2008 wasn't a good year for MMOs

WAR isn't counted because it hasn't yet failed. The game may be losing some subscribers but Mythic has a long way ahead of them to get those numbers back up (which aren't as low as you might think) and it looks like they're implementing many changes and improvements to keep the player base happy. Hardly the kind of drop that we saw with Conan and the like.

Oh noes you dissed Warhammer!

Prepair yourself for Abriael jumping down your throat with a wall of text about how Warhammer is the greatest MMO ever to exist. And how Warcraft rips it off with their Siege weaponry based Lake Wintergrasp.

Then possibly call you a mindless, drooling fanboy ignoring the fact that he IS the mold for exactly that.

Its kind of a risk you run anytime you post anything true about Warhammer's current Failures.

I personally agree with you Warhammer did fail to live up to what it was supposed to. They are currently a nieche game with a decently rabid fanbase and a lot of lagg issues that need to be fixed before RvR will live up to the discriptions we were bombarded with last year.
It dose however have a fair amount of promise and the Dev team are all crazy basterds (Or at least lead by one) which means we can expect a lot of fast fixes that may or may not work.

Conan on the other hand will likely continue to rest is pieces.

Ah, that's very cool. Thanks for the links, Brendan.

Yes, it does make sense (and I do agree) that having continued support for the game is a great way to maintain customer loyalty. Valve's proven it time and time again with their free support of Team Fortress 2.

Poor, poor holgar. Looks like the last time you've been spanked for your ignorant comments left you pretty sore.

You can gripe all you want about it, but the fact that you don't know what you're talking about remains.

It's funny how you define warhammer's RvR "laggy" (and for the most part it isn't) and then you praise your beloved wintergrasp minigame ripoff, which is, all considered, quite a lot more laggy.

I know, I know, the fact that, despite all the trolling from wow fanboys like you, Warhammer has been quite successsful drives you crazy. You'll get used to it.

No Abrieal just highly amused at your "Scooling".

My big thing with you is that you are the EXACT replica of what you tell me I am:

An ignorant,
Idiotic,
Moronic,
Fanboy.

Warhammer is no where near the epic fail Conan was but its still nowhere NEAR what you have convinced yourself it is.

There's no 'getting your numbers' back up in the MMO industry. You get one chance on opening day...and that's it. The best WAR can hope for at this point is to maintain it's current subscriber base.

NO U!
:)

That's pretty spot on.

I thought it was a good read but his responses to comments were way off the mark. He argued that WAR had been an irrefutable success and so must be a good game, then refused to acknowledge Runescape's success. Believe it or not, Runescape does have over a million active subscribers and countless free world players. It's a success that he could analyse and figure out but he's content to ignore it because Runescape couldn't possibly have hit on a winning formula.. could they?

The problem with Runescape's supposed success is that most people aren't actually paying for it. They have the numbers, but I doubt that their revenue comes anywhere close to a 'real' commercial MMO's.

Actually, Ian, the 1 million number is active paying subscribers. As you rightly stated though, they don't have the same income level as the big names because they charge a lower subscription fee. But with a million paying subscribers, they have to be doing something right.

I think the main thing they do right is constant iterative development. It's a strategy I've seen used in game development to great success. EVE Online uses the same model wherein constant free updates and expansions are made to the game and the game world. Another big deal is that their server model allows any player to log into any server, meaning you have the potential to play with every other player. If you find out that a friend of yours plays WoW, he may very well be playing on another server. But if you found out he played Runescape or EVE Online, you are both guaranteed to be able to play together.

It's already been proven that having friends in an MMO is a strong barrier to exit, so having seen it work in EVE Online it doesn't surprise me that Runescape benefits from the same effect.

I dug up a few links on this:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/05/2031230
Slashdot article citing Runescape's player total at 5.6 million players, of which over 1 million were active subscribers.

http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=13769
An interview on their success, where they cite reasons such as (surprise surprise) continual free updates.

And to follow up on this as well, while their revenue may be smaller compared to other games, it's still pretty significant. I know I certainly wouldn't want to mess with them, because they are not just making peanuts over there.

The guy lost a bit of my respect with his ignorent Smacktardism about runescape. While I find it a lot less attractive than World of Warcraft I really have to respect Jagex they actually had the balls to distroy gold farmers.

That and the fact that with 5 million active f2p subcribers and over 1 million paying subcribers they hit some formula right.

Its huge actually, the problem is most players are playing World of Warcraft and most of these bit players are praying to take away subscribers from Blizzard. I have no doubt that will happen some day, but whatever it is needs to pull it off on day one of launch - not after 30 patches and 2 server mergers.

I honestly can't count the amount of times I've tried an MMO out and within 30 minutes decided it was trash and moved back to WoW. Haven't tried WAR yet because surprise - no trial. I don't feel like risking 50 bucks for a game I possibly won't like, plus it seems like a scheme. Being profitable with mmo's off boxed copies is a poor decision.

WoW has a ton of problems too, but for some reason has greater attachment. Maybe it has something to do with being able to figure out quests, move your character and pick up items easily - not to mention a mostly clear path of progression. Yes there are mmo's with problems in some or all of those categories.