MO1 online for 9 years; Average daily concurrent users was 80 over that 9 year span.
Darkfall and DFUW were superior to MO1 and MO2 in every way and they were still deemed financially unfeasible. They went offline. Which means MO2 is using money it doesn't have to stay online.
Getting more players isn't a matter of lulzing around, it's a matter of survival. If the community in MO2 won't make concessions and pressure SV into changing the game then the game will go off-line. At some point the population in MO2 will enter what I call the "Doom-spiral" that MMO's go into during their low population phase.
The "Doom-spiral" effect is observable when the population gets low enough to discourage new players from even investigating the game. They see MMO, they see low numbers and then they don't go any further. This cascades in sandbox MMO's where the players are the content; The older players still playing the game don't have anything to do, then they also log-out.
MO2 isn't there yet but it's one bad month away. Grow up and learn to make compromises. Im a MMORPG enthusiast, I doubt anyone on this board has played more MMORPGs or has more knowledge of MMORPG's then I do. Except maybe people who make a career out of it; IE: Josh Strife Hayes. I speak from a place of experience, reason and rationale. I make posts here to suggest changes that would encourage population growth because i've experienced what works and i've experienced what doesn't work and also because I like Henrik and I like the Mortal franchise, I want the game to be successful even if i'm not playing it.
lol I dunno why I'm still looking at this thread, but you voted no to me explaining to you why the game is failing.
This sentence might seem logical to you, but it makes absolutely no sense. "Darkfall and DFUW were superior to MO1 and MO2 in every way and they were still deemed financially unfeasible. They went offline. Which means MO2 is using money it doesn't have to stay online." Do you realize that? This is a problem when discussing things, when you assume something means something or that something can't have other causes.
I want the game to be successful, too, but I saw early on it wasn't going to be. As time progressed, I realized this more and more. I'm not a MO1 lifer. I'm only a vet because I played it and I did stuff. I prol didn't play for a year and a half total time.
MO1 made me realize a lot of things were possible in a game; the fact that you label yourself an MMO enthusiast, in this case, is a strike against you. You are looking at MO as if it is another MMO, but it's not. In the same way you made those strange logical leaps in the sentence I highlighted, you will probably look at my statement as a sign of how "resistant to change" the MO community is.
I'm looking at it from way further outside than you are. The market actually needs a 'hardcore' game like this. Because you personally can't stomach getting zerged... that sucks. You don't have any RIGHT to not get zerged, tho. The people who zerg you grouped up so they could zerg people who outskilled / geared them.
I was gonna try to explain, to the best of my ability, how I see the structure of a hardcore pvp game and go in depth. It has different 'pockets;' many different games are being played at once, and that's what makes it good. The things you are speaking of were not addressed properly by SV at all, BUT they, and probably their focus group of experts (lol,) highlighted the same issues you believe are problematic and TRIED to fix them. They are still trying to fix them.
My point is... that's not what needs to be fixed heh. It's not a matter of waving your hands in front of the devs or the community because we are in a different sphere now and nobody even wants to go back to the other one. This game could have been like MO1 but polished. People would rage quit. People would write bad steam reviews. Shit, it might even get like 30-40% positive, but it would have an active playerbase and would not be in a "death spiral."
Right now, every MMO is trying to soften up. There is a space for a game where you can actually do what you want. I've said this before, but I said to a friend back in da day, "Man, I wish there was a game where you could just do what you want... y'know, no quests or whatever, just get it in." And he was like I GOT THE GAME FOR YOU. Prol trolling me, haha, but it stuck.
If they had found a way to get people starting with gear and give them some fighting chance at steam release instead of just feeding them to angry vets, none of this would have happened. Like I said, if you were there... (this is why it matters that you weren't) you would see MO2 as a reaction to MO1's failed steam release (even tho the game was out for some time before that,) and Henrik + SV desperately preparing for their 'second chance,' and not letting that stuff happen again.
If they make MO2 like MO1, just as hardcore, pvping in towns and everything, it succeeds more than MO2. I PUT THAT ON ANYTHING. Now, I would believe they would want to make changes then, but grow from THAT. Don't grow from some utopian idea you created as a response to watching your dreams get crushed as RPK camps your pop out of the game.
Anyway peace bud and put some butter on dat death spiral, enjoy the ride.