Rhinoplat Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 I swear, if I see these numbers batted around one more time, I'm going to scream. The bulk of the pre-orders were e-sales, and VGCharts either cannot or hasn't bothered to track those. With 100+ servers online now, I wouldn't be surprised to find out that they invited more than a million today, and they're planning on doubling that tomorrow. You can make *NO* assumptions based on those numbers in any way, shape, or form. Not even statistical analysis will derive anything entirely useful without the missing e-sales data. Stephen said that they'd taken in more people today alone than any other MMO had captured for their launches. Yes, that includes the infamous 1M+ for WoW that destroyed Blizz's infrastructure. Also, Stephen has repeatedly been misquoted- He didn't say 'only' one day, he said 'at least' one day. Huge difference. There is no way they invited 1m people today. If they had that would be close to 8500 players per server. Everything I've seen or heard leads me to believe they have more like 500-1k players per server atm. They want people to believe they let a lot in, because it's a numbers game with their investors and competition. They stopped short when they could have kept going with invites; but that would mean they couldn't string out the invites and make it seem like they had more people wanting to play the game. I have no doubt this game will have 2mil subs at some points, but I don't believe that 1mil got in today. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
quakereject Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 Yeah, rip off much :/ Atleast RIFT kept true to what "Early Access" is supposed to mean and be Because release is tomorrow, right? At least RIFT didn't have 2-4 times the preorders, either. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlyJeff Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 In respect to the number proposed by the OP... Bioware is stating they're doing this in waves for a smooth launch, correct? What is going to happen on the 20th when the flood gates open wide? Assuming the launch doubles the numbers (this is often the case, not everyone pre-orders) is BioWare truly not ready to handle the influx of players? By that time they will have a lot more information about what their production needs are. The first few thousand players are a lot more risky than the last million because there is so much more information for the latter stages. Which is not to trivialize the latter stages- it's going to be a long couple of weeks for Bioware production support. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XionoraSoulfire Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 (edited) I like the way they are doing it now. I pre-ordered in October so i won't get in for a while, which is fine really. Perhaps i need to remind you of other MMO's who has extremely laggy servers the first few days, starting area's packed having you wait for an hour just so you can kill 5 mobs to finish your quest. They are trying to avoid that here, and move things as smoothly as possible. I don't want to end up with 1000 people in the starting zone's being laggy as hell, having server crashes here and there. Rather play care-free and a little later, then being all stressed out cause im lagging, people are grabbing kills before me and having all sorts of problems. Keep in mind SWTOR had roughly 3 million pre-orders (my estimate). The VGcharts only show boxed pre-orders in the US, it does not include online retailers, digital purchases, and does only include the pre-orders in North America, Europe, Africa, Australia, Canada, South America, and so on are not included in the VGcharts, so its either close to 3 mil or possibly even more. Edited December 14, 2011 by XionoraSoulfire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NobleRogue Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 In respect to the number proposed by the OP... Bioware is stating they're doing this in waves for a smooth launch, correct? What is going to happen on the 20th when the flood gates open wide? Assuming the launch doubles the numbers (this is often the case, not everyone pre-orders) is BioWare truly not ready to handle the influx of players? Simple. They'll stagger it again without taking players with existing characters (due to head start) into account. First come first serve will be based on how soon people put in their product registration code and sign up for subscription. Honestly I would have preferred longer cue times so long as I knew that I'd eventually be able to play. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Rhinoplat Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 I like the way they are doing it now. I pre-ordered in October so i won't get in for a while, which is fine really. Perhaps i need to remind you of other MMO's who has extremely laggy servers the first few days, starting area's packed having you wait for an hour just so you can kill 5 mobs to finish your quest. They are trying to avoid that here, and move things as smoothly as possible. I don't want to end up with 1000 people in the starting zone's being laggy as hell, having server crashes here and there. Rather play care-free and a little later, then being all stressed out cause im lagging, people are grabbing kills before me and having all sorts of problems. They won't have 1000 people in the starting zones that you will see. That's why they create instances of everything; to handle player populations of great size. They are saying that their server infrastructure can't handle the playerbase now, by not allowing everyone in; just think how it will be on the 20th at Gold Release. BioWare needs to allow all pre-orders into the EA 14 Dec. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
SlyJeff Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 Honestly that's not good enough. I would rather have a few server crashes because then I would know the servers are full. I don't mind extra servers at launch and then lowering the amount later, it happens. BioWare for some reason wants to play the segregation game. That's your preference, but not everyone's (or mine). I get maybe an hour and a half in the evening to play- once I am able I want to be playing the game not waiting for queues or reboots. I would rather have quality than speed. Your preference is different, and that's fine. Bioware seems to be going with my preference and that gives me a lot of hope for the quality of my gaming experience going forward. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
XionoraSoulfire Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 (edited) They won't have 1000 people in the starting zones that you will see. That's why they create instances of everything; to handle player populations of great size. They are saying that their server infrastructure can't handle the playerbase now, by not allowing everyone in; just think how it will be on the 20th at Gold Release. BioWare needs to allow all pre-orders into the EA 14 Dec. Yeah, roughly a 100 people per zone i believe. But as Stephen Reid said in a different post though, they do not wish to follow what other MMO's did, and open a mass ammount of servers which over time are empty and forcing them in to a server merge or mass player move, which is something MMO's usually do, they are gradually adding servers based on the players they are letting in. Last thing. Why aren't we continuing to send waves over time? Two main reasons - one, because we need to see that the servers are maintaining stability over time; adding a lot of players in a short period (in other words, stress testing) can cause stability issues. Two, our plan is to continue to add servers - but carefully, and in response to demand. We need to monitor that demand and roll out servers accordingly. A long-term recipe for MMO failure is to add a lot of servers early on, and then when population decreases, have to close those servers and merge them together. Edited December 14, 2011 by XionoraSoulfire Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
azmundai Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 wouldnt it be nice if someone with actual numbers posted this isntead of leaving us to read drivel like this and draw our own conclusions? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
