Under 10,000. How's the future?

[Zaishi]

I've been following this game since it's release. Fond memories of trying to get my game account set up, only to be billed 13 times by ibill the ******** company. Yep, been here since that. The game has improved, no question about that, I just resubbed yesterday and it's a much better game for sure. What has not improved is player population. Since release it has declined rapidly, it's now (or should I say as of May '05) under 10,000 subs, how long will it stay open? Asheron's Call 2 closed with over 20k subs, same with Earth and Beyond, the general opinion of the MMO community is that this game is already gone. Why should I put any serious time into this game? Will it be here in a year? Are you dedicated to keeping it open even if the subs drop below 5k? 2k? Let's just say I've been burned twice so far, I put a lot of time in AC2 and E&B, only to have them close on me, so I'm going to be cautious here because to be honest I can't see how the game is running on so few subs.[^o)]



And a heads up. There is no steward on your new starting island, yet the guy in the tutorial area still gives a quest to give a letter to a steward. I had to port to the new island, bind, port to an old island, and then recall just to get the 50xp and 50cp. [8-)] Also the guard right outside town loves to run off and massacre every lvl 1-2 grulet she sees, which is the whole area.[Y]

[li]

[Zaishi]

Is NV the dragon island? I was only given the option of starting on NT as a dryad, and I spent a good 10 minutes flying around looking for a steward in and out of town, but there wasn't one.

Small losses doesn't sound good.[*-)] If subs are going up though that's a good thing, hopefully it breaks even soon or maybe even starts pulling in a profit.

[Aamer Khan]

I would say that the only accurate way to know the number of subs is to ask David.

As far as the future, there are still alot of the same players that have been here for a long time, so it looks bright enough for us to stick around. [;)]

I have been noticing a ton of new characters running around... many ture new players and not alts. Just this last sunday, while we waited to start the Naked Dryad Race, we saw 5 new players at the starting area. And that was in just 30 min time.

Your best bet is to play for a month or two, check out what you can do, get to know the ingame community and see if it's for you.

And one final tip, join the "New Player Assistance" channel to get help learning your way around.

[Blue Hasia]

. Why should I put any serious time into this game? Will it be here in a year?

WEll the devs sure think so just look at all the major updates they are working on, The team has been working on liars now for a very long time and in the past month have heard alot of progress coming in from IRC. also AROP is almost done on blight there are now Ancient dragons. And not to menching the PVP areana on blight.

[Zaishi]

http://www.mmogchart.com/

That has accurate subscription numbers. It's not updated that often though, so the numbers are usually dated a bit.

I'm not really new, I've played into the 40s on a few characters in the past, mostly crafting. I was a mason working on building those machines in the forest to free the Elven town the last time I played.[H]

[Zaishi]

WEll the devs sure think so just look at all the major updates they are working on, The team has been working on liars now for a very long time and in the past month have heard alot of progress coming in from IRC. also AROP is almost done on blight there are now Ancient dragons. And not to menching the PVP areana on blight.

Sadly that doesn't mean anything. Asheron's Call 2 was getting just as many updates, and actually had just put out a full expansion right before closing.

[Zaishi]

This... http://community.istaria.com/Web/Sho...x?PostID=96694

...is not helping.

[Blue Hasia]

Sadly that doesn't mean anything. Asheron's Call 2 was getting just as many updates, and actually had just put out a full expansion right before closing.

well if the fact that the devs are working hard to make a better game is not enough to make you feel better, then I dont know what will.

[Tokoz]

Business data posted June 10th, 2005, was more than likely gathered over the previous month (as the person implies a few times on the website.)

I wouldn't make any business decisions on a company this young based on data that old.

[Zaishi]

well if the fact that the devs are working hard to make a better game is not enough to make you feel better, then I dont know what will.

I should clarify. The devs don't decide when the game gets canceled. They work hard all the time to keep the game going, but the decision falls to people who control the money.

