Age of Conan

Originally posted by waverat81

For those of you saying without a doubt AoC won't achieve such and such numbers, when WoW released did you think it would have 10 million subscriptions worldwide ever? I seriously doubt it. 

Also for those that claim AoC will only have a niche market because of the IP, I supposed none of you had ever heard of the Warcraft franchise before Wow /sarcasm off

I'd say given the fact that WoW has pulled so many people into the genre, anything is possible as far as subscription numbers go.

Will AoC run on pretty much ANY system?

Is AoC friendly to children or parents who play MMOs with their children as a family unit?

In case you are in ANY doubt, the answer to both these questions is a resounding NO and those are two of the biggest reasons that WoW is such a huge success subscriber wise.

S

AoC will not beat wow numbers for a simple reason.  The M rating.  There are alot of full families playing wow togehter.  Now the parents may go and try AoC but the parents will not bring their kids over because of the blood and gore.

Think of it this way.  WoW is geared toward botht the young and old while AoC is geared to mature players.  That right there limits the market.

Now is it possiable that AoC can catch WoW? Sure anythings possiable but its very unlikly we will ever see another a game reach WoW like numbers. 

WoW just hit the market at the perfect time with the perfect format for new and old players to jump in and play with little or no experence in gaming.   As much as people (including me) bash WoW, WoW is a good game build around a user friendly Interface and user friendly game play.

There are more reasons why AoC will not kill WoW but I will not go into them.

Originally posted by Sharkypal

 

Originally posted by waverat81

For those of you saying without a doubt AoC won't achieve such and such numbers, when WoW released did you think it would have 10 million subscriptions worldwide ever? I seriously doubt it. 

Also for those that claim AoC will only have a niche market because of the IP, I supposed none of you had ever heard of the Warcraft franchise before Wow /sarcasm off

I'd say given the fact that WoW has pulled so many people into the genre, anything is possible as far as subscription numbers go.

 

Will AoC run on pretty much ANY system?

Yes, just maybe not at high settings.

Is AoC friendly to children or parents who play MMOs with their children as a family unit?

I know what your getting at, but let me ask you a question to answer this.  How many copies of GTA4 have already been sold?  Rating means nothing nowadays. 

In case you are in ANY doubt, the answer to both these questions is a resounding NO and those are two of the biggest reasons that WoW is such a huge success subscriber wise.

They are only a resounding NO in your eyes, because you don't want to see anything else.

S

I never said, AoC would kill WoW or surpass it's numbers.  I simply commented on some of the arguments that people are using to claim AoC will have poor numbers or lower than expected.

Originally posted by waverat81

Originally posted by Sharkypal

 

Originally posted by waverat81

For those of you saying without a doubt AoC won't achieve such and such numbers, when WoW released did you think it would have 10 million subscriptions worldwide ever? I seriously doubt it. 

Also for those that claim AoC will only have a niche market because of the IP, I supposed none of you had ever heard of the Warcraft franchise before Wow /sarcasm off

I'd say given the fact that WoW has pulled so many people into the genre, anything is possible as far as subscription numbers go.

 

Will AoC run on pretty much ANY system?

Yes, just maybe not at high settings.

Is AoC friendly to children or parents who play MMOs with their children as a family unit?

I know what your getting at, but let me ask you a question to answer this.  How many copies of GTA4 have already been sold?  Rating means nothing nowadays. 

In case you are in ANY doubt, the answer to both these questions is a resounding NO and those are two of the biggest reasons that WoW is such a huge success subscriber wise.

They are only a resounding NO in your eyes, because you don't want to see anything else.

S

I never said, AoC would kill WoW or surpass it's numbers.  I simply commented on some of the arguments that people are using to claim AoC will have poor numbers or lower than expected.

Nah, its a resounding no because AoC just doesn't have what it takes to sustain numbers that high. The only time it will be anywhere close is in the first month.

Maybe you like playing games on low settings but I dont. I am no WoW fan, in fact I've played it for a maximum of 4 or 5 days, but AoC won't even come close. LotRo didnt come close and it is a far more polished game that was released in a far better state than AoC.

Im not saying AoC will fail miserably, I suspect it will maintain a decent sub level, but the numbers you and some of the other people in this thread are spewing out are insane, unrealistic and unattainable for a game like AoC.

Keep thinking it will break 2 million or even 10, it won't. No amount of raving fanboism will change that.

S

It will do fine but when fall hits, it s numbers will drop alot. I know more people playing AOC waiting for WAR and other games and will leave when they come out so we ll see on that. I know even more saying they ll play both , but when WAR comes out alot will cancel to get the initial rush of a new game. Then i can almost guarentee some won t resub to AOC due to the fact they like WAR better. Some will resub to AOC and drop WAR. if this game maintains more then 500 k i would be shocked, 200-300k i would say in 4-6 months, then even more game are coming out.

AoC does compete with WoW.   AoC is for adults.  Kids can remain in WoW kiddyland.

I don't see much change either way. What matters is AoC getting enough subscribers to make a profit and I don't see FunCom having much trouble with that.

I think to many companies/people get hung up on trying to obtain WoW subscriber numbers as if that bar is the only way to to judge whether a MMO is sucessful or not. Fact is you can have a far smaller subscriber base and still make really good money running your game.

Not a single line of code is yet written in a game that will beat the 10-million benchmark set by WoW.  That doesn't mean that WoW was that wonderful.  It was just at the right place at the right time to capture the simple gaming preferences of the new-to-computers nintendo crowd.  The handful of us that played pre-WoW are still around, we are just diluted out by the kids that swarmed the MMO world after computers became cheap enough to become a child's toy.

No game is going to beat the 10-million record simply because the number of players are now going to be spread over a wider range of games.  There was a void in developement of MMOs in the early-00's.  That left WoW with no real competition.  WoW's only competition were games writen in the early 90's and were seriously outdated compared to the computing power that was available by 2004.  A gap like that will never happen again.

Many of the people that played in UO, EQ and Asheron's Call see the mid-2000's as the dark ages of MMOs.  Yes, WoW brought in people until they were stacked on servers like cord wood, but it also set back MMOs by perhaps a half decade or more.

The expectations of the early MMO players were not met by the bland, lack-luster games that have come out since the late '90's and early '00's.

WoW captured the console-creatures as they migrated from their TV toys to the internet.  WoW expanded the market, but did nothing for developing the MMO genre. 

Most of us early MMO players have been waiting for the damage that WoW has done to slowly heal.  With each new game that comes out, we click the 'Play' button, biting our lip, holding our breath, hoping beyond hope that the depth and excitement that was the early MMO experience has moved past the nintendo level of play that is WoW.

i don't think wow is ever going away. theres just to many people out there that prefer the fantasy world over a more realistic one. cant blame them though, the real world does kinda get pretty boring.