So, I did a little digging on the intertubes and it looks like there are around 1500 players on the servers during peak times.  Probably 700 off peak.  If one assumes say 3 hours average play time and assume a 12 hour cycle for peak and off peak then that give (4*1500) + (4*700) =8800 total active players?  Which seems about right to me, give or take.  So that means that SSG just pulled forward 10% of it's VIP revenue for 2020, and 100% of any premium revenue on updates or new classes or races for 2019 and 2020...  Seems to me the expansion is going to have to do really well or they are going to be in trouble.  I doubt they'll sell out a similar season pass next year, with 1000 players currently in one.... On the one hand, that could bode well for lots of good content and a great expansion, or it could be the beginning of.... DOOM.   But in reality, while a lot of people on the mobos dismiss the idea that pulling forward income from future years is bad, it isn't good if that money isn't allocated towards future costs.  If it's being used to cover current expenditures then it's going to have a negative impact on future cash flows for SSG and that, even just 10% is never good.

Agree with almost everything Rubbins said, though I personally enjoy Stormhorns a bit more than he did. I like Lines of Supply since it's at least a little more unorthodox than your typical hacknslash. The wilderness is also great. Also, I thought epic TBC was well done, since it's probably the only epic-ified pack that has significant changes from the heroic versions.

As an addendum to all that though, Haunted Halls was really disappointing (and horrendously overpriced), ToEE was a disaster of unprecedented proportions, Slavers was fun the first time I ran it but became stale after the grind, not to mention the ass crafting system, Tower of Frost is terribad, and Lost at Sea is just a "meh" tier quest. "Legendary" shroud/hox/tempest and epic necro4 don't even count as new content in my book since they're virtually unchanged from heroics.

I haven't played White Plume Mountain yet, but of all the content they've released in the past 6 years, Ravenloft is the best in my opinion. Ravenloft and Epic TBC are the only packs I played through and thought were actually good. All I can hope for is that the Sharn expansion follows in Ravenloft's footsteps, though I'm fairly sure at this point that's too much to ask.

Technomage wrote on Dec 18^th, 2018 at 2:25pm:

That may very well be... Just based on my own consumption, I probably a similar amount of money on points as on my VIP sub, not substantially more, but perhaps some people drop a lot more.  In thinking about the season pass, it's quite an odd package.  I almost think it's a ploy to get more people paying for gold rolls.  With 1000 gold rolls a day for the next two years there are going to be a lot of "I just got a XX in my gold roll today!" posts on the forums.  That's a lot of hype...  I also agree with Rubbins on the content and what to expect going forward...  The post SSG DDO is a strange beast.  I remember emphatic statements that existing loot would never be updated, and all of a sudden updates.  Or that wisdom to hit and damage would NOT be in any enhancement tree.  4 years between Shaddowfell and RL and now we are every year or so if things continue like this?  I wonder if this is out of financial necessity rather than development capacity.  It would make sense to do the season pass if Sharn looked like it wasn't gonna hit the expected timeline and you needed to hire a couple extra hands to keep things on track.
But it seems like the amount of cash they are gonna bring in from expansion sales isn't that significantly different from the season pass.  Maybe a 3x multiple, but it ain't 10 or 20x...

Bishop wrote on Dec 18^th, 2018 at 3:26pm:


Well, I guess my guildies who do a racial TR in 2-3 days and accumulate points from favor to cover any store purchases they make, don't count?  I guess they are the only players who don't have to spend actual cash on points.   Pretty surprising you don't realize these players exist.

Tspoon wrote on Dec 18^th, 2018 at 1:18pm:


Businesses often need short-term loans because of the business cycle.
What SSG has done with 2-year subscriptions is they got their customers to provide an interest-free loan.

Tspoon wrote on Dec 18^th, 2018 at 4:05pm:


They aren't the only ones, but they can't be the basis for your math.  Frets and crew are the exception, not the norm.   Less than 1 or 2% of the player base is doing Racial TR's on a 2-3 day scale. 

Tspoon wrote on Dec 18^th, 2018 at 5:06pm:


I agree with you about MT.  Their MT model is largely around:

Convenience Consumables - Rez Cakes, Mana Pots, Heal Pots, Beacons, Bells of Opening, etc.

