2 million players moved from wow to ffxiv

[devashta]

Yap the hype train is real. With the biggest streamer Asmongold moving to FF publicly it is like a wave of unstoppable Tsunami. I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server. Population is beyond comprehensible with "sprouts" (new players) everywhere. So much so, they have problems with server capacity and "lag" and they are moving forward their new data center plan and upgrading their infrastructure. Not bad for a game which was almost DoA 8 years back.

Although there are a number of reasons (including creating a half-naked bunny girl as your character), the main reason seems to be they have kept the F2P till level 60 which started during the pandemic. I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P. There has to be a catch up mechanism for new players to get all these past lives and a proper end game content which is played by ALL (and not just who want to play reaper).

We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.

[Tohrazer]

Yap the hype train is real. With the biggest streamer Asmongold moving to FF publicly it is like a wave of unstoppable Tsunami. I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server. Population is beyond comprehensible with "sprouts" (new players) everywhere. So much so, they have problems with server capacity and "lag" and they are moving forward their new data center plan and upgrading their infrastructure. Not bad for a game which was almost DoA 8 years back.

Although there are a number of reasons (including creating a half-naked bunny girl as your character), the main reason seems to be they have kept the F2P till level 60 which started during the pandemic. I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P. There has to be a catch up mechanism for new players to get all these past lives and a proper end game content which is played by ALL (and not just who want to play reaper).

We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.

Yeah my brother and gf subbed for a month but sadly won't be staying because they don't want to fork out £46 (65$) for the trove, which is a shame as I love the game but when there's no one to play with I'll also be unsubbing and disappearing (anecdotally, we have decided to move to ffxiv). so anyways that's 3 less players showing up in LFGs etc, I know it's not the end of the world but every little bit counts :shrug:

[Mandelia]

Starting any post with the word 'hype' will just make the devs' brains wander off to oblivion. They have no concept of what that means.

[Dejvid]

yeah, squareenix did a brilliant move to make the whole basegame and the first expansion free for all. thats so much repeatable content with dungeons and raids, you almost dont even need to sub for the other 2 expansions right now. sure, there are some negatives for beeing a f2p player, but what game doesnt have those?

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

There is a certain kind of player type who likes these kinds of games. It has to be analysed who is this kind of player (what this kind of player likes, does, what he or she focuses on, what his or her goal in game play is, etc ...).


We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.

Depends on WHAT kind of player type you want to attract.


Me, I never liked WOW. Too flat for my taste. And I don't think I'd like Final Fantasy as well, any of the games from this series.

My taste is too much different than that from the "hype hive".

[Oxarhamar]

There is a certain kind of player type who likes these kinds of games. It has to be analysed who is this kind of player (what this kind of player likes, does, what he or she focuses on, what his or her goal in game play is, etc ...).



Depends on WHAT kind of player type you want to attract.


Me, I never liked WOW. Too flat for my taste. And I don't think I'd like Final Fantasy as well, any of the games from this series.

My taste is too much different than that from the "hype hive".

I didn’t like either of them & I liked the games that came before the MMOS

I’ve been saying that DDO should aim to attract from dnd player base

[gaxpar]

There is a certain kind of player type who likes these kinds of games. It has to be analysed who is this kind of player (what this kind of player likes, does, what he or she focuses on, what his or her goal in game play is, etc ...).



Depends on WHAT kind of player type you want to attract.


Me, I never liked WOW. Too flat for my taste. And I don't think I'd like Final Fantasy as well, any of the games from this series.

My taste is too much different than that from the "hype hive".


I think your logic is a tad flawed from a business perspective . It doesn't matter what "KIND" of player you need, "ALL KINDS" of players is what any business thrive for and that's the way to make money, more players more spending end of story . There's only one kind of money and its customer money .

You think anyone, in any meeting, in any field, will approach an income stream and nah we dont want that income ? Like amazon or walmart ? Volume = traffic= money =profits .However small the margin is .

No we do not want those players lets just cut off 12% of our income stream , Jim great idea we will promote you CEO !

[Knobull]

I tried to play Final Fantasy Fourteen, but their registration is broken. It gets stuck in an email confirmation loop.

I have no idea how 2 million people managed to sign in. I'm guessing it's a spyphone thing?

Pretty amazing to pick up millions of players even with a broken registration system.

[Dejvid]

I tried to play Final Fantasy Fourteen, but their registration is broken. It gets stuck in an email confirmation loop.

