Rogatien Merc
Red Star.
EoN.
1223
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Posted - 2013.09.20 18:02:00 -
[1] - Quote
What do I legitimately expect? In a year the rest of the racial suits, weapons, and vehicles will be out. The core will be about 90% stable (whatever that means) with a lot of the terrain glitches fixed, sensitivity sliders, and all that jazz. We will have another map. And most importantly team queue for FW will make constant 16v16 battles a reality.
At that point we could legitimately be peaking at 1000 players and limping into the second anniversary.
Things like player-to-player trading will be implimented. Player trading of boosters will provide additional cashflow, but Dust is still in the red for a while - CCP can handle it though. MTACs, MAVs, and new infantry classes like grenadier, etc. are all possibilities 18+ months down the road. The thing is, CCP has a long-term vision and they are stubborn little *******. New Eden is their product and Dust is just one arm of that. Ya see, once all the above is fixed and implimented, the only thing to do is build on top of the solid foundation.
That comes in three primary categories:
1) Enhance competitive play (PC, FW, raiding, balance rewards, etc.) to keep the core FPS cbt vets coming back for more.
2) Impliment PVE that will attract more casual players who may be driven off by stomping vets otherwise
3) Work on the EvE link hardcore. Things like niche but lucrative manufacturing Eve side that requires salvage gained through Dust PVE will draw more people with EvE accounts into the fold. AUR items to enhance this activity Dust side will supplement monetization.
... which are all turbocharged by one thing: PS4.
All it takes is a port to the new console; I'm not sure how the code would work but if they can run Carbon on the PS4 with 64v64 and the above changes within the next 3 years, this game isn't going anywhere. Alternatively, a port to the PC would open up an entirely new market and make adoption by EvE players more likely, but I'm thinking CCP wants to make console Dust work.
SOMEWHERE in all of that, CCP will push a hardcore marketing blitz to attract new players, likely in conjunction with the PS4 release. Conveniently, this will be well after PS2 arrives on PS4 so perhaps they are hoping to grab bored PS2 players.
Who knows. |