Listen to your fanbase

[ButchCassidy]

Something had to have gone pretty wrong with ro2. I have to guess here since we don't have any figures. Ro2 has probably sold somewhere around 500,000 copies of the game. With that being said, after all the steam events and humble bundle sales, the population per day peaks right around 2000 players. Now that's less than 1/2% of 1% of the people that purchased the game. I feel like something about this game didn't go right. There's got to be some percentages at which a company starts asking what/s went/going wrong.

I think in unit sales TWI surpassed their expectations for RO2.
With regards to the QA of the release TWI have long since admitted they made mistakes.
Mistakes they are determined not to make again.
I think you'll find that 2000 players a day is not the actual unique Id amounts, that's a lot lot higher in order to keep a persistent player count on steam at 2000.
And considering the game is now almost 2 years old and made by a small independent company I would think TWI are more than happy with the current player counts for RO2.

 

[JosephBaier]

Ye, 2000 guys play 24h a day.

 

[Hardcore Hartzer]

Just make a great game and the population will be fine aswell the sold copies. I actually like RO2 but I didn`t played RO1 and started with the goty edition. I think the Action mode was a bad idea because compared to other FPS it just sucks. The realism is pretty much fun but if a casual player don`t even try it because a crappy action mode should introduce him to the series it`s bad. I think the RO2 sales were good because of the hype but after this release you can`t expect it for Rising Storm again. In my opinion you should try to make a great realism OR casual game because the mix doesn`t work. If you make a really great realism shooter people will try and buy it and many will stick with it. If you sell the mix or a casual game you have to compete with the bf and cod series which you`ll always lose. So maybe you sell on day one some more copies but most of the players will abandon the game after a week. If you make a great realism game it`ll make the round in the gaming community and you`ll get your copies also sold plus an active and big community for a long time.

I can understand that you want to reach every possible buyer but if you do some sort of mix which is too bad for both sides you should stop the support immidiatly after the launch. That would bring you some money but you can never release a game again. Or you patch it like TWI did until it is playable but that is money which the studio could have saved with a straight development.

 

[akb]

I think you'll find that 2000 players a day is not the actual unique Id amounts, that's a lot lot higher in order to keep a persistent player count on steam at 2000.

Ye, 2000 guys play 24h a day.

Yes I do realize that. The game really never surpassed 2000-(3000 maybe) peak players after a month or less after the sales ended. I don't run a gaming business, but as a by stander from looking at other game stats, I assume you want to your game to peak at no less than 1% of the population that purchased it.

 

[JosephBaier]

Yes I do realize that. The game really never surpassed 2000-(3000 maybe) peak players after a month or less after the sales ended. I don't run a gaming business, but as a by stander from looking at other game stats, I assume you want to your game to peak at no less than 1% of the population that purchased it.

Reason?
this game is not something for everyone and thru the sales/humble a lot of casuals bought it (1$..) and the biggest part dropped (player increase ~700@peek).

 

[GnaM]

If you are putting out a game in the same field as a category killer like CoD, you have three options:

1) Pretend they don't exist, go your own merry way with whatever variant of 'realism' you see fit and, usually, go out of business because you can't get enough new players. People with strong opinions on forums do not pay your rent - their purchasing power is not even close to proportional to how loud they are on forums.

2) Try and copy that giant, maybe scrape some sales from people looking for something different, but inevitably fail to make as strong a product due to having a development budget that is a tiny fraction of CoD's.

3) Take the position that there are a lot of gamers out there who would enjoy what it is about your own game that you do, but are stuck following one fairly well-worn gameplay experience. Then work out how to wean them onto your own game - make the transition for them easy, grow your player-base. The hint system we are adding to RO2/RS is a very good example of how that is being done. The aim is to draw general fps players to RO2, not meet them on their own turf.

Duh. Yeah, we get what the idea was here - it's really not a unique concept which only those "in the business" are privy to. Unless you've got statistics or analysis to provide, you really don't have any unique insight on the matter which others don't. Just because it's a simple and easily-understood line of reasoning doesn't mean it's infallible or impervious to being undermined by other factors.