I have no idea how 2 million people managed to sign in. I'm guessing it's a spyphone thing?

Pretty amazing to pick up millions of players even with a broken registration system.

well, if millions managed, and you not... maybe the issue is not some kind of "spyphone thing"?

on the flipside, ddo still has problems with letting people actually buy the new expansions on the ddo market.

[SoulDustar]

Yap the hype train is real. With the biggest streamer Asmongold moving to FF publicly it is like a wave of unstoppable Tsunami. I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server. Population is beyond comprehensible with "sprouts" (new players) everywhere. So much so, they have problems with server capacity and "lag" and they are moving forward their new data center plan and upgrading their infrastructure. Not bad for a game which was almost DoA 8 years back.

Although there are a number of reasons (including creating a half-naked bunny girl as your character), the main reason seems to be they have kept the F2P till level 60 which started during the pandemic. I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P. There has to be a catch up mechanism for new players to get all these past lives and a proper end game content which is played by ALL (and not just who want to play reaper).

We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.


Did these WoW players delete their accounts, if not did they really leave WoW, or are they simply following Asmongold and others and trying something new out. The fact they are trying a game certainly does not mean FF will retain them as players in any case after all the 'lag' server upgrades and inevitable problems this large of a player influx will bring is going to make some unhappy and they will simply get tired and return to move onto something else.

The hardcore server has seen its fair share of players return and they have suffered lag, and other problems just the same. Now lets put all those players on all the live servers and see how that works out for retaining the player base we have now with the problems we already have. That should stabilize and certainly help SSG retain a lot more active players.

I never have a problem filling my groups when I play not before not during and not after hardcore. The freequest coupon was indeed a fabulous idea and should be continued if SSG wants to do so. The only catch up mechanism players need in DDO is play time nothing more nothing less. I do more than just fine on my first lifers and my whopping 6 life toon which I have no interest in pursuing a bunch on useless past lives that won't do anything for me at all.

Asmongold deleted his characters which are easily recoverable and this seems to me to just be a token gesture on his part to voice his displeasure with Blizzard and nothing more. Let me know when they all start deleting their accounts and blizzard locks them out from account recovery other than that it really means nothing at all.

[Caarb]

Im currently playing FFXIV and having fun. It is very story driven, which I like, but I am not sure how much replayability it has once the story is over.

[thunderhawk123]

played it for 3 weeks got bored with it even playing with friends it was no fun i dont see the fun in it no loot drop in open world no space to carry crafting mats its a **** game to me anyways

[Knobull]

well, if millions managed, and you not... maybe the issue is not some kind of "spyphone thing"?

Exactly. Perhaps they have fixed it? Or perhaps they do not allow registration from gmail accounts and just do not say so?

I just assume it is a spyphone thing these days. Most major websites won't work without one. Can't use facebook, twitter, stripe... the list goes on. I just make do without.

If I had a spyphone I would sell the number for $20 a pop, but give it away for free? Nope.

Anyway, maybe Square Enix has fixed their registration? I'll try it again and see what I get.

[Knobull]

Yuo, they fixed it! Registration works now! Nice. That explains how 2M registered. Last year I wondered how they would do with a broken registration process. Surprised to see they fixed it. I can try out the game now!

From December 2019:

Greetings,

We apologize for the inconvenience. We appreciate your feedback. It will be forwarded to my superiors and will take this information and forward it as feedback to the appropriate department. While we cannot guarantee implementation, we would like to assure you that it will be reviewed by the appropriate party.

Thank you,
SQUARE ENIX Customer Support

I guess they really did pass the report up the line. Impressive. You rarely see that.

[Marshal_Lannes]

What is the purpose of this post? Moderators should move this to the Off-Topic Chat as this has nothing to do with DDO.

[Knobull]

There's always one...

[Vish]

What is the purpose of this post? Moderators should move this to the Off-Topic Chat as this has nothing to do with DDO.

What if 2 mil came to ddo?

Then it would have everything to do with ddo

But that’s not gonna happen is it?

[Isolani]

What if 2 mil came to ddo?

Then it would have everything to do with ddo

But that’s not gonna happen is it?

I hope that doesn't happen, the servers would never be able to deal with it.

