Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Twobit Whore]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Has there ever been a game, after release, that you played at launch and quit, and then had a patch or update that made you WANT to go back and seriously play again?

If you mean a game that had a very poor launch and then claimed a magical patch fixed it all, "come back and see!".. then no. A poor launch usually turns me off of a game for good.

If you mean a game I enjoyed and just burned out on or had rl take over or anything like that then I would say WoW. I've quit for periods then come back for big updates (like the honor changes or raid content updates) and of course the expansion brought me back too.

[Lonin]

I "quit" and returned to the original Everquest several times in the 4 years I played, but not particularly because of any changes or content updates they made. It was more due to my own real life situations. Other than that, once I quit a game, it's extremely hard for me to go back. I've attempted it with pretty much every game I've tried, but none have held my longer than a month at most on my second go around. I do know people that have done this though, so I'm assume it's just down to the personality of the individual. Of course, the safest route is to not make people leave to begin with.

I do totally agree about the feeling of just wanting to play with friends and guildies these days though. Again, it probably depends on the person, but I know most of my guild feels the same way. There's about 10 of us still in regular contact with each other even though very few of us are actually playing anything together at the moment. Pretty much all of us agree that we'd play any game, beyond personal preference, as long as the rest of the guild did. To me, it's probably the most important factor in an MMO these days, whether or not my friends are playing. If they aren't, and the game is amazing, I still may play. However, any game that has a majority of my friends playing can pretty much guarantee my money.

As to the people writing Curt and 38 Studios off, you're late to the party. Pretty much all of that has been said and argued in the last 50 pages, I'd recommend reading them. Yes, Curt and 38 Studios are biting off a lot, maybe even more than they can chew. But to think that Curt is going into this thinking he'll just make an amazing game by sitting on his ass and using name recognition is doing him and his company a pretty big disservice. If the game does fail, or just isn't that popular, I sincerely doubt it will fail in the way that Vanguard did with total mismanagement. By now I think Curt has shown that whatever he is, it isn't Brad McQuaid.

[Gnome Eater]

Originally Posted by Lonin

By now I think Curt has shown that whatever he is, it isn't Brad McQuaid.

Excuse me, but what has he 'shown' from a MMORPG point of view?

As a European, I have gathered he is an incredible sport legend who is also valued for his integrity. Fantastic, sports need more of those people - but other than in an abstract way, those qualities don't transfer over to leading a gaming company making a supremly complex game. I am sure everyone has bs'd an essay or two about how 'talk about how this situation required you to use leadership to sort out a complex issue' but they are all abstract qualities.

I will wait until I hear the friends and family beta leaks, I will wait until I get in open beta, and I will follow what he makes with an open mind and intererest, but 'faith' in someone who has no experience in a genre just because he says intelligent things is misplaced.

The only thing you should trust is the proven trackrecord and so far I have nothing to go on.

[Flight]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Has there ever been a game, after release, that you played at launch and quit, and then had a patch or update that made you WANT to go back and seriously play again?

Anarchy Online. Fantastic game, which has improved and improved and added innovation after innovation, since its abysmal launch. Same people who are doing Age of Conan. In all my posts about organization and management of development, these guys are a step ahead of the rest and have learned a lot. But no, none of that has garnered the subscription numbers the game deserves and would get if more people tried it again.

Originally Posted by Ngruk

I mention this because I have always believed you really only have one shot to corral that initial huge launch audience. Or grab a significant and vocal group that expands your customer base themselves.

This is the core of your post. The short history of MMOs seems to teach us that you can never come back form a poor launch. However, it is a short history.


I think there is more to it than that and I think there is more to learn in the future. Various MMOs haven't just failed because of short comings at launch - they've failed because their foundation and core game is not fun. I'd suggest three parts to this :

i) the first 30 minutes experience.

ii) the graphical style - this won't be a popular opinion on these forums, but 'realistic' graphics is not going to create a billion dollar IP. Either go cartoony a la WoW or let Todd go nuts and go all the way with him.

iii) hooks - it should be a mantra for game creators. Forget a mission statement, fill your game with fun hooks. The loot system, character creation and development, the quest system, your solo play options, your group play options, your raid system. Its got to be immediately accessible, its all got to be fun and its got to make people want to keep doing it.

ITS NOT ENOUGH TO DO WHACKAMOLE WITH XP.

Originally Posted by Ngruk

That, and I also feel as if we truly are entering a period of time that sees players playing a game more for the fact that it's where their guild or friends 'hang out' every bit as much as it being a good game. True? False? Sort of?

