Guns Of Icarus Online
Main => General Discussion => Topic started by: Narayan on May 07, 2017, 09:34:27 pm
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Here are the steamcharts for guns of icarus
http://steamcharts.com/app/209080
Here is what it sells for on g2a
https://www.g2a.com/guns-of-icarus-online-steam-cd-key-global.html?___store=englishus
Here is what a balanced lobby looks like
http://imgur.com/a/w1hPC
Its time for free to play for the base game, and sell the expansion. You cant steam sale a game thats a buck on g2a, and you cant bring people back for alliance beta as its released.
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I am no scientist, but between the charts and everything else. i cant argue with his point
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Most likely muse will re-pin their hopes from alliance onto:
A - Some kind of promotion to go along with the final 2 factions releasing
B - Releasing the game on PS4
Also to summarize my post from the similar post to this on the steam forum - No fix to matchmaker + lobby wait times = Failed attempt to revive the game
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It honestly doesn't matter what they do. Alliance is irrelevant. The damage was done years ago, and there is no coming back from that. The opportunity passed.
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I think each sale has shown that new players will come in droves at the right price point.
You would expect a similar influx with Free to play.
But I also think that this influx of new players will dwindle down to nothing again, just as it has after every sale.
Clearly player retention is the real problem.
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I think each sale has shown that new players will come in droves at the right price point.
You would expect a similar influx with Free to play.
But I also think that this influx of new players will dwindle down to nothing again, just as it has after every sale.
Clearly player retention is the real problem.
Yes but the steam sales were an event that lasted a small amount of time. With free to play the game would be free forever and the influx would be unending, at least in terms of a steam sale like timeline. With a constant influx of new players instead of just around a timed event perhaps the binges and purges wouldn't be quite as bad.
At any rate no noob is gonna stick around as is to get stomped by Ryder and whoever else they are stacking with.
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It honestly doesn't matter what they do. Alliance is irrelevant. The damage was done years ago, and there is no coming back from that. The opportunity passed.
I'm inclined to agree with this. Current player levels are abysmal, alliance is proving to be the last nail in the coffin for GOI.
I've said in my open letter threads, you cannot go on ignoring your customers and be successful in business. At some point you either have to develop a little humility and admit that you've made a bunch of bad decisions, or you can go off to the scrap heap.
The player base isn't blameless either, every one of you who runs around with a stack and n00b stomps have a hand in this too. I hope your little cliques were worth killing the game for.
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Well it was a good run! ;)
Tonight I took a newbie clan aboard a shrike and managed an underdog win against some experienced players. Getting the newbies gud reminded me of the good ol' days. I've had a blast with GOIO and will continue to log on for some good chaos skirmishes and the odd match or two.
Hindsight 20/20. I agree that player retention was the problem. Balance updates were few and far between, and community feedback was often processed in a very opaque manner. It never felt like the devs were confident in their skirmish experience, nor as enthusiastic about it as their community. It showed with their laser-focus on alliance at the expense of the competitive and skirmish scene.
Now muse have learned and gotten the message with the MK. II guns and new maps, but
It honestly doesn't matter what they do. Alliance is irrelevant. The damage was done years ago, and there is no coming back from that. The opportunity passed.
That says it all.
Hopefully, the muse folk will make a teamwork-focused game in the future, or maybe a muse may retain an influx of players if they do decide to go F2P from the lessons they've learned.
P.S. Some idle thoughts:
This is just my take, but It felt like their innermost burningpassion was more PvE focused, and sometimes at odds with the PvP-focused community. While the result turned out great, It felt like a PvP skirmish game wasn't the game they wanted to make. They worked on alliance, but, for one reason or another it felt like muse was constrained by deadlines and budget. They compromised and it felt like alliance was still only half-step short of the original Kickstarter adventure mode.
This post isn't meant to bash or anything, it's just my idle thoughts and take on the matter.
o7 Muse, it was fun. I've improved my leadership and teaching skills, and met some friends and had some great moments in GOIO! This game was worth it. I wish you all success in the future.
quack quack and stay sassy!