Regarding the OP, I thought WoW was a much better game than FFXIV. I played WoW when it launched and off and on for a year or two while I was still playing EQ. FFXIV I tried a few years ago and thought it was nice looking, but really boring. Boring combat, boring crafting, just boring all around. I haven't played WoW since Burning Crusade, but I can't imagine anyone wanting to play FFXIV over WoW. Or maybe WoW is just really bad now too, I can't really say, it's been at over 10 years since I played WoW. I probably wouldn't like WoW if I played it now either.

[TFerguson]

Both of those games suck.

[Dejvid]

Did these WoW players delete their accounts, if not did they really leave WoW, or are they simply following Asmongold and others and trying something new out. The fact they are trying a game certainly does not mean FF will retain them as players in any case after all the 'lag' server upgrades and inevitable problems this large of a player influx will bring is going to make some unhappy and they will simply get tired and return to move onto something else.

they dont have to delete anything. all they have to do is cancel the sub. granted, blizzard started to offer mounts for a 6-month abo to lock those players in, but thats another discussion.
the server upgrades squareenix did was to increase login capacity, not because of lag. queues were getting out of hand.



The freequest coupon was indeed a fabulous idea and should be continued if SSG wants to do so. The only catch up mechanism players need in DDO is play time nothing more nothing less. I do more than just fine on my first lifers and my whopping 6 life toon which I have no interest in pursuing a bunch on useless past lives that won't do anything for me at all.

the coupon was indeed a good thing, even i had no issue with it, despite having spent more money on this game then i like to admit. but i guess the new players did not stay in a high enough number to justify free content and so its back to beeing costly for everyone.



Asmongold deleted his characters which are easily recoverable and this seems to me to just be a token gesture on his part to voice his displeasure with Blizzard and nothing more. Let me know when they all start deleting their accounts and blizzard locks them out from account recovery other than that it really means nothing at all.

nah, he just deleted his one boosted (with that paid level up for burning crusade classic) for charity or something. it was still dumb because he paid for this thing that he so despises, but thats streamer money.
again, deletion of account is useless. simply stopping to pay is enough.


what ddo would need, in terms of maybe getting some more fresh blood into this game, is some high profile streamer (free marketing) to play it for a while. im not saying this as in ddo has no streamers, i enjoy strimtom and especially vodoo. but those are "our" streamers. something from outside would be helpful.
then again, theres almost no chance of something like that happening. even when youtubers make "is ddo worth it in 20xx?" as content, most of the comments are not really in favour of the game. :(

the saltmarsh trailer on the official site sits at 5k views.

[Oliphant]

What is the purpose of this post? Moderators should move this to the Off-Topic Chat as this has nothing to do with DDO.

This is thread is lookin at me funny, Ma!

I can help! OP of this very thread suggests 2 million players moved games due to revenue models and suggests DDO make classic packs permanently free *gasp*.

[Hawkwier]

What is the purpose of this post? Moderators should move this to the Off-Topic Chat as this has nothing to do with DDO.

And yet, so many folks seem to be getting quite aereated over it, one way or another. Why could that be, I wonder? Because it's about folks leaving a game en-masse? Would never happen here though... would it?

Nothing to see here folks. Please move along...

[LT218]

What is the purpose of this post? Moderators should move this to the Off-Topic Chat as this has nothing to do with DDO.

Off topic? Nothing to do with DDO?

Did you simply not bother to actually read past the title and spend 30s giving some actual consideration to what they wrote?

The point of it and how it pertains to DDO is literally explained in the entire second half of the post. Maybe the moderators should move you to the off-topic chat.


Yap the hype train is real. With the biggest streamer Asmongold moving to FF publicly it is like a wave of unstoppable Tsunami. I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server. Population is beyond comprehensible with "sprouts" (new players) everywhere. So much so, they have problems with server capacity and "lag" and they are moving forward their new data center plan and upgrading their infrastructure. Not bad for a game which was almost DoA 8 years back.

Although there are a number of reasons (including creating a half-naked bunny girl as your character), the main reason seems to be they have kept the F2P till level 60 which started during the pandemic. I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P. There has to be a catch up mechanism for new players to get all these past lives and a proper end game content which is played by ALL (and not just who want to play reaper).

We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.

[slarden]

DDO is so unique that it's going to stand or fall on it's own merits - not because of what other games are doing.

I think the biggest short-term risk of DDO is the U50-U51 system changes and then an upcoming level cap change. That is alot of change in a short period of time and although I was optimistic about U50 I give SSG a C- on it and am being generous.