Disagree - sort of. Its human nature to make assumptions based on our beliefs and experiences and those of the people around us. Don't underestimate how many people want to play solo; further, don't underestimate how many people run one or more accounts. Make a control decision on whether you are going to support people multi-boxing in your game and plan for it. For a start, thats as simple as enabling or disabling /follow, /assist and target forwarding and designing repeatable small party instances.

I would be surprised if a bare minimum of 30% of WoW accounts are not people running multiple subscriptions. And thats in a game which is not designed with multi-boxing in mind.

[Ukerric]

Originally Posted by Ngruk

Has there ever been a game, after release, that you played at launch and quit, and then had a patch or update that made you WANT to go back and seriously play again?

I've come back to MMO, but the only one that made me come back due to patch was DAoC. I had quit, and I came back for the first expansion.

Unfortunately, I quit again (and never came back) after 3 months.

I did come back to EQ, and Asheron's Call, but that was chiefly due to social factors; people playing again. For EQ, my last come-back was when they launched euro servers, so one could argue that it was a feature that made me come back - but honestly, it was chiefly because my friends were starting again on a localised server, rather than the server itself.

I do intend to come back to WoW for the expansion - because they missed the ball with their high-end game redesign in Burning Crusade, and it stopped being fun far too early. I do have hopes for the next expansion, so we'll see.

It's not rocket science and I am not trying to overthink but as I look around the MMO space I can't think of a game that didn't do well at launch, and then grew at some point later to become a popular MMO.

True. You botch your launch, you're doomed to obscurity everafter.

That, and I also feel as if we truly are entering a period of time that sees players playing a game more for the fact that it's where their guild or friends 'hang out' every bit as much as it being a good game. True? False? Sort of?

See above. I'm "slightly" older than the average player (closer to 50 than 40), and the game I play owe more to the people in my guild than the game itself.

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by Lonin

Blah Blah Blah

You're forgetting of course that they have Blackguard, and that changes everything.

Anyway, they havn't been hyping anything up at all. We don't even know the name of the game. What they HAVE been hyping, and I wouldn't even call it that, so let me rephrase. What Curt has been excited about is the people he has hired. First he has a great writer in Salvatore. Second he has a great artist in Todd. Third Curt has his own experience. He knows what sucks, at least to him, so you have an enthusiast making games. Hopefully what he thinks is fun, is fun for a lot of other people.

Hopefully the talent he's hired, and his motivation are enough to see this game succeed.

This is just my guess. As far as establishing IPs, releasing other games is not the only way of establishing an IP. Can anyone here tell me another form of media that establishes setting and content.

Come one now, think long and hard.

[Draegan]

Originally Posted by Flight

iii) hooks - it should be a mantra for game creators. Forget a mission statement, fill your game with fun hooks. The loot system, character creation and development, the quest system, your solo play options, your group play options, your raid system. Its got to be immediately accessible, its all got to be fun and its got to make people want to keep doing it.

First your posts are hard to edit to quote properly, you hit enter way, way to many times! Stop!

I'd like to add that assuming good art, animations, gameplay, setting etc, all those mechanics, lets say they're good, you need that "something" that makes a player want to get that next level, spend just 2 more hours before bed to get that last bit so he can get his new ability or wield a new weapon.

Another question to ask in a small regards to the previous statement is, do you go the WOW route or WAR route to ability ranks. WAR your abilities gain in power as you level automatically, each level. You train the ability once and you're done. WOW, as everyone should know, you buy new ranks every X levels.

Which is better? Does it matter? I always liked how in WOW once I hit a certain level I see a good jump in damage, which always motivated me to play more to get that next level.

[Blitzspear]

Originally Posted by Draegan

This is just my guess. As far as establishing IPs, releasing other games is not the only way of establishing an IP. Can anyone here tell me another form of media that establishes setting and content.

Come one now, think long and hard.

I always enjoy reading your posts Draegan.

I’ll take a guess that you mean by comic and book format, since McFarlane was doing that with the shelved UO2 anyway, and Salvatore has already written books based on established MMO’s. Both comic, and fantasy novels, appeal in varying degrees to the 16-24 male market that are the bulk of MMO gamers. The buzz they generate at comic, fantasy conventions by name placement alone would be very easy to capitalize on with further online content updates and forum interaction.

Sales for both products wouldn’t be high, average Salvatore book sales aren’t what they used to be, and the average comic is even less. But that wouldn’t be the point, the brand entering a healthy spread of the public domain would be.

Saying that, this is the reason I don’t think the game (which is so far away that even commenting on its future is ridiculous) will ever attract anything more than a respectable subscription base.

