I've just closed several "RO2 is dying" threads. Not because we want to censor the forums, not because we don't care about feedback, but just because it all is getting a bit silly.
So lets chat a bit about the situation. I've said a lot of this before, but I'll mention it again just to make sure everyone gets a chance to hear it. RO2 had a rocky launch. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it. We learned a lot about hitting retail deadlines (when they are simultaneous with the digital launch), setting timescales, taking LOTS of risks, pushing the envelope on both gameplay and performance and more. So with what we've learned we'll certainly do a lot of things differently the next time we release a game. With that said, it's time to stop beating that dead horse. Whats done is done, and we should all look to the future, not the past. For our part we have been and will continue to work our butts off solving issues with the game as quickly as we can. We've already knocked out the lions share of the major issues, and continue cranking away at it.
So what about the player counts. Many people is touting the drop in player counts as the death knell of the game. Certainly I think we'd all be happy if they were as high as they were a few weeks ago. But this is really to be expected. We've been saying all along we expected to take a hit when BF3 and MW3 ships. You can't have two games come out with a combined marketing budget of $200 million dollars and not expect to have some players go check them out. Before BF3 came out peak player counts were around 3,000, now they are half of that. Peak players of 3000 at this point in the life cycle of the game is the best we've ever done. Especially considering the rocky launch the game had, I'm pretty happy with those numbers. Putting it into historical context though, even with peak player counts of 1500, the game is much more popular than any game we've ever done at this point in it's life cycle. Killing Floor for instance was peaking at about 800-1000 players at this point in its life cycle. Eventually however it grew to peak player counts in the 4000-5000 range.
So what does the future look like? As I've previously mentioned Killing Floor player counts dropped off pretty quickly after launch. But then something happened. Tripwire's commitment to the long term success of the game turned it around. Through polishing up the game, doing special promotions like free weekends and special themed events, and through releasing lots of free content for a long time after the release of the game it grew and grew. You see it is a key difference in the strategy of Tripwire vs the EA's and the Activisions of the world. Their strategy is to spend a 100 million dollars in marketing to get everyone to buy the game day 1, then to nickel and dime you for the next year with overpriced DLC's. Tripwire's strategy is to market the game as well as we can for the launch (although we aren't yet big enough to spend 100 million dollars), and then provide continued value for our customers over the long term. It is this long term value that in the end will bring the player counts up just as we did with Killing Floor. It will bring new players in, and bring existing players back.
So what are we working on right now?
First off we're making great progress on the mod SDK. We've recently released an update with functionality so modders can compile their own code to make mutators and mods. Soon we will release the full SDK with support for publishing mutators and custom maps. Why has it taken so long? Frankly we were caught off guard by the complexity of getting the modding tools working with "cooked content". All of these tools worked fine internally for or development content. But when you pack up and ship a UE3 game all the content gets "cooked" which reduces the file sizes and improves load times. So the SDK had a lot of issues handling this "cooked" content. But as I've mentioned we've got most of these issues worked out and will be shipping the full mod SDK soon.
Next we're continuing to work on polishing up the game and fixing issues. Two key things we're looking into is further reducing ping and increasing ping stability, and improving client side performance especially with higher player counts. That isn't all we are working on, but that is just a snapshot.
We are also starting work on our first batch of free content. This includes finishing up some of the features that didn't quite make the shipping date. We'll have more news on this going forward but suffice it to say we've got some cool stuff coming for the game.
The other thing I see a lot on the forums is grumbling about various aspects of the game, particularly that the game is either too realistic, or not realistic enough, or not realistic in the particular manner that whichever person posting the thread thinks the game should be. We're keeping our eye on the community and will certainly be incorporating community feedback as we move forward. You all can help us with this though by not making us wade through thread after thread that is either just blatantly flaming, or is just another useless "RO2 is dying" thread. Threads and posts like this make it difficult for us to get to the meat of what people's concerns and feedback truly are. So please help us receive your feedback by making well thought out and constructive posts, and keeping the flame thread/posts to a minimum.
I would also like to point out that no matter what we'll never be able to get the game exactly like everyone wants it. There are just too many differing opinions. So I would suggest that people play around with the tools we've provided to customize the gameplay to their liking. This is a really great testbed for you guys, and if someone has a certain type of custom setup that gets really popular, it shows us Devs that it is something the community likes. In our last update we added the ability to limit weapon and class perks, which allows those of you that don't like certain high end weapons to limit/prevent their use on your server. Additionally there is functionality to tweak a lot of gameplay parameters (damage, etc) as well. So on both ends of the spectrum you can easily make the game more/less hardcore. So start playing with those values and see if you come up with something that a lot of people like, then let the Devs know about it!