I hope we don't have too many get entrenched in other games while taking a break from DDO.


I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server


I tried to play Final Fantasy Fourteen, but their registration is broken. It gets stuck in an email confirmation loop.

Sounds great so far.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

I am very concerned about U51 coming just after U50 borked the game play - I fail diplos with 120, trap boxes now are blowing up with my skill @ 110 disarm; spike dmg from champs is stupid - I used to be able to solo R3 from 1-30 pretty much now have to do E or EE and even then the champ spike dmg is dumb. I got an expansion where the loot is all useless lvl 3 - the upgrades are junk i'll never use because the sharn set bonuses @ 15 worth keeping till 29. And new legendary gear is 30, which I am @ for about 5 minutes till I TR again.

I played around with the new U51 destinies and hated them. Literally they made me nauseus how different, weak, bad, and uninspired they were - builder/spender makes me seasick on land; all the good abilities are gone - Serenity which i use for my drow SR is gone - why? Seems so lame - and no twists? No more twists in DDO? are they trying to make me leave for another game? I don't know about Final Fantasy, but something else - ESO, STWOR, there are other places I can get my questing on and spend disposable capital - just because I have a beta account here and have been here since 2006 doesnt mean I'll stay if they sony NGE DDO - I mean I don't want the level cap raised at all - this is dungeons and dragons not WoW - lvl 50 in DnD? lol - And why not a continuation of enhancements if they need to raise the levels - why not just add a 7th core tier to enhancements if the level cap is raising and keep EDs like they are? Or just port the existing system over and gate it - that would be bad enough but tolerable, but to cherry pick out all the good useful stuff and delete it - just to add meaningless uninteresting stuff. Oh really do I get a +1 to hit. wow. Oh really +2 prr - that's epic. Oh really mass frog is now only in this 1 tree and i need to be in this lame tree invested 30+ points of utter useless garbage just to get it? NOT.

And no twists.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills.

[Dark_Lord_Mary]

DDO is so unique that it's going to stand or fall on it's own merits - not because of what other games are doing.

I think the biggest short-term risk of DDO is the U50-U51 system changes and then an upcoming level cap change. That is alot of change in a short period of time and although I was optimistic about U50 I give SSG a C- on it and am being generous.

I hope we don't have too many get entrenched in other games while taking a break from DDO.





Sounds great so far.

There's no guarantee anyone leaving to play another game will ever come back. I left LOTRO to go play SWToR and even though I have a lifetime LOTRO account I still do not play it. They lost me completely - I've tried and its useless. I can likely never go back. Its a shame too - Moria was one of the best expansions in an MMO ever, so fun. what is LOTRO now cap at level 500 - ridiculous.

And they want to do that to ddo.

No thanks

[Marshal_Lannes]

And yet, so many folks seem to be getting quite aereated over it, one way or another. Why could that be, I wonder? Because it's about folks leaving a game en-masse? Would never happen here though... would it?

Nothing to see here folks. Please move along...

I don't see anyone getting tumefied. Only several people debating the merits of other MMOs, which have no bearing whatsoever on DDO. As such this topic should be moved to the off-topic section. And no, sorry DDO ain't going anywhere. Well, except the glorious march to its 25th anniversary!

[zappy]

I don't like the way ssg is running ddo at the moment and have also moved to final fantasy 14. Its very refreshing to have no lag, a wonderful non toxic and helpful end game community, much better wipe recovery mechanics, actual populated servers, and an insane amount of story driven content. Also, the cash shop is much more reasonable than ddo, with the top selling items being cosmetic respecs and outfits/mounts, and their equivalent of an ottos box being much more reasonably priced, and also completely unneeded, as there are plenty of people at all levels of play, so there is always populated areas for the low level content, with full blown best in slot geared top level players able to play the lowest level dungeons and have their gear and skills scaled back seamlessly.

goodby for now ddo. Hello ff14, oooo look at that catgirl, gotta go, seeya nerds.

[Oliphant]

I don't see anyone getting tumefied. Only several people debating the merits of other MMOs, which have no bearing whatsoever on DDO. As such this topic should be moved to the off-topic section. And no, sorry DDO ain't going anywhere. Well, except the glorious march to its 25th anniversary!

Really stretchin to get stuff moved to 'off topic' here, imo.

So we really can't start threads making a suggestion about DDO if we use non-DDO examples in paragraph one?

Is it the title? You good with the body but just want a nice, "DDO" in the title so it's clear?