This has probably already been said, sorry for repeating. But from a marketing perspective, you’re hitting the demographic World of Warcraft has already got in the palm of their hands. Salvatore, and McFarlane’s work is very much a domain that offers nothing Warcraft doesn’t already have in spades. Frankly, no matter how good the game is, or how much “cool” it has, you’ll only attract the jaded and those prone to flip-flop from game to game.

Warcraft even has a healthy grasp on the female section of online gamers, granted not as much as some of the other online games. But really, the only way to attract a higher percentage of female gamers would be to prioritise the game dynamic as a cosmetic simulation with a secondary priority on social interaction.

Blizzard must jump for joy every time a new western MMO is on the horizon; it only boosts their numbers from the campaign blitz. Anyway, if that wasn’t what you mean... then I don’t know.

With Warhammer, and Warcraft, both ability systems are far too similar to even matter in the grand scheme of things to make a difference. To something you said on another forum, Public Quests are cool, but they are flawed because they require more than one person on quite a few of the stages which have no time limit. Without a limit on time, you can be stuck without being able to get any faction until server reset, or if you get lucky and happen to find someone near your levelling range that’ll group up and help out. After Warcraft, quite a few people are only interested in solo’ing while levelling up. PQ’s work quite well while the levelling rush is ongoing, but fails miserably when only a handful of people are near your levelling range and spread out all across the world.

[Fog]

Do you guys really think that having an established IP makes a big difference? It seems to me that there is a huge amount of word of mouth in the MMO community, and the better games rise to the top. There are certainly a zillion "big IP" games that enjoyed fairly little success due to being mediocre games on some level, like LOTRO and SWG.

[Cadrid]

The problem with using an established IP is how critical fans will be with every little change to the world you make. It can make things incredibly difficult for designers because they aren't allowed to innovate or expand upon the brand as much as they would like to. With a new IP, however, you're working with a clean slate and, given proper leadership and talent, working with more possibility for creativity.

[Maxxius]

By "establishing an IP" I would define it as producing other things besides the MMO, such as consol/pc games. Doing so is cheaper, quicker, there is always a market for them, you can actually make millions off them and *gasp* help meet payroll, and you begin to create an interest.

Of course you run the risk that people will just yawn, and in which case your MMO is already in trouble before launch.

But in the end, when all is said and done, the game mechanics will be the deciding factor. And tho while some of you are already predicting doom, despite the fact that as far as we know nothing of substance even exists, all we can do at this point is wait and hope for some tidbits from Curt to keep our interest going.

[Maxxius]

Originally Posted by Blitzspear

. . .
Saying that, this is the reason I don’t think the game (which is so far away that even commenting on its future is ridiculous) will ever attract anything more than a respectable subscription base. . .

You acknowledge how ridiculous it would be, yet you still say it. Based on what we know, it is absolutely silly to even make the assertion. Yet you still do it.

EQ thought that it would always remain "king of the hill" at one point too. They (I forget exactly who) even posted saying how people kept claiming how game "so and so" would be the EQ-killer, yet despite launches of new games, EQ subscriptions did not decline dramatically. Until WOW.

WOW might feel the same way now too. And what will kill WOW in the end I submit, is boredom due to their snail's pace at releasing substantial new content. And the lesson Curt I hope is learning is to make sure his product can be expanded easily (like having the ability to readily generate a ton of pvp map variants if they use a battleground system like WOW).

[Rayne]

I'd be all for seeing a new IP in the gamespace, but I don't think i'll be overly excited if its based on the same old fantasy stuff. I'm pretty tired of orcs, elves, and dwarves.

I won't say a fresh IP wouldn't make it in the genre. I just don't have a lot of faith in "a new way" of doing orcs, elves, and dwarves bringing in anything fresh.

[Cadrid]

Originally Posted by Maxxius

By "establishing an IP" I would define it as producing other things besides the MMO, such as consol/pc games.

For better or worse, 38 Studios has decided to delve straight into the MMO market, with other game genres relegated to their peripheral vision (no pun intended). I recall Curt (or maybe it was Brett) commenting on how they would offer a prelude to their MMO in the form of novels/comics to help introduce people to the New World, then continue to utilize a wide range of mediums for people to experience their game in.

[Lonin]

Aye, I think a novel series and/or a comic book series prior to the game release is almost a foregone conclusion at this point. I'd also speculate that a movie is also on the blueprint, although maybe very far in the future. I believe Curt has commented that they want their IP to be in all forms of popular media.

Originally Posted by Draegan

You're forgetting of course that they have Blackguard, and that changes everything.

I try and forget about Blackguard, else any hope I have for the game will immediately be extinguished.