After all, the developers of Resident Evil 6 and Dead Space 3 probably thought they were "meeting general FPS gamers in the middle" as well. That didn't change the sales numbers. Or did you think you were the first person to think of this "meet them in the middle" concept? If I'm "the smartest guy in the room", then that'd surely make you "the smartest guy in the industry".

The weakness in your reasoning is the assertion that providing unadultered realism or sticking to a unique idea will always fail. I advise comparing DayZ to Killing Floor. DayZ stuck out as a unique experience, gained a huge player base over night, and is heralded in the media as "best zombie game ever". Meanwhile, Killing Floor remains overlooked as "just another zombie game". The DayZ retail release isn't here yet, so there're no sales numbers to compare, but the publicity and playerbase they've garnered will undoubtedly be a major asset.

On that note, if your "exclusive industry knowledge" includes a comparison of Arma 2 and RO2 sales numbers, I invite you to share them. If RO2's numbers are higher, I'll admit that maybe we've been too hard on TWI.

You can call me "smartest guy in the room" all you want, but it just comes across that you're bitter because I can actually support my assertions with reasoning and evidence, while you just put up an attitude and expect everyone to concede your points on pure faith that you "know better". If you did, we might have heard a convincing argument from you ages ago. If there were simple and well-established facts we were truly totally oblivious to with our "limited" perspective, it'd be simple and obvious for you to point them out, yet you don't - and instead prefer to just bluster about it.

 

[Ranger21]

Oh lord, here we go again. Well, at the risk of going head to head with the smartest guy in the room, here is an explanation or two.




Then work out how to wean them onto your own game - make the transition for them easy, grow your player-base.

that worked for RO2 didn't it now? It's like watching your Russian teammate that just vault over that wall in the spawn at Apartments get shredded by MG fire, and following him seconds after.

 

[Ranger21]

2,000 people at any one instant in time is NOT population per day, or even remotely close. A second's reflection would have saved you the embarrassment of posting that.

In fact, I would even say that PP's analysis falls short in its guess at numbers of different people playing per week.

Let's say 15,000 people still play the game, which is a much more fair comparison (maybe even a little too generous). That still is not a huge sum of players compared to the amount that purchased the game.

Plus, it means something when the group of 20 or so players that I played RO1 with wont' even touch RO2 anymore because they hated it. Call it a biased sample all you want but that is evidence enough for me that something went wrong with the game.

 

[CrossTrain]

...Plus, it means something when the group of 20 or so players that I played RO1 with wont' even touch RO2 anymore because they hated it. Call it a biased sample all you want but that is evidence enough for me that something went wrong with the game.

Well, 20 players is a shame. But, I would contend that there are hundreds of people playing RO2 that played and discarded, or never even tried RO1. Your argument here is flimsy at best. I'd say it's easily a wash slightly in favor of RO2.

The thing I find most amusing (though it is really more disgusting than amusing) is the tightness of the grip of some of the very small number of RO1 veterans have on their memory and the ferocity of their angst against any change made in RO2. It is that steadfast denial that anything is good about RO2 which nullifies the actual meat of most of your argument. Even the title of this thread is an offense to the RS team. What it should be changed to is, "Listen to me so I can tell you what you should do to make your game most appealing to me..."

And Ranger this isn't directed primarily at you. Your "forcefulness" is minimal compared to some...

 

[lazerBAR]

As if sales account for playerbase. You think people buy a game to play it a lot? No. People buy it either because its New,Cheap,Appealing,Their style(preferred genre), or popularity. I have many games on steam that I played maybe 3 or 5 times. There are very few I always come back to play,RO2 and RO1 being some of those few.

 

[HellsJanitor]

Oh jesus... another one of THESE threads.

I ran out of things to say a long time ago about why the game is not 'dead' or 'dying' as perceived by some people.
You know what is different about this thread from the 2000 others? That this time it is accusing a Mod team instead of TWI of trying to please a greater crowd and sell out on the loyalists.
And it's down right pathetic.