[erethizon]

What is the purpose of this post? Moderators should move this to the Off-Topic Chat as this has nothing to do with DDO.

The purpose is to point out that DDO needs to make most of the content free (like they did with the free quest code last year) if it wants to have a decent player base. You don't attract new players by telling them they need to spend $200 to get access to the game.

[VeritechVF-1S]

Sorry, nobody cares. DDO is in a category by itself. We are all we have. Making comparisons to other MMOs will get you nowhere. This thread is now closed, no further discussions are needed.
I suggest you all stop playing video games and get on with your life.

[grudgebear]

you don't attract new players by telling them they need to spend $200 to get access to the game.

this.

[Hawkwier]

I don't see anyone getting tumefied. Only several people debating the merits of other MMOs, which have no bearing whatsoever on DDO. As such this topic should be moved to the off-topic section. And no, sorry DDO ain't going anywhere. Well, except the glorious march to its 25th anniversary!

I don't think you see much of anything you don't want to, tbh. Glasgow Rangers fans c.2011 were just the same as were the press. Nothing to see here. Please move along...

DDO ain't going anywhere? You might be right there, at least.

Anyway the point was that players are the ones going elsewhere. Maybe more with U51. The player base has dwindled since the shot in the arm it got from the free quests initiative. Which is the point of the very much on topic OP. I'm sorry you don't like that fact. Pretending everything is fine and seeking to manipulate folks who can see better isn't much help though.

[STDGames]

Sorry, nobody cares. DDO is in a category by itself. We are all we have. Making comparisons to other MMOs will get you nowhere. This thread is now closed, no further discussions are needed.
I suggest you all stop playing video games and get on with your life.

The category being "a game made for it's own Developers" yes indeed.

[Alrik_Fassbauer]

The purpose is to point out that DDO needs to make most of the content free (like they did with the free quest code last year) if it wants to have a decent player base. You don't attract new players by telling them they need to spend $200 to get access to the game.

It depends on the setting, too.
Content locusts will play any MMO no matter which setting it has.
For me, the setting of a game is one of the 1-3 big points in my decision whether I'll play it or not.

[thunderhawk123]

i came back to ddo 3 years ago after playing it the first year it came out, when i came back i logged in to my old account then i spent $1200 to get all expan and 1 year sub and ddo points so yeah its a lot to get started but for me when i play a game im all in/overbord.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Is it the title? You good with the body but just want a nice, "DDO" in the title so it's clear?

Yes. A post titled 2 million players moved from wow to ffiv has no business being in the DDO General forum.

[Chai]

DDO should try to capitalize on this. If they even got 10K players out of this type of a migration that would be a huge win.

[Valerianus]

Yes. A post titled 2 million players moved from wow to ffiv has no business being in the DDO General forum.

why?

it's a forum. a gaming forum. gamers talk. they talk about...stuff. gaming stuff.

i don't see the problem.

by the way, it totally belongs to ddo general forum, OP is clearly talking about ddo. who cares about the title.


edit: and +1 OP

[Amorais]

Whatever people may think, there is a huge point in letting SSG know they have Jurassic Park style gates sat squarely in front of entry into this game with that huge cost barrier to content that should long ago have been made F2P.

[Jaxtan]

Yes. A post titled 2 million players moved from wow to ffiv has no business being in the DDO General forum.

Not sure you in the UP or down by Motown, but you are intelligent and have to see the relevance of the content of the op. Designs on content accessibility and U50/51 are going the wrong way to establish a sustainable model for growth and positive cash flow.

[krimsonrane]

I don't like the way ssg is running ddo at the moment and have also moved to final fantasy 14. Its very refreshing to have no lag, a wonderful non toxic and helpful end game community, much better wipe recovery mechanics, actual populated servers, and an insane amount of story driven content. Also, the cash shop is much more reasonable than ddo, with the top selling items being cosmetic respecs and outfits/mounts, and their equivalent of an ottos box being much more reasonably priced, and also completely unneeded, as there are plenty of people at all levels of play, so there is always populated areas for the low level content, with full blown best in slot geared top level players able to play the lowest level dungeons and have their gear and skills scaled back seamlessly.

goodby for now ddo. Hello ff14, oooo look at that catgirl, gotta go, seeya nerds.

i dloaded it a couple months ago. I guess I should give it a try now.