Power/Grind Bypasses - Raid Bypasses, Ottos Box, Hearts of Wood, XP Pots, Treasure Elixirs, etc.

QoL - Bank Slots, Character Slots, Bags

Cosmetics/Pets

I think that category 1 is largely steady, and is probably in ratio to the overall player activity level.   More players running quests, more convenience items sold.   Less players, less convenience items sold. 

Categories 2,3, and 4 have diminishing returns over time.  At some point players get through the grind, have all the bank slots and bags and such and have all the cosmetics and pets they want.

They need to keep releasing new MT items, preferrably in categories 3 and 4.   

Add in potion cases, cosmetics wardrobes, new personal bank storage that works like shared bank with a lot more space for purchase (so they can ditch the TR cache), Scroll cases, etc.   Lots of stuff they could do here that would not affect grind or player power but would be new revenue streams.

Add in new pets, new cosmetic sets (combine a cloak, helm, armor together for a specific matched look that is iconic in some way.)  Special hirelings (how well would a Drizzt hireling sell?)  I know the IP rights to him are off the table, but come up with other D&D characters.   Bobby the Barbarian?  Hank the Ranger?   Warduke?  Strongheart?  Maybe some of the Knights of Myth Drannor?

People would absolutely buy that stuff.   All of that will eventually be saturated, too, so you have to keep adding new stuff.  Player housing is a good QoL option that becomes an MT haven for you.

All of that will keep the revenue going to fund content and systems work.   And none of it requires adding grind or power creep.

Hmm... 310 on Khyber right now, if we subtract the Kally boxes, that leaves 7 active players so....  Yeah, my numbers were based on some Reddit threads, probably off by a factor of 2 or so..

WonderfulFoppyBint wrote on Dec 19^th, 2018 at 3:44pm:


What steam data are you using?  The concurrent user data shows between 3-400 players, which has to be wrong since there were 300 players on Khyber last night.  I don't log into or launch from steam so I wouldn't be counted.  What you have posted would 8400 accounts per server, equally divided.  So only between 3-5% of the players are playing at any given moment?  I think that number is more like 20,000 active accounts, 2500 per server making it 10-20% playing at any given time, but it quite difficult to pin down the number...

(503/.15)*15.8 = 53,000 or something

I guess the numbers changed a little but we're in the ballpark of 50,000 monthly users.

503 peak number of players in october on Steam
15% of players use Steam (from forum post)
For every 1 user at peak times there are 15 other people not playing. (According to old World of Warcraft data.)

Zehnpai wrote on Dec 20^th, 2018 at 1:39am:


I liked RL because of the feel. The music, the look of the armors, the environment is dark and gloomy. And the mob spawn points felt right too.

Ruins, Wrath, and Raven at Door felt like lazy fillers. Raven especially feels like it should just be in Invitation and not its own quest. Tea Party isn't bad. Large map, lot of little things to discover in the upper levels.

Fresh Baked has a fun end fight. Vintage is lackluster.

Sunrise is underrated. The Abbot there is one of the coolest looking and scripted bosses in the game. The voice acting, his lines right before he goes into his final form. His final form! His construct zombie bride. The blessed pool of suicide. Strahd's "she is minneee!!".

Oath of Vengeance has a dope atmosphere inside of an abandoned castle. But a shitty end fight. I don't know the paper analogue to it, but I'd hope it wasn't pull 3 levers and solve a floor tile puzzle. Seems like it should have been longer.

Strahd raid is an all time great raid. It's just hard enough and the pace has a cohesive order. Fight his right hand man, then ascend the spiral stair case of death into the heart of castle ravenloft. The need of the sunsword to hurt and kill strahd. The cards I could do without, as to me they are just a bunch of re-skinned fucking levers inside crypts. But, hey ; at least they didnt use levers...

Assuming 50k players, selling 1000 passes seems to me there seems to be a strong ratio of cashed up players (vs the premium people who have bought everything already).

Zehnpai wrote on Dec 20^th, 2018 at 1:39am:


Interesting, I started playing in September 2007 so the population must have tripled, on the order of 200K since there were a lot more active players back then... or so it seemed.  As to Steel, the one thing we can all be sure about, his opinion is the only opinion that matters.