I agree. AoC will take a big hit from WAR and WotLK unless the endgame raids and PvP are truly amazing.

It is a fun game, and Funcom stand to make a nice bit of money from it, but I'm starting to think niche rather than mainstream.
 

WoW's expansion appears to be more of the same... So if folks left because of boredom, they are unlikely to be impressed upon returning for the expansion.
 

Thank you for the linkage :) As for the future of AoC, I think that due to it's niche appeal, high system requirements, WAR, WotLK, and all the other MMO's headed our way soon, There's no way that it can maintain even 2/3 of those numbers. If six months from now they have retained 1/3 of those customers long-term (one year or more,) they will still be pretty profitable. 250,000 is more subscribers pretty much any other non-Asian MMO out besides WoW, so you can't exactly call that a failure. Obviously, they will be wanting more like 1/2, but thety are really going to have to get a lot of things perfectly for that to happen. Who knows, AoC could end up with 1.5 million subscribers, and I will be the first to admit that I was wrong, but I think the likelihood is slim.

One thing I do know for sure is that I'm glad we are seeing more competition in the MMO space as this will generally increase the quality of these games.
 

I think if AOC pulls that many players away and gives them reasonable amounts of content, that most of them will stay till the next better thing comes along. I don't think WOTLK will suck the majority of them back if the game is fun and the players are held till the community feel is built.

Most of the people I know that are hard core WOW addicts aren't salivating over the prospect of WOTLK. They are desperate for new content but they don't seem to be hopeful it will be new enough or innovative enough to give them a big fun feel.

And I honestly hope they pull at least 700,0000 or so permanantly from the EU and US base. It might actually cause some real innovation at blizzard
 

I wonder why all MMO titles are harvesting the same crop. As long as they are, I'm not much interested.

The next MMO that I play will definitely not have a monthly subscription model as the one and only alternative. I'd really appreciate an MMO where I would be free to play my own pace and be charged based on the time spent instead time subscribed. I hope there would be more choices than Guild Wars 2.

If the new titles want to attract large numbers, it might be a good time to think outside the box and target also the people that have rejected WoW or all MMOs to date.
 

@digidude

If I understand you right, you're saying that you want the subscription to charge you per minute that you play?

Ugh, personally, that'd be my last choice. I waste a lot of time waiting LFG, chatting to friends, sitting on a flyer & travelling to a new zone, even scanning the AH. I'd even prefer micro-transactions over paying per minute.

I thought Guild Wars charged an initial fee and it was free to play afterwards?
 

@sumdumguy

I know my opinion is quite an unusual one and immediately upset the majority. For Guild Wars, you're right, no fees after purchase. And it's been successful enough, since GW2 is going to be the same way.

Let me put it this way:
Would you pay 0.50€ or 1€ for the days you log in? I would. I always try to mention that time based charging should be an alternative. There's no reason why both monthly fee and hour rate cannot be offered as a choice.

My game time in GW has proven to be too irregular for monthly fees, leaving me just slightly outside the target audience.
 

ment to say above: "outside the target audience for other MMOs."
 

the problem I have with a monthly payment model is at 5cents a minute or whatever they decide on it becomes very easy to jack up the price. 5cents works lets try 7cents.
At a flat monthly fee I know every month how much it hits my budget for and I don't have to worry if I'm going over on my minutes.
Not interested in an MMO that relies on addiction to keep its players that charges by the minute.

Bad idea.
 

@digidude

I'm ok if it were "pay per day", I think. That's better than "pay per minute" for me. My thoughts pretty much echo what Sam has said.

I think the most acceptable thing for the game companies to do is to offer subscriptions in multiple ways. Let some pay per minute, others pay per day, and also pay per month.

Maybe it's not done because it's too hard to implement or that it's too hard to report & forecast to Wall Street?
 

One problem with my current playstyle and the "pay per day" model:

Just thinking about it some more - there have been days where I've logged in to see how my auctions/bids have done. Or that I wanted to do my daily crafting or daily quests.

A "pay per day" model would be irritating in those cases for me.
 

It depends a lot about the game style. Since the GW has no fees, there is no pressure to get your money's worth. That being, I seem to play ~10 h/month. MMOs are great entertainment, but with my level of involvement, I long for alternative methods of payment. I have no problem of being a casual noob in the world. Even that would be an improvement to my current level of participation. ;-)

Maybe I should just accept that MMOs are not designed for people like me? Based on the responses I get when I bring this up, I seem to be in a quite small minority.
 

@digidude

I think your play style would fit well with the typical micro transaction type of game. You would probably be able to play lots of those games for free w/o missing the extra "stuff" that micro transactions would get you.

The vast majority of MMO players tend to turn up their noses at this type of subscription model, but there does seem to be a market for it.
 

I think Age of Conan might hit the million subscriber mark this summer and drop down to 400,000 or so when War/WotLK hit the shelves this winter.


As for Guild Wars 2 I've heard rumblings that it might be adding micro-transaction services into the franchise using the new NCSoft coin or whatever it's called. The basic game will only cost the initial box amount but apparently there will be a bunch of customization options that are supported by micro-transactions.
 

Kanthalos = awesome :)
 

AoC has actually made me for the first time in my life a 2 MMO kinda guy.
Knowing that AoC is new, I love how the game plays and how things work and are implemented...especially the "required" hardware features...as I was getting sick of all my games choking because I had "uber better" hardware than required (Vanguard, EQ2, LOTRO as examples...hating dual cores, and high end video cards)
But, I still love playing EQ2...so, my plan is to keep going until one just seems to not attract me anymore.
AoC has done a fine job of making me feel like I am playing a more "action" oriented game...which I miss from my Diablo days...and it just looks gorgeous and plays well..and everytime I play I have the "Just gotta keep going" feel...and I do not want to put it down..
That is a major feat for me..
 

I'm considering buying AoC when it comes out for general public release. I'm over the top bored with WoW. I have four 70's. I don't want any more alts, and I don't any more PvP epics. I don't want to invest the time it takes to raid. There are things for me to do, but not fun things. I've gone back to old school console RPG's and guild wars. If a new MMO can occupy me for a few months I'll be really happy.

I will get WotLK and I will enjoy it for a few months. I will probably only level a deathknight and my warlock to 80. After that, unless the end game is really really good(not likely) I'll probably cancel my WoW subscription for the first time ever.

Although it may sound like I'm bashing WoW, I'm not. It has been one of the best games I ever played. I was so addicted to this game at one point it was all I could think about. I think the lack of content is what is killing this game for me. If it takes blizzard two years to release expansions they I'd hope the expansions are huge, not just 3 months worth of content and then logging in after patches.
 

I'm certainly interested in WAR, but WotLK really doesn't seem worth it.

Its just more of the same with very little new to grok. That really doesn't seem worth the cost & time.

I'll be playing AoC until it's no longer fun.
 

"I'm playing this only while waiting for WAR / WotLK"

YOu're not the only one.
 

WotLK doesn't do anything for me. More of the same in my opinion most likely. Warhammer, hmm, cannot comment on that really as I'm in the Beta. AoC, well I'm enjoying it but it does have a problem. Character development. In Wow it took so long to get to max lv that I had time invested. In AoC it takes about 5 days played from what I've seen. With that little amount of time I'm not sure I'll stick with the same guy. I look at MMoGs as a 3-8 month game as rarely do I ever play them longer than that and right at the moment, I cannot see myself playing any of those 3 by May of '09. I'm in AoC now and having a blast, just not sure I'll be there in Dec. And Wrath, probably just skip it, more of the same, blah.