Gallenite and SOE

[Braen]

Originally Posted by Jysin-DW

All of that cash yet, 3 years and 1 expansion...

LOL.

Yeah it's funny... Although with 9.3+ million subscribers. It works. There are other games that release expansions every year or 6 months, yet they can't even break 500,000 let alone a million.

[Draegan]

Apparently expansions do not determine the success of your game. How many copies of SC did they sell?

[Twobit Whore]

Yeah, I don't understand the fascination with expansion after expansion. Maybe people are just so used to the EQ model. Personally I always felt that they released way too many.

[Gecko]

Originally Posted by Andric d'Regor

dont see how you make out that its being spent on keeping the game updated. Its being spent on server centers/bandwidth mainly and a tiny fraction on dev.

Most of that money is being routed into other Blizzard projects, as well as to WOW expansions and updates.

If you think they are spending anywhere near 100 million, let alone 500 million on their data center, you're crazy. Heck, they even go the cheap on their patching using Bittorrent.

I'd bet they spend 10 times on their devs/talent that they do on their data center just for WOW. It isn't that expensive to run a server farm, and it's not like they need a ton of different hardware.

[Man0warr]

Generally you have to, or you run out of content and people get bored. EQ, etc. didn't do alot of free (any?) content updates like Blizzard does. Blackwing Lair, AQ, ZG, Naxxramas, Zul'Aman, Black Temple. One could argue these should of been in the original game/TBC but still, if Blizzard releases a new zone every 3-6 months people will be happy.

[Lenardo]

i agree there about expansions, i feel the Best expansion to time ratio for the average player is about 1 a year.

2 a year and you get rushed crappy products and/OR- in the case of EQ2- you can get too big too fast(which i feel is what happened for eq2)

wow is supposed to be on a 1 a year schedule- but when you consider that BC came out in 2007. if it comes out- which it will- in 2008, they can still claim that figure.

[RunningDog]

Originally Posted by Twobit Whore

Yeah, I don't understand the fascination with expansion after expansion. Maybe people are just so used to the EQ model. Personally I always felt that they released way too many.

Expansions are the way to get your product back on the shelves and to get lapsed subscribers back into the fold. They are of more benefit for the company and retailers rather than the player. From that perspective, with 9.3 million subs, there's no pressing need for an expansion.

[Draegan]

I still see WOW and TBC boxes sitting next to each other in places like Target and Walmart.

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Apparently expansions do not determine the success of your game. How many copies of SC did they sell?

Hell, I bought a copy of StarCraft as recent as a couple months ago because I lost my old CDs a while back. Granted RTS games with map editors are a slightly different beast because expansions aren't really needed for fresh content, but as Blizzard has proven with TBC, you don't have to release an expansion in a short time frame if you provide enough content per-expansion.

[Gecko]

Originally Posted by RunningDog

Expansions are the way to get your product back on the shelves and to get lapsed subscribers back into the fold. They are of more benefit for the company and retailers rather than the player. From that perspective, with 9.3 million subs, there's no pressing need for an expansion.

Frequent expansions are a way to milk your paying customers out of a lot of content they should be getting for free. It's a big reason EQ2 has been crushed by WOW. As WOW was releasing a ton of free content and updating zones and their game, SOE was nickel and diming their customers with adventure packs, and an expansion pack right after release.

Unfortunately, the added effect of these rushed pay to play content is they were shoddy and built just to add content, without asking the two simple questions that needed to be, is this content needed and is our older content polished and good enough for our paying customers. The answer to both was no.

It's a good lesson for any MMO producer, and one SOE still refuses to learn in their rush to roll out expansions every year, which itself wouldn't be bad if the game was polished and good, but it is not.

[Braen]

Originally Posted by Gecko

Frequent expansions are a way to milk your paying customers out of a lot of content they should be getting for free. It's a big reason EQ2 has been crushed by WOW. As WOW was releasing a ton of free content and updating zones and their game, SOE was nickel and diming their customers with adventure packs, and an expansion pack right after release.

Unfortunately, the added effect of these rushed pay to play content is they were shoddy and built just to add content, without asking the two simple questions that needed to be, is this content needed and is our older content polished and good enough for our paying customers. The answer to both was no.

It's a good lesson for any MMO producer, and one SOE still refuses to learn in their rush to roll out expansions every year, which itself wouldn't be bad if the game was polished and good, but it is not.

Hold on there. There has been tons of free content added with 40 Live Updates in EQ2 and only THREE paid Adventure packs and they said they are moving away from adventure packs. You may have a point with the quality of some of the updates, but not that EQ2/SoE never offered free content.

Just recently, Unrest, Neriak and the Shard of Fear were added for free through Live Updates.

[Kodylan]

Originally Posted by Braen

Just recently, Unrest, Neriak and the Shard of Fear were added for free through Live Updates.

I'm not sure Unrest can be considered "free" content. It was supposed to be in with EoF but they didn't have time, so they finished it afterwards and patched it in. It'd be the same thing as calling Black Temple or Battle for Mount Hyjal free content when they're not -- they're integral pieces to the Burning Crusade expansion pack. Sunwell Plateau would probably be the closest thing to "free" content Blizzard has ever released, as that I know of it wasn't planned to be part of anything from the get-go.

[Plorkyeran]

Originally Posted by Draegan

Apparently expansions do not determine the success of your game. How many copies of SC did they sell?

About 10 million as of 2006 according to Wikipedia, which puts thier total revenue for SC well under their 2007 profit from WoW.

[Slick Willey]

Originally Posted by Gecko

Frequent expansions are a way to milk your paying customers out of a lot of content they should be getting for free. It's a big reason EQ2 has been crushed by WOW.

You don't honestly believe that EQ2 charging for expansion and adventure packs often is a "big reason EQ2 has been crushed by WoW" do you? I've heard things like crappy character models, stupid game mechanics (e.g., locked encounters), bad performance, etc., but I have NEVER heard anyone suggest "Dammit, its all this nickel-and-dimeing Sony is doing with content that is ruining the game and making WoW such a better option!" Thats absurd.

[The Bog]

Fact: Scott Hartsman was fired for a bad review of Kane and Lynch.