So lets chat a bit about the situation. I've said a lot of this before, but I'll mention it again just to make sure everyone gets a chance to hear it. RO2 had a rocky launch. You know it, we know it, everyone knows it. We learned a lot about hitting retail deadlines (when they are simultaneous with the digital launch), setting timescales, taking LOTS of risks, pushing the envelope on both gameplay and performance and more. So with what we've learned we'll certainly do a lot of things differently the next time we release a game. With that said, it's time to stop beating that dead horse. Whats done is done, and we should all look to the future, not the past. For our part we have been and will continue to work our butts off solving issues with the game as quickly as we can. We've already knocked out the lions share of the major issues, and continue cranking away at it.
So what about the player counts. Many people is touting the drop in player counts as the death knell of the game. Certainly I think we'd all be happy if they were as high as they were a few weeks ago. But this is really to be expected. We've been saying all along we expected to take a hit when BF3 and MW3 ships. You can't have two games come out with a combined marketing budget of $200 million dollars and not expect to have some players go check them out. Before BF3 came out peak player counts were around 3,000, now they are half of that. Peak players of 3000 at this point in the life cycle of the game is the best we've ever done. Especially considering the rocky launch the game had, I'm pretty happy with those numbers. Putting it into historical context though, even with peak player counts of 1500, the game is much more popular than any game we've ever done at this point in it's life cycle. Killing Floor for instance was peaking at about 800-1000 players at this point in its life cycle. Eventually however it grew to peak player counts in the 4000-5000 range.
So what does the future look like? As I've previously mentioned Killing Floor player counts dropped off pretty quickly after launch. But then something happened. Tripwire's commitment to the long term success of the game turned it around. Through polishing up the game, doing special promotions like free weekends and special themed events, and through releasing lots of free content for a long time after the release of the game it grew and grew. You see it is a key difference in the strategy of Tripwire vs the EA's and the Activisions of the world. Their strategy is to spend a 100 million dollars in marketing to get everyone to buy the game day 1, then to nickel and dime you for the next year with overpriced DLC's. Tripwire's strategy is to market the game as well as we can for the launch (although we aren't yet big enough to spend 100 million dollars), and then provide continued value for our customers over the long term. It is this long term value that in the end will bring the player counts up just as we did with Killing Floor. It will bring new players in, and bring existing players back.
So what are we working on right now?
First off we're making great progress on the mod SDK. We've recently released an update with functionality so modders can compile their own code to make mutators and mods. Soon we will release the full SDK with support for publishing mutators and custom maps. Why has it taken so long? Frankly we were caught off guard by the complexity of getting the modding tools working with "cooked content". All of these tools worked fine internally for or development content. But when you pack up and ship a UE3 game all the content gets "cooked" which reduces the file sizes and improves load times. So the SDK had a lot of issues handling this "cooked" content. But as I've mentioned we've got most of these issues worked out and will be shipping the full mod SDK soon.
Next we're continuing to work on polishing up the game and fixing issues. Two key things we're looking into is further reducing ping and increasing ping stability, and improving client side performance especially with higher player counts. That isn't all we are working on, but that is just a snapshot.
We are also starting work on our first batch of free content. This includes finishing up some of the features that didn't quite make the shipping date. We'll have more news on this going forward but suffice it to say we've got some cool stuff coming for the game.
The other thing I see a lot on the forums is grumbling about various aspects of the game, particularly that the game is either too realistic, or not realistic enough, or not realistic in the particular manner that whichever person posting the thread thinks the game should be. We're keeping our eye on the community and will certainly be incorporating community feedback as we move forward. You all can help us with this though by not making us wade through thread after thread that is either just blatantly flaming, or is just another useless "RO2 is dying" thread. Threads and posts like this make it difficult for us to get to the meat of what people's concerns and feedback truly are. So please help us receive your feedback by making well thought out and constructive posts, and keeping the flame thread/posts to a minimum.
I would also like to point out that no matter what we'll never be able to get the game exactly like everyone wants it. There are just too many differing opinions. So I would suggest that people play around with the tools we've provided to customize the gameplay to their liking. This is a really great testbed for you guys, and if someone has a certain type of custom setup that gets really popular, it shows us Devs that it is something the community likes. In our last update we added the ability to limit weapon and class perks, which allows those of you that don't like certain high end weapons to limit/prevent their use on your server. Additionally there is functionality to tweak a lot of gameplay parameters (damage, etc) as well. So on both ends of the spectrum you can easily make the game more/less hardcore. So start playing with those values and see if you come up with something that a lot of people like, then let the Devs know about it!