.

Mod 6 came close to pushing me out - the BiS nerf plus the incredibly cynical pre-Mod 6 "Black Ice Equip" sale (1500 zen for equip that, in just 2 short months, became worthless HAMSTER - which PWE knew when offering the sale).

However Mod 7 made being in a guild more fun than just doing the same GG HAMSTER over and over again - it made me want to play more. And they mostly nerfed the stupidly overpowered end game content.

But then they had to go and mess it up again with the leadership / AD nerf and SMoP pay to win BS.

If Mod 8 is like Mod 7 in terms of adding good things - great - I will undoubtedly add a new toon if there's a new class or race and continue to play.

If it's more like Mod 6 with the nerfing and customer abuse - I will burn my toons, uninstall the Arc client and block PWE email on my email client. And go look for another MMO not supported by Cryptic or PWE.

vinceent1 · October 2015

optimist look at new player and focuses ... on what? maybe your guild can carebearing them massively and they stay a bit longer, but this game is now disaster for new player. better tell them the truth

soltasword · October 2015

Do you think the MMORPG playerbase is more of a transient group than they have been in the past? Do they go from game to game instead of settling down?

That’s kind of hard to say. Because of the nature of free-to-play, there’s going to be a large percentage of your players that are just coming in and out. They’re just checking it out. But then you do have your core users and they are essentially your subscribers, and they do stick with you. With the subscription model that’s all you have, but with free-to-play you’ve got the advantage of getting these looky-loos. If you can find a space for those players you’ve got a much higher CCU, and the more people you open up to play the more will come in to play because they hear their friends are playing and so on and so forth.

They understand the transient nature of MMOs (CCU = Concurrent Users, as a measure of activity). People come, people go. Most people play for a while and leave, some people stick around and become fans. That's simply how the landscape operates. Retention is difficult for any MMO, especially in such a crowded space, with very little "costs" for players to switch from one MMO to another when they get bored, given how almost every major space has a "free to play" or very low cost to buy in. That's simply a fact.

Which is why, in another interview here, Jack had this to say:

In the free to play model, let's say you get in the game and you play Neverwinter for ten hours and then life happens, you don't come back to it for whatever reason. But then you get an email, saying 'Hey the latest update for Neverwinter is out, give it a try.' You're like, 'Oh yeah, I had a good time I'll think I'll go back.' It's frictionless, who cares, you've already downloaded the client it's just boom click on it."

I have to comment on this as I just don't believe anyone at Cryptic cares at all for the " looky-loos ". With mod6, strongholds, the rad removal from leadership, and no way to get any decent AD in game ( especially at lower levels ), no one can honestly say Cryptic cares for anyone really. Especially not the looky-loos, not the casual gamers, and not the solo player. Not even in the slightest do they care about them. Anyone that says different is blind as a bat, getting paid by Cryptic, or isn't playing the same game as the rest of us. Cryptic even showed they didn't care about their core player base with the mod6 rehash of everything ( removing so many dungeons from the game and none put back in yet ), forcing everyone to join a guild if you wanted to do that content, removing rad from leadership ( for all those that paid for extra character slots just for that profession ). You guys can put in these quotes from Jack or who ever you want from Cryptic but all you have had to do in the last 6 to 8 months ( or longer for some ) is to play the game and see that they really don't care much for their player base at all. Maybe I haven't played that many online games, but I have yet to see a game company care less for their player base than Cryptic. And make so many bad decisions in a row for their game.

ironzerg79 · October 2015

soltasword said:
With mod6, strongholds, the rad removal from leadership, and no way to get any decent AD in game ( especially at lower levels ),

Are you kidding me? The removal of AD from leadership was an ENORMOUS boost to new players. Or do you think it was awesome to tell someone who's totally new to the game that earning AD is super easy...all you need is 30 character slots and 6 months of mindlessly clicking in a web browser.

We're already seen how the value of AD has increased radically, prices on the AH have dropped dramatically, we have a functioning Zen Exchange again, and the recent reduction in Mark prices cut the cost to get "BiS" enchants in half, if not more.

Those changes alone have made the game substantially friendlier to a new player than it was just a few weeks ago.

Granted, there's still a lot more work to be done, especially in other places like tranmutation, wondrous bazaar, mount and companion costs, but I've also been a vocal critic there as well.

To say that Crypitc doesn't care about their players is a ridiculous strawman argument that really doesn't hold any merit. But it's pulled out all the time on these forums whenever someone suggests that things might be improving.

xxxgriessonxxx · October 2015

I came back from vacation and found out my 337 GMOPs are now worth 6.7M. What to add? Calculate how much $ is that...

2 yrs of grinding dungeons and 100s of hours spent patiently trading mercilessly destroyed. Now imagine if i did invest real money in the game(id be probably out chasing scalps)...

And not only did they integrate this change to mark prices without upgrading the existing marks to their new equivalent value-wise(which was mandatory, well only if you care for consumer rights...), but they also leaked the news prior to the official announcement allowing "certain" ppl to get their full value back at the expense of other unaware customers.

The MMO world is still a Wild West where companies are allowed to do whatever the F*** they want to their customers, so tread lightly...

vinceent1 · October 2015

ironzerg79 said:

soltasword said:
With mod6, strongholds, the rad removal from leadership, and no way to get any decent AD in game ( especially at lower levels ),
Are you kidding me? The removal of AD from leadership was an ENORMOUS boost to new players. Or do you think it was awesome to tell someone who's totally new to the game that earning AD is super easy...all you need is 30 character slots and 6 months of mindlessly clicking in a web browser.

We're already seen how the value of AD has increased radically, prices on the AH have dropped dramatically, we have a functioning Zen Exchange again, and the recent reduction in Mark prices cut the cost to get "BiS" enchants in half, if not more.

Those changes alone have made the game substantially friendlier to a new player than it was just a few weeks ago.

Granted, there's still a lot more work to be done, especially in other places like tranmutation, wondrous bazaar, mount and companion costs, but I've also been a vocal critic there as well.

To say that Crypitc doesn't care about their players is a ridiculous strawman argument that really doesn't hold any merit. But it's pulled out all the time on these forums whenever someone suggests that things might be improving.

this is unbelievable really. some changes were done to benefit new players, but situation is still unacceptable. especially if you struggle to find helpfull guild soon. You cant run kessel regularly, unless you are lucky on group, so your AD generation is very low, if you look at prices on boons and basic zen market items like mounts, companions or other basic stuff like artifacts, you need to be usefull with farming kessel or dungeons every day. Let alone pvp, which you can get only 4600 per two matches, if you appear there, let alone if you are somewhat usefull to your team. Or stronghold content, fight dragons or heroic encounters, good luck to be usefull at fight not saying about contributing to mimic. Realistically you get 2800 rad per master of hunt skirmishes per day and 4600 rad through pvp per day if you have stomach to be dummy. At the end many players get 2800 rad per day, really acceptable? if they are brave then 7400 (skirm+pvp) thats still too low. let alone if you pick wrong class like warlock

cryptic doesnt care overall, but you cant argue against persons directly, because company is very understaffed and their nwo plan is borked into cash grab only

lets talk about pvp rad only, lets say newbies sad truth-

do you remember Lords pvp quest? if you have him and daily quest, you can get 12000rad per two matches if i remember correctly

month ago? you can have victory quest and pvp quest and get 8000 ad per two matches

now? you can have 4600 rad per two matches. you can play one more match but get some 300 rad? useless HAMSTER.

still think that new player situation is good?

How much life left in the game ?

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