[Catabree]

Yap the hype train is real. With the biggest streamer Asmongold moving to FF publicly it is like a wave of unstoppable Tsunami. I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server. Population is beyond comprehensible with "sprouts" (new players) everywhere. So much so, they have problems with server capacity and "lag" and they are moving forward their new data center plan and upgrading their infrastructure. Not bad for a game which was almost DoA 8 years back.

Although there are a number of reasons (including creating a half-naked bunny girl as your character), the main reason seems to be they have kept the F2P till level 60 which started during the pandemic. I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P. There has to be a catch up mechanism for new players to get all these past lives and a proper end game content which is played by ALL (and not just who want to play reaper).

We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.

As a long term player and reader of you frequent posts, DDO is not a game for you. Uninstall and continue playing ff14. I have recently gotten to lv 70 and loving it. If you have been playing longer than six month and still trying to do herioc past lives, quit. If you haven't run end game content and worked out past lives are not required...quit. End game is reaper points not past lives.
Stop complaining on these forums and find something better.

[Marshal_Lannes]

Not sure you in the UP or down by Motown, but you are intelligent and have to see the relevance of the content of the op. Designs on content accessibility and U50/51 are going the wrong way to establish a sustainable model for growth and positive cash flow.

Are they? There is a vocal element that demands the game "must" do this. Or that. I love the game right now. I love what they did with Saltmarsh. I believe U50 will be a huge success, I'll be the under on this.

[StevenKos]

Yap the hype train is real. With the biggest streamer Asmongold moving to FF publicly it is like a wave of unstoppable Tsunami. I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server. Population is beyond comprehensible with "sprouts" (new players) everywhere. So much so, they have problems with server capacity and "lag" and they are moving forward their new data center plan and upgrading their infrastructure. Not bad for a game which was almost DoA 8 years back.

Although there are a number of reasons (including creating a half-naked bunny girl as your character), the main reason seems to be they have kept the F2P till level 60 which started during the pandemic. I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P. There has to be a catch up mechanism for new players to get all these past lives and a proper end game content which is played by ALL (and not just who want to play reaper).

We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.

As a former FF14 player (and returnee someday probably) I got to say a wild rush of Wow players and wow player "culture" is not something I'd enjoy. Some of those people are not going to adjust well to FF14 and vice versa. Btw being rude to other players and many of the typical social behavior common in wow get you banned in FF14. It'll be interesting how this turns out.

[Chai]

As a former FF14 player (and returnee someday probably) I got to say a wild rush of Wow players and wow player "culture" is not something I'd enjoy. Some of those people are not going to adjust well to FF14 and vice versa. Btw being rude to other players and many of the typical social behavior common in wow get you banned in FF14. It'll be interesting how this turns out.

That culture is precisely why some of those folks left.

DDO should be marketing to these folks. These are the grinder types who would fit right in and not even bat an eye at the level of farming this game requires to run optimal builds on high settings. To even get 10K of them would be a victory for SSG.

[GoldyGopher]

Yap the hype train is real. With the biggest streamer Asmongold moving to FF publicly it is like a wave of unstoppable Tsunami. I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server. Population is beyond comprehensible with "sprouts" (new players) everywhere. So much so, they have problems with server capacity and "lag" and they are moving forward their new data center plan and upgrading their infrastructure. Not bad for a game which was almost DoA 8 years back.

Although there are a number of reasons (including creating a half-naked bunny girl as your character), the main reason seems to be they have kept the F2P till level 60 which started during the pandemic. I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P. There has to be a catch up mechanism for new players to get all these past lives and a proper end game content which is played by ALL (and not just who want to play reaper).

We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.

Going to chime in here...

Asmongold and the development team at Blizzard had a very public falling out. I am not naïve enough to think that players saw more than the tip of the iceberg in terms of their issues between Asmongold and Blizzard. Asmongold was the largest WoW streamers, after he left the game a not so insignificant number of viewers started watching other WoW streamers.

As Blizzard does not officially announce player counts anymore there is no way to substantiate the claim that WoW has lost any players let alone 2 million players. Much like ddoaudit.com there are several similar sites for WoW and most of them are reporting that the number of people logged in concurrently has increased over the past three months. So I am not buying that WoW has lost 2 Million players in any shape or form.

