Pebblebrook

This is probably a "duh" question but to be specific...when you choose to unlock a slot with a character in it, that slot is forever unlocked (on that server only and cannot transfer) even if you immediately delete that character i take it?

Yes, and it sounded like you were tying player mentality with retention from the part i quoted prior. I just had a different take on that. I'm sure how a player views the game has a role, but it's more than just that they won't accept parts of the game.

Unless we're talking about new players, but in the context of end game i would think you were referring to more long-standing subscribers. Those customers, however their personality type happen to be, are here...and have been here awhile, so if suddenly they're unwilling to accept the game anymore, there's usually more involved. I just call it last-straw effect for simplicity's sake.

Not really sure about that categorization.

I would think the typical expectation of a long standing customer of a subscription based mmorpg is that new content is regularly introduced that will appeal to that customer. If that gap between those likes is too long, then you start losing them or at the least, decrease their level of interest in logging in.

There are players who liked a certain part of the game (trials in this context) but don't like the excessive repetition of said content. People have varying tolerances for repetition. Once it exceeds that tolerance, the term "grind" gets thrown around.

Repetition is inherent in many games not just videogames. Basketball, football, tennis...take a ball from one end to the other while the opposition prevents...repeat. What keeps people entertained is everything else about the experience that mask, placate or minimize the repetition. In this game the devs are responsible for that but didn't really do enough this time.

Yes, the devs are not selling item counters (inf, xp, merits etc), nor are they selling RNG coding or participation algorithms. They are selling fun to as many people as they can hold on to. It is in their interest to make that "fun" take form in as varied as they can make it.

It's fine to narrow their focus once in a while to a specific area as long as it doesn't alienate the other segments of the customer base for too much and too long. Customer dissatisfaction can accumulate over time and can manifest as burnout or resentment towards the game as a whole (last straw effect) if not adequately managed.

True, people can rationalize anything into anything else. This time around though, the element of time might be skewing people's perception of the devs' vision for the game's future.

When inventions came about, yes i've seen those threads saying the game has changed...though technically it has seen changes if at the least from player behavior. But then the time gap between i9 and i10 was less than 2 months.

And though there were other things from i18 on that weren't incarnate related, the subsequent issues were predominantly so and from i18 to possibly i21 when we "might" get an issue for the rest of the players to enjoy...the time gap so far is 9.5 months that could go to 12.

A year can be a long time if you feel you're not getting anything "new" that's enjoyable for you.

If people only look at issue numbers then yes it's only been 2 well 3 if you add the 2 mid-issues. But if you also factor in that the typical dev release schedule for 2-3 issues is a year, i think that might be why this time is different.

That i'm sure is an over-simplification of the situation though.

I think they mean: "Why unlock alpha solo when you can do the trials and unlock it...oh, did we mention there's a new trial coming up?"

If they want to continue trying to get people to keep doing trials, that's up to them but yes, that description of the alpha voucher should be reworded.

Either scenario is possible, but Eva's underlying point is to me still valid. The "complaints" tend to be more useful to future development than the "praises". But the "praises" are useful for dev/player morale.

Praise essentially says, the game is just fine as it is. While complaints tell me, there's part of the game that is causing dissatisfaction so it might be worth a look to see if it needs addressing.

Of course assuming those "complaints" include enough detail to be considered useful feedback.

Isn't that what i said? Though most times i may not express it eloquently enough.

That reply wasn't really thinking in terms of a server merge, i even put in that i don't believe it's for a merge.

Just saying IF individual servers have differing configs, say they rigged Freedom to be able to handle higher load than others because it's always had higher number of players, then it might be safer to try it first there since they're only asking to double the players it normally handles instead of...seriously, what's the word for 8x?

Or since Freedom typically already has half the target user they're aiming for, it might be easier to coax the other half into participating instead of asking...oh come on, what's that word...8x more than the number of people that normally shows up on a regular basis.

Might be more the latter. *shrug*

But again, i know nothing of server architecture and load-balancing strategies. Just shooting the breeze here.

Perhaps your second sentence is why.

I usually see Freedom have around 1,100 average unhidden players at peak times. So if their goal is 2,500, that's just about doubling the norm which they might think is safer than asking one of the other 13 servers that usually has less than 300 to quadruple (not a good word...what's a word for 8x?) the load on that server...maybe? If they have different configs for individual servers, then the 2,500 test on the others might be more risky.

Especially if for some weird occurrence, the entire typical concurrent userbase (4,500ish) decides to participate and pile on to one.

CAVEAT: Not a tech person, even quite possibly extremely naive when it comes to server technology.

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Oh, and isn't your #3 reason sort of treading on part of your #2 reason? If they merge Freedom with another server, that would be putting more players on Freedom

Just playing devil's advocate. If they said it's not about merging, that's fine with me till i hear them say otherwise.

True, just me and the 6 years i've put into my 6 bases. Reasons vary, but we don't know those reasons for the entire playerbase to determine the size of that segment of the population.