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The player base isn't blameless either, every one of you who runs around with a stack and n00b stomps have a hand in this too. I hope your little cliques were worth killing the game for.
In the history of Goio, NAY the history of gaming, NAY the history of ALL COMPETITIVE GAMES, associations - friends - clans - working relationships are always created. This has nothing to do with the demise of the game. At all. Balancing among many other things was on Muse. Not the community. Every single Vet here over time I know has tried their damndest to swap ships, be the underdog, until basically they became so salty they just get tired of doing it. Suddenly they spend more time attempting to balance then paying attention to what the hell they are doing on their ship. I used to be biggest advocate of training novices till i realized I was fighting a losing battle against the devs.. Those I did put my time into were worth it though.
I and my crew are along the same lines as Kestril here. I've gained more from this game then Muse probably knew they could provide which basically means the rewards were of my OWN making. Friends, memories, some good times, some bad, were all because of myself and friends. Muse isnt looking out for us in any respect and we are moving along to greener pastures.
It doesnt matter if it goes free to play. It's been dead a long time. Player surge from sales or free to play can't revive this or increase the player base enough to be a welcome addition to the current games we play. It's a cash grab for Muse at this point. Get as much as they can while they can.
It is an amazing game. However to me it's always going to feel like it was unfinished, unpolished, and never realized full potential.
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The player base isn't blameless either, every one of you who runs around with a stack and n00b stomps have a hand in this too. I hope your little cliques were worth killing the game for.
In the history of Goio, NAY the history of gaming, NAY the history of ALL COMPETITIVE GAMES, associations - friends - clans - working relationships are always created. This has nothing to do with the demise of the game. At all. Balancing among many other things was on Muse. Not the community. Every single Vet here over time I know has tried their damndest to swap ships, be the underdog, until basically they became so salty they just get tired of doing it. Suddenly they spend more time attempting to balance then paying attention to what the hell they are doing on their ship. I used to be biggest advocate of training novices till i realized I was fighting a losing battle against the devs.. Those I did put my time into were worth it though.
OK, let me blow your mind here. Swapping one high level ship doesn't balance a lobby. If you really want to spread the talent evenly you need to break up the circle jerks and divide the high level people among different ships.
I know, I know, here comes the battle cry of moody 13 year olds everywhere "BUT I WANT TO PLAY WITH MY FRIENDS!". Bullshit, you want to play with people who know what they're doing. Funny how all this shit i get for how I treat n00bs comes from people who never fly with them.
Anyway, good epitaph for muse, I look forward to dancing on the grave.
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...If you really want to spread the talent evenly you need to break up the circle jerks and divide the high level people among different ships. ...
And when main engineering for a failing pyramidion rapidly stopped being fun the people who did that either went back to some extent of stomping or left entirely. Meanwhile a bunch more new players also left because of some "teacher" adding 5 minutes to every lobby in an attempt to talk to a brick wall.
Anyway, good epitaph for muse, I look forward to dancing on the grave.
Did Howard run over your dog or something :'(
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...If you really want to spread the talent evenly you need to break up the circle jerks and divide the high level people among different ships. ...
And when main engineering for a failing pyramidion rapidly stopped being fun the people who did that either went back to some extent of stomping or left entirely. Meanwhile a bunch more new players also left because of some "teacher" adding 5 minutes to every lobby in an attempt to talk to a brick wall.
As I've said many times, playing with n00bs is awful. However you will never find the people receptive to being taught when they quit the game because every match is a 5-0 slaughter. If I didn't play almost exclusively with randumbs I would have about 6 fewer months of bans (totally worth it though).
Now if you're going to make the argument that this was inevitable, that the only possible way things could be was people staying in their cliques because they just can't handle scrubs I'm not going to argue. The attitudes of nearly every high level when it comes to being separated from their preferred lunch table is a convincing argument. If only people were honest and not so quick to ride their high horse all the way to the servers being shut down.