[Jayne]

Yea not much more to say then that. Some of us will stick thru thick and thin. We have already put in plenty of hours so quiting, at least for me, is not an option.

Jayne

[Tokoz]

Well after looking at where you get your numbers from, I'm much more confident about the number of people I'm seeing than anything you're going to find at that website. I'm sure David blindfolded could give you more accurate numbers...

http://www.mmogchart.com/FAQ.html

[oluviel]

Horizons basically can't be compared to ac2 on this front. The downsize was what needed to be done in order to not keep losing money. I don't know what dev power ac2 had but i used to frequent their updates regularly and it looked like they had a hefty dev team being run by a strong company with other projects.


Tulga from what we understand is horizons =p. It doesn't have a d&d online in development, it doesn't have lord of the rings online in development, and it doesn't have asherons call 1 still making money for them.


This is all they have and that's why it will last longer than you would think. Even if subs don't eventually increase.

[David Bowman]

Welcome back and I'm glad that you agree that Horizons has improved.

The team that is improving and growing Horizons has been through many things but has continued to work consistently. We are going to continue to do this. The number of subscribers is slowly and steadily increasing. It has taken us an incredible amount of work to reach this point, we are not stopping. Our costs to operate and grow Horizons are lower than our competitors' costs to operate their games, our investors have pledged to continue supporting the company whenever needed, and our tools get better and our team more skilled every day. Horizons has a long life ahead of it.

Thank you for playing Horizons,

David Bowman

(Sir Bruce guesses, extrapolates, and does his best to generate his data, but it has never been accurate for any of the products that I have known the data for. Companies do not share this data. They make press releases when they reach milestones, but they define the milestones announcements. How they frame the data is significant. My statements are simple: there is more money coming in today than three months ago, there are more people playing more hours of Horizons today than three months ago, and there are more new people trying Horizons now than in the past year.)

[Morthulwen]

New Trismus does have a steward he stands by the sign down by the dragon crafting cave.

[Hal`cyon Sskyler]

Welcome back and I'm glad that you agree that Horizons has improved.

The team that is improving and growing Horizons has been through many things but has continued to work consistently. We are going to continue to do this. The number of subscribers is slowly and steadily increasing. It has taken us an incredible amount of work to reach this point, we are not stopping. Our costs to operate and grow Horizons are lower than our competitors' costs to operate their games, our investors have pledged to continue supporting the company whenever needed, and our tools get better and our team more skilled every day. Horizons has a long life ahead of it.

Thank you for playing Horizons,

David Bowman

(Sir Bruce guesses, extrapolates, and does his best to generate his data, but it has never been accurate for any of the products that I have known the data for. Companies do not share this data. They make press releases when they reach milestones, but they define the milestones announcements. How they frame the data is significant. My statements are simple: there is more money coming in today than three months ago, there are more people playing more hours of Horizons today than three months ago, and there are more new people trying Horizons now than in the past year.)

^-- What he said (David = CEO)

[Zaishi]

Thank you David, that's veryreassuring. [H]

And yes, I know who he is. [8-)]

[Kulamata]

Getting the curve pointed UP instead of down for the first time in Horizons' history since the first month is a major, major achievement. Sometime maybe a bit of a celebration? Or something folded into the (I hope) upcoming Harvest Festival?

Iwould guess the AC2 closure was a matter of the dev team being purchased, rather than the game. I'd expect the team to be folded into the new projects.

[David Bowman]

It has been a number of years since I left Turbine, but combining what I knew then and what I know from casual conversations about AC2, the economics of closing AC2 makes sense for Turbine's longer term goals. While we would be quite profitable at AC2 subscriber levels, it didn't make sense for Turbine when they need those resources for other projects. Good luck Turbine, the better the products you make, the better the industry as a whole becomes.

David

[Mordoth]

I think one of the greatest improvements I have seen (and I started at release), is the amount of communictation from David and the devs.

I noticed on this thread and your thread about your disappearing character, someone from Horizons responded within a short period of time. This, IMO is phenomenal.