We can't really declare that a big population likes low pop servers, we don't have that data. It's even possible that there's as many people liking low pop servers as there are people who can't leave their low pop because they still have friends there or they have personal bases they're fond of or they just got complacent and haven't really thought about moving.

I know for me, i'm staying on my low pop home server but not because i don't want a high pop server. I have several bases (3 each side) that i've been building up since CoV launch. So it's a real pain to give up 6 years of effort.

I'm not advocating a server merge, that is best left to the devs to determine if it's necessary or not.

But what i can see though, is that 12 of the 15 servers have typically around 300ish average or less concurrent unhidden players during peak times and if they merged 3 of those servers into 1, it would still be in the yellow range (usually won't see it go red till it exceeds 1100 +/- 100 unhidden).

Of course, i can't see the whole big picture, but from an outsider's perspective, that's a majority (80%) of the servers being under-utilized IMO.

Sorry, i should've specified the feature i was referring to was the one that they said to improve accessibility of the incarnate system to solo/small teamers. Not more large-group content.

EDIT: Oops, to further clarify. It was mentioned recently after i20 and not an old statement that referred to the thread conversion we have now.

CORRECTION: Ack, my mind has gone bye-bye. Just found that post by Second Measure and i guess it was a couple weeks before i20, but it still sounded like something they are still thinking about after i20.

Maybe i'm just odd but it's like the reverse for me...it's once i get to the end-game that it gets grindy. *shrug*

Still no mention of the content to alleviate that...hope it doesn't take them too long.

I'm sure the initial development debt has been paid by now, but it still has recurring costs associated with employees, facilities etc. How much that all costs per month is uncertain since the quarterlies doesn't break down costs per game. So we can't really determine if 1 mil a month (closer to 900k) is good, damn good or just ok. All we can say is continued decline is not preferred since at the near future it tends to mean cost cutting somewhere, either future development and/or infrastructure.

Maybe all the sale promos they're having this quarter will bump it up a bit.

The exchange rate didn't change that much the last 6 months.

4Q10 1 USD = 1135.05837 avg ask price
1Q11 1 USD = 1121.61478

or the other way around...

4Q10 1 KRW = 0.00088 USD
1Q11 1 KRW = 0.00089 USD


CoX Sales in USD
4Q10 $2,850,320
1Q11 $2,718,950

I'm sure there is still some of that effect felt in this game, i'm just doubtful that the financial crisis is still the major influence for the continuing decline.

CoX have had a slow, tapered decline in revenue long before the subprime crash. At the time of the crash was an understandable huge drop, then in the 6 months after it went back to a slow, tapered decline as before.


(Sorry, slow response...thread grew faster than i refresh so missed it the first time heh)

Though i see where Daemodand is coming from. They're making it more efficient for "old-fashioned business reasons" as Second Measure said. My first thought after seeing that was a way to cut cost and it would be completely understandable to me in light of the numbers.

It's not just them...think there's enough to show people are still spending on entertainment. They just might be more discerning on which ones they spend it on.

The major effect from that might have happened 2 years ago. Think the majority of people who had a need to evaluate if CoX was worth keeping in light of their financial situation decided back then.

The subprime crisis started 4Q 2009 ish. Prior to that CoX sales were:

1Q09 6,837
2Q09 6,673
3Q09 5,471

Then the 15 months after:

4Q09 3,928
1Q10 3,348
2Q10 3,491
3Q10 5,709 (GR sales temporary spike)
4Q10 3,239
1Q11 3,055

Although the past year is still decreasing but is doing so with a more tapered rate. To me that might appear that decrease will mostly be from the merits of the game instead of a need to cut expenses.

But since the quarterlies doesn't specify the cost per game, we can't really know how low it can go before NCsoft will consider it as no longer financially viable. If the cost is way lower than that then it can still go for years.

But the decline is still somewhat worrying for me, since if it does keep decreasing that means more cost cutting somewhere.

Don't know about that graph but the revenue number in the quarterly report does include all CoX sales including continuing subscriptions and the other stuff you mentioned.

It's a quarterly number, so should also divide by 3 months.

Separate thought came up with this. (Not a tech person, so this is probably way off.)

Those good old fashioned business reasons for making the servers more efficient...(since you seem to not expect to greatly increase server pop through merging)...is it to streamline costs by downgrading hardware if you can make the code more efficient enough that it can handle the current load with less hardware?

Not that important, but just had to ask in case you answer hehe.

It's possible, though i'm not quite sure about that.

Player counts seem to correspond to server list placement somewhat.
Yesterday's US peak, i saw Freedom have 1,011 and Virtue was around 1,219 19:15 pacific.

Not sure why stress test Freedom over Virtue, unless they want to do a baseline and then try it out on the highest pop server if it goes well, eh.

And after the devs entered that through their player feedback translator it came out as "Backpacks are $9.99"

Though would be nice if they add some free ones as well heh.