A game that hasn't even entered Beta is already being assaulted by the forum gestapo.
A game you haven't even tried yet. A game that we don't even have concrete info on.

Grow up.
If you want to make meaningful/constructive suggestions about things that are known to be fact, that is one thing.
Bashing and lecturing a Mod Team because you 'know what's best' and can see the future is something else entirely.

 

[CocaineInMyBrain]

Grow up.
If you want to make meaningful/constructive suggestions about things that are known to be fact, that is one thing.
Bashing and lecturing a Mod Team because you 'know what's best' and can see the future is something else entirely.

But I've played RO1 and [insert "realistic" shooter] and my friends all agree that RO2 is ****! I must be right.

Also to GnaM

Neither you or Nestor actually provided any concrete evidence (hard numbers and research showing at least a reasonable correlation between said numbers and whatever your argument is) to prove any of your points. So its pretty uncalled for for either of you to jump into the "wholier than thou" thing just yet.

In fact this is kind of the issue with the usual bunch here, everyone just assumes their vision is whats going to be best, yet no one has anything besides anecdotal evidence to back it up.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

even the title of this thread is an offense to the RS team. What it should be changed to is, "Listen to me so I can tell you what you should do to make your game most appealing to me..."

TBH this is what drew me into this thread in the first place.

I, like most of my team, am coming directly from the modding community. As this is the first commercial release I have been involved in I probably haven't yet developed the thick skin I need for this role, so I take very badly slights to my team. I resent the seeming assumption that we have been working so hard and so long exclusively to pander to the interests of self-proclaimed fanbase advocates, or that that is what should motivate us, rather than making a game that we are all committed to.

I feel...scrub that... I actually know that this release is going to be a great deal cleaner than RO2's, simply because the TWI team have learnt from the past and now have the talent in their office to help actively avoid many of the problems of the past. I actually feel incredibly privileged that the RS team, as a bunch of modders, have had a chance to learn from some of the top-flight guys that there are in the office in Roswell, GA these days.

I think it very unlikely that I am ever going to develop a great deal of respect for any random on the internet who tries to convince me that they know this business better than some of the people I have been given the chance to work with these days. I think I am probably just about smart enough to realise where to go to school if I want to learn the most.

I would, however, like to thank GnaM, whose posts have prompted me to inspect my own attitude and actually post my sincere position right here.

I would point to him out that DayZ's position is not totally analogous to that of either KF or RS, as its lead was already an employee at the studio producing the game that was modded. I have met and talked (briefly) with Dean Hall and am very pleased for him and the success of his mod. I do think that using his product as an example is not especially wise as we have already seen what happened following a too slavish attempt to emulate it.

I have no idea what total sales of Arma2 were, tbh I couldn't even begin to guess. I would like to point out, though, that anyone that really loves Arma will probably end up playing Arma. Attempting to produce a clone of that, it seems to me, is as misguided as attempting to produce a clone of CoD. Judging by reactions which are exemplified in the Gamespot playthrough recently, we can expect at least some people who tired of Arma 2's somewhat complex interface to enjoy RS.

It may be that I am jinxing RS's release by talking about it such confident terms but I think that, on balance of probabilities, things do look good for it by comparison with past launches.

Oh, and time allowing, or until I am told to dial it back by people senior to me, I will continue to give a hard time to people whom I feel are unwarrantedly attacking my team or our product or the studio which was brave enough to take a chance on a project like this.

 

[GnaM]

I would point to him out that DayZ's position is not totally analogous to that of either KF or RS, as its lead was already an employee at the studio producing the game that was modded. I have met and talked (briefly) with Dean Hall and am very pleased for him and the success of his mod. I do think that using his product as an example is not especially wise as we have already seen what happened following a too slavish attempt to emulate it.