FFXIV saw phenomenal growth in the number of concurrent players from Jan 1 to Jun 1 of this year, adding upwards of 60%. However the number of subscribers and the number of active accounts were up only 20% based up numbers I have seen. I conclude that this means that players are spending more time in game.
After Jun 1 when Asmongold announced his change of game the numbers of concurrent players, active accounts and subscribers climbed 8% in roughly 2 1/2 months, which is lower than the month to month growth in the previous six months.
With this information and from my perspective and the numbers I see it is clear that Asmongold saw a wave of players going to FFXIV and he decided to catch that wave.

I have not played FFXIV nor do I have any interest, but my understanding of why it has such a large "WoW Refugee" population comes from two very clear points.
First FFXIV has focused on the "not hardcore" players. They have made numerous QOL adjustments, reworked lots of older content to bring it to modern standards and have a clearly defined focus on their story.
Second unlike other MMOs the development teams has worked very hard to make sure the free aspects of the game are as good if not better than the paid for aspects of the game.

FFXIV is not the only MMO that has benefited from the latest WoW exodus. Guild Wars 2, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Wars the Old Republic, and dozens of other games have seen growth.

My problem with DDOFREEQUESTS being made permanent is that it only does 20% of what is currently driving the growth in FFXIV. The thing they have been focusing on is making sure that the free trial content is up to date. If you look at the low level content in DDO much of it hasn't been touched since before the release of DDO:EU in 2009. Working on this content would be a great step to improving the f2p experience.

[GramercyRiff]

It's obviously relevant. FF makes a ton of content free and they get millions of players to the game. Of course, this does coincide with WoW's decline and a very influential person in Asmongold popping off and doing what he's got to do, but other games should take some notes. We do need to see how many of these people FF retains.

[superevbully]

Off topic? Nothing to do with DDO?

Did you simply not bother to actually read past the title and spend 30s giving some actual consideration to what they wrote?

The point of it and how it pertains to DDO is literally explained in the entire second half of the post. Maybe the moderators should move you to the off-topic chat.

Yep agree with this whole post ty for keeping it REAL

[Chilldude]

Yap the hype train is real. With the biggest streamer Asmongold moving to FF publicly it is like a wave of unstoppable Tsunami. I didn't initially believe, and wanted to check how real it is and ended up waiting in queue for more than an hour just to step in the server. Population is beyond comprehensible with "sprouts" (new players) everywhere. So much so, they have problems with server capacity and "lag" and they are moving forward their new data center plan and upgrading their infrastructure. Not bad for a game which was almost DoA 8 years back.

Although there are a number of reasons (including creating a half-naked bunny girl as your character), the main reason seems to be they have kept the F2P till level 60 which started during the pandemic. I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P. There has to be a catch up mechanism for new players to get all these past lives and a proper end game content which is played by ALL (and not just who want to play reaper).

We had a vibrant summer 2020 and a ghost town summer 2021. We have missed the boat, and missed it big time.

I hoped their philosophy was to use the quarantine as a chance to bring in new players so that they would have a player base to support development of a new player friendly system. When the only people playing your game are the handful of people who've been running around in circles grinding past lives for the last decade it's hard (for them) to justify anything but more and more grind. I hoped the massive influx of new blood would show them that they don't have to rely on the ever dwindling pool of stat chasers from yesteryear.

Unfortunately their philosophy was to attract a massive flood of new players in hopes that a few of them would find their run around in circles for decades to unlock god mode compelling enough to stick around and buy XP Elixirs for another decade.

As for WoW... they lost a lot of players because their last expansion was super grindy. It used to be that you could show up for raid nights, have fun, and the natural gear progression from raiding would keep you current. The last expansion required a great deal of daily grinding to stay current. I don't know about the current expansion because they lost me with the last expansion.

[DarkSkysz]

I am downloading the game to test it...
but I probably won't stay there for too long. Montly fees in dolar are beyond my reach since the start of the pandemic when our lovely president ****ed up everything and made dolar 5x more expensive...

[Hawkwier]

[QUOTE=GoldyGopher;6456245]

...

FFXIV is not the only MMO that has benefited from the latest WoW exodus. Guild Wars 2, Lord of the Rings Online, Star Wars the Old Republic, and dozens of other games have seen growth...

/QUOTE]

Gotta question why DDO apparently didn't then, surely?

[Tsutti]

I said before a 1000 times and will say it again - DDOFREEQUESTS must be made permanent and expansions other than Feywild made F2P.

