Ok, first to the original issue:


I never crash when loggging in, I always crash when logging a character out. Not every time, just sometimes. When I do I get "client has encountered a problem and needs to close blah blah blah". No info at all about the problem. I try to use as few plugins as possible at one time. I rarely have more than 3 on at once when hunting: DHS, Buff Me, and either Ammo Gimp or Find It. Most of my other plugins are non-hunting ones and I pretty much run only one of them at a time, with the hunting plugins turned off.


However there are at least 3-4 variables that affect how often I crash.


First, I use Drak's AC Dual Client, and the more accounts I have logged in, the more likely I am to crash. If I only have one account logged in it's fairly rare. If I have 3 accounts logged in (which only happens when I'm muling) it's fairly frequent. However if I only log in one account directly with the launcher, it can still happen.


Second, the more plugins I run at once the more often I crash. When I use an ID'ing plugin like Find It or Mule Shopper, it seems to happen more often than other types of plugins like Castaway or ammo gimp. However I can leave all plugins turned off while I multiple log to mule and it still happens. It has also happened at least once when I multiple logged with Decal not on at all. I haven't played on just one account with no decal at all in a very long time so I don't know if it will happen under that circumstance.


It also seem to be more likely to occur on the first time I log out after switching to different plugins or logging in another account with AC Dual Client.


Third, my vid card is an nVidia GeForce 6600 GT. Less than a year old, and near to the top of their line. I have tried every one of the 9 drivers available from nVidia that support this card. Some of them make the problem worse, or cause other problems too. NONE of them completely solve the problem, and the newest series of drivers -- the 8x -- doesn't give the best results. I'm using the newest one of the older 7x series. I believe the problem is connected to video memory from all I've read and experienced, but that's as far as my skills can go. I have an Athlon XP 2200 processor, 2GB of RAM and 128MB of video memory so I SHOULD have sufficient system spec's to run OK.


One last thing which I'm not sure is connected, but might be. If I get distracted from the game for long enough to have the game log out my character, I always crash and get a bunch of error messages related to initializing DirectX.


That's all the info that I can think of at present.


Ok, Drakier if you go by the only "hard" numbers I posted, then you have not much more than 3000 total players ingame at any one time. If you go with that as the confirmed number of paid subscriptions, it comes to approximately $40,000 per month. The issue is how many MORE subscriptions are being paid by people who rarely if ever play, and there's no hard numbers available for that. As far as expenses, they have at least the rent/mortgage on one very large office building in a highly developed and very expensive area of the East Coast. That HAS to cost at least $10K per month, perhaps several times that. Then there's the issue of staff. Does Turbine have 5 staffers dedicated to AC, or 15? I have no idea, but I'm sure they're costing some thousands of dollars per month EACH in salary, benefits and taxes. Then there's the utility bills for that large building. Heating, air conditioning and of course electricity to run the servers. There again we have no hard numbers for how much, but I'm guessing at least $5k per month, and $15k is possible with the price of energy today. Since the most bandwith I've ever paid for is 256K DSL, I have no idea how much is needed to run AC, or how much it costs. $5k a month? $10K? More?


I tend to agree that the original development costs of AC should probably be paid off by now. However Turbine DID move all the way across the country TWICE in the last year or two. I'm sure that cost a nice pile of cash. I don't know if they moved back to their own facilities when they went back East, but I think they set up new facilities when they moved West. The AC1 team was definitely part of the move, so AC must have shared at least some of the costs of it. All together they could easily be still carrying debt from the cost of those moves. The last issue I raise is just my personal feelings about one point, with no evidence to back it up at all. I believe that if AC had been a "cash cow" at the time, Microsoft would not have sold it. Would you?


So sure, if you take high end estimates of their income and low end estimates of their expenses, you can easily argue that AC is making $50K+ in profit each month. If you go the other way though, you can just as easily argue that AC is very close to the break-even point. I'm not trying to be a pessimist, just a realist. Everything has it's beginning and it's end. I hope the end of AC is a long time off. But I'm not certain that it IS.

 

-----signature-----

The amount of players that play during peak is usually considered about 1/10th to 1/20th the total subscribers, so AC is probably making more like $500,000-800,000 a month in income.

