"We think that if you're really good with the controller, and you can match the fidelity of movement of the mouse and keyboard, then you'll hold your own. If not, well, you'll just be matched with people who play like you," Faliszek said, adding that PS3 players can also use a mouse and keyboard if they choose.

"When bringing Counter-Strike to PS3 and Xbox, we wanted to make sure we weren't 'noobing' it, or dumbing it down. The game has an entry point for new players in its Casual Mode, but it's not ticking off the top players," he said.

"These two communities want a new game that brings them together again -- to make them whole,".

I'd like your post a lot more if it didn't seem like you believe the low population has to do with the controls as oppose to the game legitimately being bad.

Just said this in another theread but i luuuv to repeat myself ;) - the first priority for CCP, given that they wanted to be the ones to try and integrate the input types when other reputable developers had failed, would be to have rock-solid high quality controls.

After that if some mild AA was needed then fine, i'm sure we could all have lived with that.

But slapping an over-helpful AA on top of poor DS3 controls so it can 'compete' with poor kb/m controls? What is that? And who was it intended to satisfy? DUST will continue to have a credibility issue with FPS fans so long as we have the controls we have now.

Eve Online broke the 500k barrier not to long ago.
leaderboard daily.

World of Warcraft is at 7.7 million now give or take.
Population of Warhammer online is currently 0.
Eve Online broke the 500k barrier not to long ago.
Aion currently averages 1.5k players per server cocurrent players.
Runescape are good at hiding thier population but they have a leaderboard, only 400,000+ people show up on the leaderboard daily.

World of Warcraft is at 7.7 million now give or take.
Population of Warhammer online is currently 0.
Eve Online broke the 500k barrier not to long ago.
Aion currently averages 1.5k players per server cocurrent players.
Runescape are good at hiding thier population but they have a leaderboard, only 400,000+ people show up on the leaderboard daily.

This thread makes me want to quit dust even more than I already do. Problem is trying to find a console title that matches this games unique team play style and RPG characteristics. The only thing keeping me here now is my corp. You make a good point, it's hard to see Dust lasting the next few months especially with the significant amount of un satisfied players.

I don't think you can compare the two. Valve has a history of shooter games behind them. CCP doesn't.

Large quote exalting Valve's "Keyboard OVER Gamepad" support, while complaining about CPP's "Gamepad OVER Keyboard" support

OP makes a poor argument when comparing ccp and valve. Valve has a proven pedigree that spans over a decade when it comes to the fps genre. He is comparing apples and oranges between developers and games here. CS lacks the complexity in systems that Dust has with its equipment, SP, vehicles, corporations, eve link(lol), etc. Add to that the fact that plenty of console games maintain extreme player counts without mouse and keyboard controls.

As for your list of games to compare player base numbers. Each of those games has nothing in common with Dust. They are mmo's, and not shooters. They also each have a critical element that helps maintain their high player base... PVE. They are casual friendly.

In the end, this is just another mouse and keyboard pc overlord complaining because ccp didn't build the game for him. Nothing to see here.

OP makes a poor argument when comparing ccp and valve. Valve has a proven pedigree that spans over a decade when it comes to the fps genre. He is comparing apples and oranges between developers and games here. CS lacks the complexity in systems that Dust has with its equipment, SP, vehicles, corporations, eve link(lol), etc. Add to that the fact that plenty of console games maintain extreme player counts without mouse and keyboard controls.

As for your list of games to compare player base numbers. Each of those games has nothing in common with Dust. They are mmo's, and not shooters. They also each have a critical element that helps maintain their high player base... PVE. They are casual friendly.

In the end, this is just another mouse and keyboard pc overlord complaining because ccp didn't build the game for him. Nothing to see here.

Agreed. This is a massive oversimplification of the problems here tailored to his own individual (sorry... "soul') experience and bias. If they went to raw KBM tomorrow, you would not get some massive influx of competitive PC FPS players who have just been itching for this to happen. Same with the MMO crowd. You certainly could also alienate as many non-KBM players who would suddenly get super *****d off about getting killed by people pulling things the DS3 just wont let them do with pinpoint aiming, macros, etc.

(I'll stop you right there b4 the inevitable "They can use KBM too". Well, you can damn well use a DS3 too then can't you?)

PvE would have 10x the effect on player counts that improving KBM would.

Could it be that Chromosome was new... shiny... Eve players were excited (Well a few of them anyway). Why in the world would you connect the higher numbers of Chromosome with mouse and keyboard? Balance was better across the board. The new to veteran player gap was smaller. Every player wasn't sitting on a pile isk. Only the best players could continuously run Proto gear in pubs. Now everyone can Proto all day if they had a decent amount of salvage pre-uprising. I was very new when uprising hit and I went from 12 million isk to 83 million isk. The balance of the game was destroyed by massive isk influx, multiple SP respecs, and higher SP sinks. Add to that a playerbase (like me) that has become jaded.

Keyboard and mouse factors in there somewhere. But, it is an infinitesimally small thing compared to the balancing, polish, and content issues that plague Dust.

All i can say at this point is that the new EP stressed FPS fundamentals and 1.8 is the infantry patch. Furthermore CCP has stated explicitly that our current point in DUST's development is focused on improving CORE systems.

The only reference i can find where CCP explicitly addresses aiming for kb/m or DS3 is from CCP Remnant in the 'Advancing the Core' presentation, and there smooth aiming is referenced in the context of aim assist.


Does CCP really think that their unassisted DS3 aiming and their kb/m aiming is good enough?

Could it be that Chromosome was new... shiny... Eve players were excited (Well a few of them anyway). Why in the world would you connect the higher numbers of Chromosome with mouse and keyboard? Balance was better across the board. The new to veteran player gap was smaller. Every player wasn't sitting on a pile isk. Only the best players could continuously run Proto gear in pubs. Now everyone can Proto all day if they had a decent amount of salvage pre-uprising. I was very new when uprising hit and I went from 12 million isk to 83 million isk. The balance of the game was destroyed by massive isk influx, multiple SP respecs, and higher SP sinks. Add to that a playerbase (like me) that has become jaded.

Keyboard and mouse factors in there somewhere. But, it is an infinitesimally small thing compared to the balancing, polish, and content issues that plague Dust.

this happens a lot - you're comparing total player number to concurrent player numbers. EVE online does not have 500,000 concurrent players.

For Aion it sounds about right, but then that's per server, and they have many servers ,so total concurrent player base is much higher than that.

WoW concurrent player base is much longer than their total player base (8 million or so) - last time I saw it somewhere I think it was about a million, which is still impressive.

OP made nearly as horrible comparisons I was countering with more up to date number since the numbers the OP was yanking was from years ago.

Also server population cap on world of warcraft is 15k players. This includes their shared instance servers which as lead to some unpleasant experiences last year.

Many MMO player populations are kept hidden for reasons of business and there are people who do not bother enough with api hooks to get all the data to generate accurate numbers. If Peak Cocurrent weekly average is about 10% of the population (which after doing math its not a true statement by a long shot but its in the same ball park) then it should give you somewhat of an idea how populated some games are and not.

When are you going to realize it doesn't matter? All of those games have a much larger player base then dust does whether it be 8 million or 1 million it is still a hell of a lot more than 4,000.

Again, you make these statements as if it is going to change people's perspectives of the god damned game.

If you are trying to point out that the OP's numbers are over exaggerated, yeah they are. But his point is still valid and relevant.

THE GAMES PLAYER BASE IS DYING!