I disagree that all the expansions should be made F2P, but I do think DDOFREEQUESTS ought to be permanent and do the same as it did before (granted access to normal packs released before Lost Gatekeepers). Perhaps some of the expansions could have prices lowered, but they're still expansions and should probably not be 100% granted, maybe it could still make sense to have Shadowfell and MotU priced at 99 points (maybe a little more than that, so it's not too trivial a point investment). Ravenloft could be lowered to 1.5k instead of 2.5k and Sharn to 2k? To make them a little easier to obtain via favor points, over the course of a couple TRs.

[Tsutti]

What is the purpose of this post? Moderators should move this to the Off-Topic Chat as this has nothing to do with DDO.


Are they? There is a vocal element that demands the game "must" do this. Or that. I love the game right now. I love what they did with Saltmarsh. I believe U50 will be a huge success, I'll be the under on this.

Such willful ignorance; people have already pointed out to you the relation this thread has to DDO so I won't, and since you seem to have ignored this too, Saltmarsh isn't the thing that so many people have a problem with in U50--the item changes are (and the mob changes made to compensate). There are threads all over the forums about how someone has this problem or that with the item changes, the foremost issue voiced being that people are getting one tapped more frequently and on lower difficulty settings, and in particular, how this has made soloing more difficult.

[Tsutti]

I used to be able to solo R3 from 1-30 pretty much now have to do E or EE and even then the champ spike dmg is dumb.

I feel obligated to point out that the changes in U50 only affect legendary gear, except for how you upgrade the old scroll/seal/shard items and monsters losing some saves in epic difficulties. You should not be experiencing any change in gameplay until you hit 20 unless the update is massively bugged.

[slarden]

the foremost issue voiced being that people are getting one tapped more frequently and on lower difficulty settings, and in particular, how this has made soloing more difficult.

I think this is spot-on. Damage spikes is the biggest change I've noticed. I raised this very issue on Lamannia here (https://www.ddo.com/forums/showthread.php/525416-U50-Preview-2-Endgame-Itemization-Adjustments?p=6447491&viewfull=1#post6447491) but didn't get a response.

I've run mostly reaper plus some LH raids with the exception of LE Shroud and based on that I suspect folks running elite are getting hit harder by this than I am in reaper because of all the bonus hp in reaper mode. So my effective hp loss is much less than folks running on elite.

I'm not sure if allowing damage spike to remain high while we lose hp is a dev attempt to force grouping, but at least for me that will never work as I solo and run with friends almost exclusively due to physical issues from a car accident. If I can't solo I just won't play and this is probably my biggest concern with U51 is that are going to try to sneak in more anti-soloing mechanics.

[devashta]

I feel obligated to point out that the changes in U50 only affect legendary gear, except for how you upgrade the old scroll/seal/shard items and monsters losing some saves in epic difficulties. You should not be experiencing any change in gameplay until you hit 20 unless the update is massively bugged.

Nope. The mobs in reaper mode was not changed in terms of damage/HP, so they still hit pre-U50 levels which means one-shotting players. Melee rangers is one of the classes which got decimated by the changes, most of them in my circle have TRd to barbarian.


I believe U50 will be a huge success, I'll be the under on this.

You need to define success mate. The exodus from WoW to other MMOs is in millions and I don't see DDO mentioned anywhere in any articles recommending alternate MMOs or people queueing up to come here. We have a astronomical entry cost barrier and current management is inept in running a MMO business, and this is when D&D is at an all time high with BG3, Dark alliance etc.
I am a D&D player first and foremost and I don't want any game based on D&D to fail, but SSG is trying very hard to do that.

[scut207]

Are they? There is a vocal element that demands the game "must" do this. Or that. I love the game right now. I love what they did with Saltmarsh. I believe U50 will be a huge success, I'll be the under on this.

They could delete all your characters and gear and you'd thank them for the fresh start.

[Marshal_Lannes]

They could delete all your characters and gear and you'd thank them for the fresh start.

That sounds like Hardcore and one of the reasons why it is so popular. Right now I'm playing on a character that had 0 reaper points. Have them up to 8. My adventures are over in the Ranger class section. It's liberating to start over. Perhaps you should try it?

[scut207]

That sounds like Hardcore and one of the reasons why it is so popular. Right now I'm playing on a character that had 0 reaper points. Have them up to 8. My adventures are over in the Ranger class section. It's liberating to start over. Perhaps you should try it?

I really dont understand the willfully obtuse shtick, but you do you.