AC Live team is probably 5 or so people, most likely with 1 or 2 doing work for more than just AC every month. Turbine is known for borrowing assets from different teams.


Anyhow, considering they're running more than just one game, you can't really put all of Turbine's expenses as a company onto AC.


If AC wasn't making money, they would shut it down. It's not like they haven't done the same to AC2.

 

-----signature-----

Hazridi wrote: "..usually considered", "..probably making", "..probably 5 or so", "..most likely with"


Well apparently you have no more in the way of hard facts than I do. That's the only point I was really trying to make, that we have no way of knowing if AC is still doing great financially or is edging close to the break even point.


The only thing I strongly disagree with you on is the estimate that there is 10 to 20 times as many subscriptions as there are players ingame at peak times.That MAY have been true when the game was much more popular, though it sounds optimistic to me even for back then. In its peak years, I think there may have been 15-25 thousand players ingame total at one time, and the only estimates I've ever heard for total subscriptions for AC back then are 125K-150K. That gives a ratio of more like 6-10 times ingame numbers for total subscriptions. At this late stage of the game I wouldn't be surprised if the paid subs are only 2-3 times the peak number of players, or even less.


I didn't mean to suggest that all of Turbine's expenses should be accounted to AC1, if it sounded that way then I wasn't clear enough.

 

-----signature-----

My 2 cents


Running

WinXP

256 GeForce 6800

2Gig Ram


Here's scenario when I crash (new comp, but I've crashed twice with same scenario)


Char A with LTx, playing

Log out Char A

Log in Char B

Use LTx (in anyway)

Log out Char B


Crash


If

Char A with LTx, playing

Log out Char A

Log in Char B

Char B does NOT use LTx

Log out char B

Log Char A back

use LTX


No crsh


This is true for my older comp as well (laptop, shared vid memory) tho it also crashes using Make It (new one doesnt) on multipl chars


Maybe it has something to do with the timer thing (i.e. how fast you move from one char to another) and I just need to wait longer when I intend to use LTx on a different character


Edit: 1 cent re: server populations

3 - 4 years ago, peak time ran up to 2500 in Frostfell alone (and Entire game population was around 15 - 20K). 600 count would be around weee hours of the nite, or right after server opening up

Pre Tod - FF server count was around 400 - 500


Right now, I have no clue lol

 

-----signature-----

Its a decal issue not plugin guys. Same thing with the random crash BS.

 

-----signature-----

I have this problem also but only on one comp. The other doesn't seem to have the same problem. It happens consistantly on the fourth or fifth log for me so it's predictable and I won't be quitting AC just because I have to type my password every couple hours.


As to your missconception that AC has no future.... All day long I consistanly see 180+ users logged on. This is not just on one server. At peak hours, 300+. Now I'm no rocket scientist but just a little bit of basic math would show you that even if Turbine has 2-3 individuals who have no other duties aside from Asheron's Call, well, you get the idea. Take your pessimism elswhere. You will not find a sypathetic ear on boards used by people to enhance their enjoyment of a game you evidently don't play, or don't want to play.


Josue

WE

Turbine bought AC back from Microsoft JUST to shut it down? Maybe if all the pessimists sat down and shut up people would not buy into the bs that AC is going to shut down tomorrow. I for 1 have had a great time playing- better than anytime previous to TOD, many of the things a lot of us have wanted implemented in the game have now been done, thus helping us all to have a better time.

Maybe if all the doomsayers were to help build up the playerbase instead of trying to destroy it with negative comments we could actually see more ingame.

The crashing to desktop problem. I was suspicious when I started looking at the configuration of my .NET and .ASP services. I configured the comp I was having the problems with a little looser than the other. Now I have not crashed a single time. It was so bad today, I crashed on every log. Evidently, the problem is not solely with Decal nor the plugins. The problem may be the compatibility of your network configuration and the demands that Decal and the plugins are putting on it. Have no idea if that is correct, but it fixed mine and I can't get Decal to locate the .DLLs on half my plugins, hehe. One comp is updating like mad, the other I am using the external update on. It works great, hehe.


Josue

WE

I only crash out like this when I am using the TINGS plugin. Everything else there is no problem.

I think it's a Decal problem and I'm sure it's the top item on the Devs' fix-it list as they work on the next release of Decal.


War Devs.

 

-----signature-----