I have no idea what total sales of Arma2 were, tbh I couldn't even begin to guess. I would like to point out, though, that anyone that really loves Arma will probably end up playing Arma. Attempting to produce a clone of that, it seems to me, is as misguided as attempting to produce a clone of CoD. Judging by reactions which are exemplified in the Gamespot playthrough recently, we can expect at least some people who tired of Arma 2's somewhat complex interface to enjoy RS.

Here's the point. No one is suggesting that TWI port zombies into RO, or that they build a WWII Arma clone What's important to learn from DayZ and Arma is that you can build a successful game without compromising its ideals to pander to casuals. DayZ and Arma show that sticking out from the crowd can actually gain you recognition which will boost sales. What I'm suggesting is that RO should strive to stick out in its own unique way, rather than imitating other games in fear of commercial suicide.

So don't pretend that pandering is an absolute necessity to keep your game alive. There are games out there that have avoided it and benefited from the differentiation. We all appreciate the fact that RO sports smaller maps than Arma, with a greater focus on firefights than wandering through fields for 20 minutes, but that doesn't excuse garbage progression systems, garbage rifle recoil, and other pandering features which undermine what the game's actually supposed to be about. You can say you're confident in TWI's decisions, but you can't convince us those decisions are absolute necessities, that no other way is viable, and that we're idiots for thinking otherwise.

To be honest, I can understand taking it personally when people criticize your employer. It's a human tendency. At my job half the time I'm shaking my head at the sloppy way our company has handled things like the internet and digital distribution, and the other half the time I'm incredulous when I get incoherent calls from random customers ranting and raving that i.e. we're "going to hell for taking advantage of terminal illness victims", because it didn't occur to her that a publication branded in bold lettering on the front cover as a "quarterly journal" comes out 4 times a year instead of monthly.

That being said, I would advise for your own sake, that you try to keep your cool in these situations in the future. On the outside, particularly the internet outside, no one cares who you work for, and the only thing that holds water is calm reasoning.

Neither you or Nestor actually provided any concrete evidence (hard numbers and research showing at least a reasonable correlation between said numbers and whatever your argument is) to prove any of your points. So its pretty uncalled for for either of you to jump into the "wholier than thou" thing just yet.

If anything, he has been the one pulling "holier than thou" - he has expected us to simply take his and TWI's assertions on pure faith that they know better rather than providing convincing reasoning or evidence. He has essentially asserted that anyone who questions compromises like RO2's progression system are unreasonable idiots who don't know the industry, that doing otherwise would be professional suicide... when in fact there are games which have avoided progression systems and other concessions and succeeded, and numbers show that games by major publishers imitating COD have failed to improve sales over previous titles. I can't just sit here and pretend that such assertions aren't utter BS.

 

[blkmgc]

<queue "Gone with the wind" music >

 

[JosephBaier]

Let's just chill and wait for the release so all those flamers can flame... based on some experience.

btw "I played it and my friends did and we all hate it" is not a real argument.

 

[Nestor Makhno]

Right, this is actually starting to get entertaining now, so I hope GnaM can stray away from slightly inflammatory talk such as the use of the word 'pretending' to describe my sincere opinions and I will try and stay away from talking about respect. Thing is, he could get banned if he goes too far down that route, and I probably wouldn't, and that would hardly be fair.

I do not feel that I am pretending anything when I say that the RO2 franchise has nothing to gain by listening too hard to one group of players who seem to define their personality by their insistence that their particular favoured brand of 'realism' should be the be-all and end-all and decry anyone who differs from that as 'casuals'.

Arma 2 had a community of die-hard 'realism' mil-sim nuts who decried Day Z as a frivolous project that pandered to the casual 'I wanna shoot zombies' market. They felt it did this to the detriment of resources being spent on boosting their feeling of superiority as hardcore simulators who played the only 'real' fps. A laughable concept, when you think about it: unless your monitor puts a bullet through your head when you get shot or forces you to **** your pants when artillery lands nearby, it isn't capturing reality 100% faithfully.