Anyway, good epitaph for muse, I look forward to dancing on the grave.
Did Howard run over your dog or something :'(
Send me your address, I'll mail you the 3 ring binder detailing all the absolute bullshit I've gotten from this company.
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I see what you mean about people on high horses etc, but I don't think even a miraculous change in veteran player behavior would have helped much, I'm basing that on the fact that for me at least the game became distinctively less fun when I started caring about not ruining it for other players and only really recovered when I stopped caring about playing "properly" and basically went back to being a scrub myself.
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Lets keep things civil and on topic guys.
Too much doom and gloom here...I remember days where the average pop was ~30. Call me an optimist, but I'd hate to see Guns die with final conversation like this. I'm not buying the "end times" talk.
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Well again that's why I'm suggesting free to play for the base game. I mean if it's selling for a dollar anyway free isn't that much cheaper considering you will have a crack at selling those guys and girls alliance plus the item shop.
I wanna see guns great again, but we need to avoid putting up a pay wall on a 6 year old game that is only selling for a dollar anyway.
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I can see the argument for free to play. I can. I just don't think it will help fully.
Previous arguments have stated that retention, not incoming, is the issue.
Retention is accomplished by proper releases to keep gameplay interesting, as well as keeping interest in the game, period.
Proper releases are accomplished by considerable planning for years to come, then keeping on schedule as much as possible.
This is where I see Muse's biggest failing. I don't believe the game is fully and completely dying, but I do think that it's suffering greatly, despite and due to Muse's actions. Planning is something I feel Muse lacks. Proper plans for the future, proper plans for releases, and proper plans for how it wants to deal with the community.
Case and point, Alliance. So far, Alliance has come through with a short-lived fervor at first, and now more of a simmering enjoyment. It's nice to go into and stress relief on AI for a while, especially when dealing with less-than enjoyable newer players, before diving back into Skirmish.
Alliance, on the whole, feels only nearly a quarter done. So few modes, one of which is rarely played due to the sheer annoyance of playing it, not even all of the factions released properly, desperate balancing required for some things, and half-cocked releases of Alliance content into Skirmish requiring frantic hot-balacing in order to keep the game playable.
All of this because of a lack of adequate planning on Muse's part. Budgetary issues and deadlines could have been met if Muse had taken the time to adequately plan out Alliance, or at least kept themselves humble. They are small. Tiny. They aren't able to just churn out content like a goddamned machine. They simply aren't able to. As such, they need to actually get their act together and plan out what they want to do.
Certainly, their plans will not always mesh with players. Never will, for some. But if they actually have a plan, and can be flexible enough with it to actually fix community problems and work with the playerbase, they might be able to up retention rate and keep the game going for a few more years. If they plan for those bloody years.
I'm not asking for quarterly releases of broken content, now. None of us want another Minotaur or Tempest. I'm not asking for another Adventure mode, setting the bar really, really, really high and expecting everything else to catch up. I'm also not asking for what happened to Robocraft, which, to those who don't know, was to release way too many new modifiers, assets, and changes in too short a time, and driving away a good portion of players just because of how much has been changed in so little time.
I'm asking for some concrete, simple, steady planning for the next few years. Actually dedicating the team to one project at a time, continuously working to finish that product at a relatively set time. I'm asking for cycles of work, planning, and releases. I... really haven't seen it of them, and that may be just with me being new-ish. I haven't been here since Alpha days, but I've tried to listen to those that have been, and I really, really think that Muse lacks adequate planning.
Possible, very rough idea for planning would be to dedicate quarters to strict, definite tasks. Q1 dedicate to balancing and community complaints. Q2 dedicated to development of new ideas and maps, taking community suggestions and deciding which and what could or should be added. Q3 dedicated strictly to working on that idea decided in Q2, very little to nothing else. Q4, test, test, test, test, talk with the community, test some more, and then release. Simple, dedicated, consistent planning and working in that system. Then stick to it. Just make a plan and stick to it, being flexible where you have to. I feel that would do so much for Muse and for GOIO overall.
Anyways, that's my two cents. Sorry if it was a bit long and rambly, but...
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Lets keep things civil and on topic guys.
Too much doom and gloom here...I remember days where the average pop was ~30. Call me an optimist, but I'd hate to see Guns die with final conversation like this. I'm not buying the "end times" talk.
Definition of end times may differ person to person. If you consider this population weve had for the last year a healthy active community, then it is not dead. But if I start seeing the same people every single time I play the game, sorry to say that means no growth which means only a handlful are keeping it active.
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Lets keep things civil and on topic guys.
Too much doom and gloom here...I remember days where the average pop was ~30. Call me an optimist, but I'd hate to see Guns die with final conversation like this. I'm not buying the "end times" talk.
You know what's great for building a community? Stifling open conversation about why its dying.
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(http://images.parents.mdpcdn.com/sites/parents.com/files/styles/width_360/public/images/p_101528432.jpg)
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(http://images.parents.mdpcdn.com/sites/parents.com/files/styles/width_360/public/images/p_101528432.jpg)
+1
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Well said Naoura. While I have no right to claim I know what all it takes to make a game like Guns and keep it ticking, I definitely lost my way between the initial kickstarter hype for adventure mode and here. I carve out as much content as i possibly can from the current Alliance, but want for more.
And in that context, I really can't say if free-to-play for Online would really do much for the current status quo. I imagine with all the sales and the fact we've been here for years, just about anyone who would of found Guns pvp interesting would already own it. May net more then a sale in terms of a population buff, but it'll bleed out if the roots of the current issues aren't addressed. My 2 cents.
Also,
Definition of end times may differ person to person. If you consider this population weve had for the last year a healthy active community, then it is not dead. But if I start seeing the same people every single time I play the game, sorry to say that means no growth which means only a handlful are keeping it active.
That's fair. Perhaps mine is a vain hope.
You know what's great for building a community? Stifling open conversation about why its dying.
Aye, and sarcasm and insult add such depth to forums.
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(http://images.parents.mdpcdn.com/sites/parents.com/files/styles/width_360/public/images/p_101528432.jpg)
(https://clawingmywaytothetop.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/oh-you-re-cool.jpg)
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You know what's great for building a community? Stifling open conversation about why its dying.
Aye, and sarcasm and insult add such depth to forums.
Yes actually, they do. Conflict by its very nature is compelling, that's why stories all have problems and resolutions. Discussion, as it was working on the first page of this thread, is oddly enough very good for discussion forums. Human conversation isn't stagnant, I'm not sure why the moderation on this forum refuses to accept that.
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Let us not forget that key resellers and gift trading are on the way out, with Valve's changes to gift handling. These secondary markets, which have diluted game value, are going to be cut off at the knees.
The problem is not acquisition, but retention. Retention and free to play acquisition strategies overlap, you release good content regularly and you ensure a critical core population, which can then grow. If we cannot retain people, the health of the community will not improve whether the game is priced at ten dollars, one dollar, or free. The only functional difference is that you remove the revenue per acquisition, in exchange for more people who churn. After that, less revenue means fewer resources to produce content.
For those of you who do not have experience with consumer products, conversion to in-game/service purchases is very low. All companies that rely upon in-game purchases spend a lot of marketing dollars attempting to acquire those few people who not only spend money in game, but spend an inordinate amount. It requires a huge human pool, and deep capital investment to be consistently profitable.
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Lets keep things civil and on topic guys.
Too much doom and gloom here...I remember days where the average pop was ~30. Call me an optimist, but I'd hate to see Guns die with final conversation like this. I'm not buying the "end times" talk.
I generally play in the "overnight" time slot and remember times when I thought the game might be near death because the entire population could be 8 players in 1 lobby, that's happening again but now half those players jump over to alliance to avoid the pains of trying to get an 8 person lobby actually running, and the other half leave making the PvP literally albeit temporarily dead at those times. I don't think its pessimistic to give the PvP a 50% chance at best of surviving the year if that continues. Because it needs minimum 1 person Alliance will last in some form as long as the servers are running but without some major improvements that won't be much of a population.
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I see a lot of you talk about retention and lack of content. I'll be the first to admit that this game isn't for everyone and we aren't going to retain everyone that's a fact.
I'll even go a step further to say a lot of people that do stay with the game will leave after they first play it and only when they come back will finally begin to start grasping some of the mechanics. Myself included in that group. It's a tough complicated and wierd game.
In my mind the reason why alliance feels stale after a few months from lack of content or incomplete in a lot of people's mind vs skirmish which could be played for years by the same players is this.
The content if guns of Icarus is the players you play with
PVE just can't replicate that magic that the pvp side creates.
That might seem a bit simple or obvious but so many of us stuck around for our clans or our friends. So much of the enjoyment is fightig and playing with your favorite crew, or battling and beating someone that irks you.
That's why I think free to play would be a success because it will add the most important content of all new players and new friends.
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That if should have been an in if a mod wants to fix that, if you do you can also delete this post.
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I can agree with that reasoning, Narayan. The people and conversation are definitely the biggest part of what makes Guns so freaking amazing.
That's because Guns is an apartment block. We all know each other. We all have our flat-mates and good neighbors. There are those many dislike, and those many like. And then there are those who just come and go, rent out a room for a day or two and see the chips in the walls, the rattling pipes, and the shower that sounds like it's coughing up dust when you turn it on.
Free to play only adds a bunch of new wings to our supposed apartment block. A lot of people coming in, and a lot of people going out, because you haven't fixed up the rooms, you've just made more of them, chipped paint and all.
Fewer people know each other. Fewer people actively interact in the same way. Sure, you've got some new holdouts and soon-to-be-vets among the new tenants, but you're going to have a vast majority of drifters, picking the game up for a spell and then moing on to a place with better rooms.
Yes, this is a long metaphor.
Rather than just opening up a whole series of buildings, I'd say fix up the one you've got. New content to keep people here, bug fixes and balancing fpcus per quarter, in order to keep things steady maintenance. A crappy apartment block is still a crappy apartment block, no matter how many more people you've got coming in.
And thank you, Zill. I'm not saying I know enough to do more than make a side-long recommendation, but I do know that if you want to succeed, you must plan. MUST. Muse seems so... disorganized. Drifting. Always moving from one target to the next without a concrete idea of where they are trying to go from here. I read a while ago how they seemingly jump about at random for what they try to work on, and though they've survived for six years (A fucking phenomenal number for an indie company), they need to have an actual plan in place for their future. Alliance, I feel, is the result of inadequate planning.
I'm fully okay with their passion for a PvE game. If they want to make an MMO based on Guns, I'm fully for it! Please! That would be fantastic. PvE and PvP combined would be amazing. Flaming well plan for it first. If you just go forward without a plan, you can't allocate resources properly and can't keep your own schedule correctly.
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I see a lot of you talk about retention and lack of content. I'll be the first to admit that this game isn't for everyone and we aren't going to retain everyone that's a fact.
I'll even go a step further to say a lot of people that do stay with the game will leave after they first play it and only when they come back will finally begin to start grasping some of the mechanics. Myself included in that group. It's a tough complicated and wierd game.
In my mind the reason why alliance feels stale after a few months from lack of content or incomplete in a lot of people's mind vs skirmish which could be played for years by the same players is this.
The content if guns of Icarus is the players you play with
PVE just can't replicate that magic that the pvp side creates.
That might seem a bit simple or obvious but so many of us stuck around for our clans or our friends. So much of the enjoyment is fightig and playing with your favorite crew, or battling and beating someone that irks you.
That's why I think free to play would be a success because it will add the most important content of all new players and new friends.
I would expand on this to say that alliance just isn't a stand alone game. Its like a game mode that would be included with a real game. PVE like that needs a story to make it compelling.
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ohitsthisthreadagain.png
Count me in to the gloomy choir here. As Evolve has shown- going free to play even with some strong reforms would probably not bring any effect. Just a huge sale-like player population bump and then as quick downfall.