NobleRogue Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 I still think they should suspend the accounts of people taking advantage of cuing for pvp repeatedly for xp and gear without the risk and send out an equal number of email head starts as the suspensions. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Doby Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 I am 100% certain that this was not done for us. Therein lies the problem. We are the customers. Say what you want about BETA, but Launch is about US. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KypDurrron Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 wouldnt it be nice if someone with actual numbers posted this isntead of leaving us to read drivel like this and draw our own conclusions? But buttt buttttt that would be logical BW would never do such a diabolical thing. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RhajaZola Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 Base on what I see, the last batch of pre order that got in was in late July 25-28, some few on 30th, base on vgchats end of July there were just under 120k pre orders. So far there is about 1 million pre orders on vgcharts total, that means 120k out of 1 million is about 10% total of people that got in today. And if it didn't even reach July 30, that means about maybe 10% total. In another words, if future wave's size going to be the same as today's size, it would take 10 days for everyone to get in the game. Unless Bioware SIGNIFICANTLY increase the wave size, things will not look good. And yes I know vgchart is only about US retail box sale, but the ratio it represents vs the time and EGA is still the same. There are people already twittering that starter planets were more empty than regular beta, and server performance were more than great, no lag whatsoever, and they have no one to group with. So what is the grand strategy Bioware? edit: I know vgchart don't tell everything, but the ratio it represents should be accurate, unless during July there are massively more people that order the game from Orgin than traditional retailers, which vgchart cannot track. All am saying, I know Bioware want a smooth launch, but isn't it a bit normal to stress the server just a little bit? Just make it to have enough lag that are manageable, however from the people that got in today, they all said the server were LAG FREE, this is not something to be proud of bioware, this only means you would have handle way more people but for some reason you decide not to. 7/28 here and I am reading your thought at my desk in the middle of the night, believe me i did not get in =P Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Lord_Itharius Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 (edited) There was nothing about today's waves that seemed to suggest to me that Bioware lied to us in any way. They're doing exactly what they promised and warned people about weeks before today. It's people's own faults if they deceived themselves into believing that Bioware would let in everyone by Thursday. That said, they'll significantly increase the wave sizes in the coming days, since they need to have the servers ready for an influx of over a million people all at once on December 20th. Edited December 14, 2011 by Lord_Itharius Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
xHurogx Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 A spike doesnt mean much really. A spike could be 100k preorders in the first 3 days of availability. So, in the course of the whole it is nothing. With the posted chart(which doesnt take into account digital sales), july finished with around 120k preorders. So a spike is that many in 10 days. The following months are 200-300k a month. So yes, 100k or so happened quickly, but when you are talking 1mil plus numbers, its a drop in the bucket. So you wouldn't mind handing me over 10% of your paycheck every month? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Abelf Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 Origins + 1 != Dragon Age 2 Bioware has always been bad at maths. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MHLawther Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 I just find it hilarious at all the ppl the cry b/c they didn't get to play their video game today. I've been waiting for over a year to play this game, I can wait a few more days. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enitan Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 Bioware actually has a post on this, they said the day pre-orders went active there was a huge spike in purchases then it leveled out. They also said the first wave of early access would be a very VERY short time frame and the following days we'll see bigger date ranges. Your statement requires QQer's to actually Read before they enter ULTRA RANT MODE I wonder if all the QQers know how bad we are LOL at them reading all of these Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Axxar Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 (edited) Really happy with how the EGA turned out. BioWare's gone above and beyond on this one in terms of customer service. Edited December 14, 2011 by Axxar Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
riny Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 (edited) Considering they only invited in 6 days worth of pre-orders... we are in A LOT of trouble. They need to triple or quadruple the invites each day just to make it so everyone gets at least an hour in early access. Lionhearth & Alkiii, Don't make my post something it's not. The OP originally stated that "if future wave's size going to be the same as today's size". This statement was made about 6 hours after the devs communicated their plans. The OP should have read the dev notes (just like we all should) to avoid making this false statement. I was only correcting this error. I was not contributing to any other ancillary discussions. EDIT: In the interest of full disclosure, I signed up 12/1 and expect to get EGA on the 18th. Edited December 14, 2011 by riny Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Enitan Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 Really happy with how the EGA turned out. BioWare's gone above and beyond on this one in terms of customer service. Careful they will call you a 1%er soon Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ExiledOne Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 So you wouldn't mind handing me over 10% of your paycheck every month? Federal Income Tax State Income Tax Social Security Everyone who works already hands over more than 10% of their check every month. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Nicain Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 The grand strategy is that a executive made a decision about launch. This executive has never played a mmo. The executive must always do what's "safest" The executive hasnt even actually played a video game in years. The management under the executive dont' want to get on their bosses bad side so they keep their mouths shut even though they know the player base will be unhappy that servers are low pop while tons of us wait in the wings. That's the strategy. The executives know that 99% of the people will just deal with it. Sad really. Says a lot. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Latvik Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 cough, I pre-ordered 7/21 but woops didnt redeem my code til a few days ago, someone at Bio-Ware hook an addict up! *If you are a pre-order customer, the following steps are NOT required for Early Game Access* wink wink Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
kidice Posted December 14, 2011 Share Posted December 14, 2011 (edited) Why are ppl whining ? First BW said 5 days, then they desided to start EARLY and did 7 days. NO one has been cheated on the 5 days yet ! And 5 days was for ppl that preordered early, Ive seen ppl in threads whine, and say they preordered in December ! Stupid dogs ! Edited December 14, 2011 by kidice Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts