What I'd do if I were in Brad McQuaid's shoes

[Tuco]

console gamers are just as hardcore if not more hardcore than PC gamers, and there are a shit ton more of "them" than there are "us".

They've got no mice! How can you play without a mouse!

Braen, King of All Vanguard Info? Where are you? Or is it King of All Positive Vanguard Info only?

Foff, Braen contributes, which is more than can be said for you.

[Braen]

Originally posted by PatrickStar
Casual Gamers = $
Hardcore = Reputation

$ buys you lobster and a 5 bedroom house on the hills.
Reputation buys you ramen noodles and a studio apartment.

I cannot see how Vanguard can be geared for the hardcore yet retain enough subsribers to maximize income. If they somehow pull that off, Brad is the second coming. I am silently praying he succeeds.

I really don't know if this means anything.. But I will bring up the AC2 example again.

According to the MMOchart thing, they have less than 20,000 active subscribers but they just released an expansion...

Does this mean they are profitable enough to justify development of a expansion?

[Tuco]

You'd have to look at their costs before you can say whether 20,000 is enough. Smaller companies need fewer customers to be profitable.

[Braen]

Originally posted by Tuco
You'd have to look at their costs before you can say whether 20,000 is enough. Smaller companies need fewer customers to be profitable.

I don't know how small Turbine is anymore since they are making AC 1 & 2, DDO and LotR Online. Development costs for 4 MMOs has to be kinda expensive.

Maybe they are hoping to make more of a profit with the new games putting out that their old "babies" can keep growing.

[Skars]

Oh jesus tapdancing christ, VANGUARD IS NOT GOING FOR THE HARDCORE GAMER. Read my lips

NOT GOING

FOR THE

HARDCORE GAMER

Brad McQuaid (you know the CEO of Sigil)
says :

in response to this

Originally Posted by jonaku

Sigil doesn't need to scrap anything. They just need to dial things down from "powergaming hard" to "casualist fun". (ie what the WoW devs did during beta)

Ok guys read this, this is what Brad said

Or support both, but shoot primarily for the middle ground, which it seems like you don't want to acknowledge exists.

Also, my hope for 250-500k that I posted elsewhere was refering to the domestic market only.

Accusing Vanguard of being for power gamers only is inaccurate, period, no matter how many times you post to the contrary.

Like I hate to shoot down all this VANGUARD IS GOING TO INVOLVE TWENTY WEEKS PER LEVEL HARDCORE hate that is going on, but that is from the horses mouth. It's not going for the hardcore poopsocker and it's not going for the 2 hrs a month casual either.

[Vagoo]

Console gamers are passionate, but not necessarily hardcore in terms of playing huge amounts of hours. Some do of course, but there are a huge amount of console gamers that just like to be able to throw in a game for 30-45 minutes of diversion.

Kind of like there are a huge amount of people who just play PC games (hi WoW) for 45 minute to 1 hour bursts. Further, there are just as many console gamers who play for 3-6+ hour bursts. I personally sit down to play ps2 and sometimes find 2 hours have passed when I thought it was 30 minutes.

According to this article:

According to leading marketing information provider, The NPD Group, retail sales of U.S. video games, which includes portable and console hardware, software and accessories, remained largely unchanged over the previous year’s record-breaking performance. The console industry saw sales figures fall 2.7 percent to $10 billion in 2003 compared to $10.3 billion in 2002.

The PC game software industry showed signs of slowing down, with revenues from retail sales down 14 percent, topping $1.2 billion in sales in 2003 versus $1.4 billion in 2002.

It is every PC game companys wet dream to have their game be a hit on the consoles since there are 10x as many consoles as their are PC gamers.

Don't discount consoles - they are the past, present and future of mainstream gaming.

[Neric]

Ok, theory says that a company has to seek maximum profit. That's the main goal behind all of this. So in order to make profit they try to attract a huge playerbase. The bigger the better.

The outcome of such a strategy can be seen with EQ and SWG. EQ got modified to suit the taste of a huge playerbase that it has nothing to do with original game anymore, while SWG already got developed with that goal.

Does anyone here like to play EQ or SWG? Most of us have quit these games. Actually that's what it is all about after all. We don't want to play games like these, that's why we put so much hope in Vanguard.

In my opinion you can't make everyone happy. The more you try the more your game will lose it's individuality and become pale and boring.