And some of you are right that Muse's decision seem random and... wasteful. Just remind yourself how many times they made majority of community burst in outrage due to their own unexplained and more often than not un-asked for decisions. How many times the goddamn UI has been changed, I can count at least 2-3 times. I can agree on matchmaker being some kind of necessity, but who asked for stamina?
Alliance was supposed to be the great saviour. What a suprise, it isn't. Some time after release you could say it's pretty much the same, steamcharts show that combining 24h peak of goio and alliance we get a bit less than 200 players. Let me remind you that I'm writing this on the late night between saturday and sunday, so we're talking about good numbers, weekend numbers.
There is also a kind of problem that is often in online games. It's never finished. If you keep on fiddling with it it won't be good. As I said, some example may be changes of ui.
Also, Neddie, why are you complaining about second hand key market? From the point of customer it's a great thing (they can get games cheaper) and nobody forces devs to put their game into bundles, for instance ones that cost 30$ and have plenty of games. Of course people are going to sell that further. That's how free market works.
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ohitsthisthreadagain.png
Count me in to the gloomy choir here.
I'll provide a soundtrack then. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YmjL3eoQF0k)
How many times the goddamn UI has been changed, I can count at least 2-3 times.
Five including small changes and one major fuck up that should've gotten the person who did it fired.
I can agree on matchmaker being some kind of necessity, but who asked for stamina?
Funny you mention that, because while the first is utter cancer from day one, the second turned out to actually be a very fine addition for me.
Also, Neddie, why are you complaining about second hand key market? From the point of customer it's a great thing
Let me repeat ad nauseum my response about this particular case from the standpoint of someone close to game dev business and communitfuck you, you knobheaded, shitfaced, dimwitted twat.
and nobody forces devs to put their game into bundles
Eeeee, a market that is promoting buying keys second hand for cheap. How do you want to sell copies of a game, when most people are used to games appearing on markets like this, and thus not paying the price? Or expecting games to go on sale?
I mean, yeah, I won't probably buy anything from anyone signed under EA (who are bunch of studio strangling cunts) or Activision (who forced my beloved even if flawed Troika to release Vampire in state so unfinished, the modding community is fixing it since 2004 till today and are far from finishing, and week before release of Half-Life 2, killing the sales), but goddammit...
That's how free market works.
Ah, the free market. A fine concept, suffering the same problem as both capitalis or marxism, or communism.
What is the problem oh so common to all those?
The fact that people are being fucking cunts.
Mr Disaster, even though I respect you as my friend, I am sometimes mildly annoyed how you just seem to accept that as something normal. I would've dwelled into personal discussions between us, but I ain't that damn stupid. I've already made myself a fucking jester for not holding what I think.
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While constant, aimless change will limit product success, so will failure to remedy flaws. Alliance has a number of aspects which should be improved, but the launch period was fraught with problems, and they can only go forward from there.
Also, Neddie, why are you complaining about second hand key market? From the point of customer it's a great thing (they can get games cheaper) and nobody forces devs to put their game into bundles, for instance ones that cost 30$ and have plenty of games. Of course people are going to sell that further. That's how free market works.
I neither complained about, nor offered any value judgment upon, resellers and the reseller market. My stances on macroeconomics, microeconomics and market theory are not disclosed, as they are not relevant to this discussion.
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We know:
- Making the game F2P will cause a big inflow of new players for a while (new publicity and the like will get players to join)
- GOIO is unable to retain those new players, and the number of connected players will start to fall again once F2P-GOIO stops being a novelty
It seems quite clear to me where the problem is: what can be done to retain new players? .
Narayan is thinking hard about it. This post of him (https://gunsoficarus.com/community/forum/index.php/topic,8629.0.html) seem to address the problem I had when I started playing.
P.S.: The prediction of the OP has come true. Lately I only see ~20 players online. And those are divided between PVP and Coop, for which it is almost impossible to set up a decent lobby lately.