Flav wrote on Oct 15
th, 2014 at 3:09am:
I give it two more years before full maintenance mode....
There's plans already for next year according to the supposed producer posts...
Since they are going to shift a bit ( you know Turbine and all ) there's work for two years to complete these plans...
Then it will be time to go maintenance, as there's probably going to be some kind of new D&D online game based on 5th Ed... and it will be more than 10 years of life...
I wouldn't base any future outlook based simply on their plans. It's going to depend simply on numbers, and they can pull the plug at any time. They can plan out a year or two, that's great. But at the end of the day, one day, someone higher up will just make a decision and shut it down. Or maybe leave it up in maintenance mode, that will depend on what kind of licensing deal they can make with wotc.
None of us armchair executives can tell the OP how long the game will be running. All we can say is that it's all about the numbers, and if they still have numbers to keep it afloat, they probably will for as long as possible.
But as the population goes down, and it's pretty low right now but seems stable at the moment, I would think the revenue stream would be impacted negatively. Even with the store promos and ptw items, they have probably nearly bottomed out revenues as even these markets have become saturated.
The game needs new players, new players that will stay and spend. Unfortunately, the game is not new player friendly. And WB Games doesn't seem to be doing too much to promote this game (I am making the assumption that marketing had been consolidated up to WB Games a few years ago, and that turbine itself is not responsible for it)
As Flav mentioned, the game is getting pretty old too. IIRC, licensing with wotc will be coming up in 2016, so I would agree that there would be critical decisions to be made at that time. (If the game survives to 2016)
Hopefully the lights will stay on for awhile longer. I personally think it will, but only if the number of players leaving = new players staying. The traffic graphs seem pretty flat for now.
So, for the OP, come on in! Go VIP on the three month payment plan. Unless you already have access to most packs as a premium plan, for someone who doesn't have many packs the best time to be VIP is right now. This late in the game, there is no point in buying existing packs.