The trick is to design something unique maybe away from the mainstream and draw people because they like the idea. If the game is good then the word will spread and people will give it a try. That way you can build up a loyal customer base because you only have to deal with people who knew what to expect and who chose to play your game exactly because of that.

So far every game on the market has more or less decent graphics and gameplay that centers around hack&slash, grind and content that lasts for 3 months at best. If you don't want to be one of many, then how do you improve?

[Drajakur]

Many people are missing the fact that the aim of these games is total long-term revenue - something that does not directly correlate with number of subscribers. While a game catering to the hardcore may have fewer total subscribers, these subscribers will be staying around longer, buying expansions, paying more monthly fees, opting for 'platinum' status, x-fering characters, reactivating characters after long breaks, etc.

What Vanguard needs to do to be succesful is create a hardcore environment which doesn't alienate new possibly-future-hardcore gamers. In doing so, it will be able to generate enough revenue without having to worry about stealing the casual players away from WoW, CoH, etc.

D

[Mkopec1]

Originally posted by Drajakur
What Vanguard needs to do to be succesful is create a hardcore environment which doesn't alienate new possibly-future-hardcore gamers.

I agree with this and you can just look at EQ now and see that for a noob coming in, the task before him to join the elete is daunting. Not only does he have to struggle through content tailored for a group, usually solo, but he also has to put in hundreds of hours of work to get there.

I bet EQ would be more sucessful if noobs had an easyser time acessing the elete content which the veterans are doing with their characters that they had for 4-6 years.

Why not increase exp in the low level zones? Would it hurt the game in the long run? I tink it would help an old game like EQ.

[Vagoo]

Push everyone up to max level and you expose the fact that only the minority of people can commit to doing end game content, either raids or multi-hour single group instances. If the people you just pushed to max level do not want to do those things, you pray that they dont mind endless alts, else you just lost a player.

This is similar to what happened in WoW. Get to 60 real quick and find there is nothing there.

[Skars]

Did nobody read my post? Vanguard isn't going for the HARDCORE gamer. They've identified their market (the "core" gamer) and they're making the game for them. It will have things for the more casual soloist as well as the more hardcore raider types.

In regards to this EQ hardcore thing this is what I wrote on the VG boards

I honestly think Sony should just implement a /level from 1-60. Let's face it there is absolutely no game beneath it, and it doesn't help at all to force any new or returning players without accounts to do it all again.
You aren't going to get anywhere near enough newbies to keep the lower game going, and EQ is basically worrying retention atm, not new players, so why not encourage people to return with a level 60 character instead of having to level up? Shrug. I'm normally against this sort of thing but really there's no harm in EQ.

Basically if I could type /level 60 and start, I'd definately be more inclined to come back and join the game where the actual content is being made and the players are active.

[Neric]

That's a conflict of interests. The hardcore gamer wants the gap to be huge, the n00b wants the gap to be small.

The real point of EQ was that at level 50 and with full plane equipment you had accomplished something that gave you an edge on every newcomer for quite a while.

Then with Kunark all of a sudden a n00b that got freshly powerlevelled to 50 by friends in 5 days played could draw equal by getting Kunark armor at the exact same speed that you did. This was a huge problem for the old hardcore players because their advantage was gone and with that the respect.

Velious meant good times for hardcore players because n00bs couldn't get past Sontalak. That reinstalled the advantage of the hardcore player that they all hoped for.

Luclin AA points deflated it again and from that on the game saw a steady downfall. Not only the hardcore players left, the n00bs lost interest also.

Looking at this, I am not so sure if the game should be made so n00b friendly.

[Vagoo]

Velious meant good times for hardcore players because n00bs couldn't get past Sontalak. That reinstalled the advantage of the hardcore player that they all hoped for.

Minor point of contention: people on CoV faction could walk right by sontalak and raid HoT all day for armor that was, for some classes, better than WToV or even NToV.

Saying they couldnt get past Aaryonar would be better imo.

[Tuco]

Minor point of contention: people on CoV faction could walk right by sontalak and raid HoT all day for armor that was, for some classes, better than WToV or even NToV.

Not only that, but KOS players(me) could get past Sontalak with a little bit of difficulty. I can't remember if I could run right passed him, but I know I could get passed him without help.

[Vagoo]

heh yeah. with sow/soe, you could pull him out into the valley, circle around, and zone in to tov. good times.