What actually happened? Arma 2 players soon found that they were becoming a minority compared to the 'casual' zombie hunters. Surely a military sim mutating into a zombie shooter is 'not listening to its fanbase'. Or perhaps it is growing its fanbase. Who suffers when a DayZ is developed? Nobody really, as far as I can tell (unless you count the wives and girlfriends of its players).

It's all just shades of suspension of disbelief put into a gameplay construct. Defining yourself by your product choice is hardly new. TWI spent an awful lot of resources on developing classic mode to try and keep the "RO:Ost was the shiz - I just wanted better gfx" crowd happy, in other words they responded to people. How successfully they responded or whether it was even worth the manhours to do so are other questions entirely.

So, with classic mode existing, who exactly loses out if, for example, there is levelling for those that want it? It would be rather selfish for a few people who seem to define themselves by their imagined superiority over other players of the same game to insist that everyone must play by their rules just so they can feel good about themselves.

Another couple of examples from the games industry that I feel are relevant are the cases of X-Com and Civilisation. Both of these franchises are rightly considered classics by pretty much everyone. I certainly enjoyed playing both in their original and also in later iterations. Each iteration brought additional functionality and options to a winning formula.

A critical point in the life of each franchise came recently for both, in my opinion. Civilisation V met with a very mixed reaction from people who felt that it was dumbing down some of the rather clunky management mechanics they had become used to, also these people disliked the unstackable units. Similarly, may hardcore X-Com aficionadoes (myself included) viewed with suspicion the 2-action tactical gameplay mechanic and the simplified inventory and base management systems.

The fact is, though, that action-point, base and inventory management in X-com and city management in Civ had become about as fun and rewarding as playing an excel spreadsheet. The games had developed core mechanics in a 'the same but more of it' fashion for too many iterations. So, the games evolved, a lot of thought went into that 'dumbing down', and the games are, in the opinion of most people, more fun and rewarding to play than they have ever been. They certainly have more players. The most recent versions are not 'dumber' or 'more hardcore' - they are simply better.

Regarding the evolution of the RO franchise, at this stage the die is cast. It is not realistic to expect RS to dramatically change gears so late in its development cycle. Nor do we, its developers, feel it should. That's not to say the RS team is going to ignore all community feedback when the game is out about how to improve it - far from it - but no-one is going to let design decisions be skewed by a few forum blowhards - particularly if they use factual inaccuracies, inflammatory language or ingrained prejudice as 'support' for their demands. I'd like to point out here that I am not the person who has used, or even implied the word 'idiot' in this thread.

I would like to see the RO franchise strengthen so that it is viable for a long existence and the signs are good for that to happen. Yesterday we hit beta completion for RS and I have to say I am having more fun playing this game after 3 years of development than I have ever had, it does not get stale - that speaks volumes to the quality of the product.

Incidentally, I am not an employee of TWI, although I spent, in a previous life, 15 years as a teacher. So that would explain any tendency to sermonise. Please forgive that - the feelings expressed, however, are genuine.

 

[blkmgc]

btw "I played it and my friends did and we all hate it" is not a real argument.

Its not!? I thought <insert name> and their friends were expert experienced game players/critics/developers . Now I'm really disappointed.

 

[blkmgc]

@Nestor
Some people think that with the play experience and hours and hours of scouring the net for information equates to having the same experience or insight that a game developer has. They usually make posts with a lot of "we all know"'s and "stop pretending" and you "you better do<whatever>" s in them. They do this because they try to include an entire fan base with their baseless arguments. Just be aware that not all , and probably fewer than they realize, share their opinion...which coincidentally is all they are offering. And then they compare one game to about a dozen others history to try and justify what they are selling even though the only relation between any of them is that they are all games..and thats it.

Most of the silent majority (about a bazillion times as many as there are posting here) play a game for its own merits / genre/attributes or atmosphere. I think what you guys are building is unique and will do just fine on its own .

 

[Nestor Makhno]

Thx for your kind support, blk

I am well aware of the dangers of extending a debate with someone who won't change their view but, tbh, as I mentioned before, it has given me an opportunity to express publicly some things that I feel, while I still have the chance to do so.

So it's all good.