Green Monster Games (Curt Schilling)

[Mippo]

It isn't that hard to turn a profit in the industry simply based on the level of competition. A lot of games are still getting a few hundred thousand subscribers with fundamental flaws in the core game design. WoW does not have any quality competition. WoW's success has as much to do with what WoW did right as it does with what these other games are doing wrong.

While WoW probably won't be toppled anytime soon, there is a large market out there that does not like WoW and is waiting on another quality MMORPG to come out. A well designed game could probably at the very least pull a few million customers over 6-12 months. As long as that potential market exists it makes sense for people to continue producing games as somebody eventually has to get it right.

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Believe

To who? I guarantee any MMO developer isn't holding their breath trying to reach WoW numbers, or ever expect to.

WoW was/is a phenomenon, it's pretty ridiculous to consider anything that doesn't reach that level to be a failure.

Did you even bother reading past the part you cherry picked for contention? I wasn't even thinking about WoW's numbers.

Try reading things in thier entirety before you stick your foot in your mouth again.

[Lleauaric~EW]

I hope you get penis cancer Ut.

Actually.. you might be immune to that one.

[Zehn - Vhex]

Originally Posted by Mippo

While WoW probably won't be toppled anytime soon, there is a large market out there that does not like WoW and is waiting on another quality MMORPG to come out. A well designed game could probably at the very least pull a few million customers over 6-12 months. As long as that potential market exists it makes sense for people to continue producing games as somebody eventually has to get it right.

That's really the crux of it. VG/War/AoC/etc...showed that there is a significant population looking for something else. It's just so far all they've gotten is a shittier version of WoW with one or two colored stripes stapled to the design so that the developers could say, "See? Different!"

There doesn't appear to be much on the radar that will hit that goal though. Star Wars is looking like it's going to be a massive mulitplayer singler-player game with an actual end to it. Mortal Online will fail massively once people realize that reality sucks. Aion is going to be one of those "500,000 boxes sold!" followed by "Why do we only have 50,000 active subs...?" a month later as people realize it's more of the same games. Champions Online is just City of Heroes redone by idiots with updated graphics.

FFxiv might be interesting but we'll have to wait for more details. Depends on if they learned from FFxi or if they launch with the same mistakes.

[Agraza]

Right or wrong, Utnayan enjoys being in a position of universal loathing. You're giving him what he wants. And on the other hand many of you suck up to Ngruk an unhealthy amount. *golf clap for the lemmings*

Going to have to agree with Zehn. There is plenty of potential to take on WoW. Unfortunately every product out there has twice the flaws, an eerily similar premise, and lacks the critical mass to propel it upwards. The component these designers have the most control over, the flaws, they constantly overlook. The second thing they can control is critical mass at launch. They will have a fuckton of people playing when they go gold if they're even average, but if the game is full of flaws everyone will quit in droves and word of mouth won't be in their favor to double and triple the playerbase. Polish is paramount to first impressions.

Furthermore, Ngruk has stated more than once that he is actually aiming for WoW, which is a laudable goal. We should all hope he attains the success he seeks regardless of our beliefs since it will improve the genre.

[Drave]

Originally Posted by Seide

I like puzzles...

Fuck it, we've gone this far. I'm going to guess Ut is Chris Kluwe... or Greg Coleman.

[jayrebb]

After reading the last few pages of nerdrage, heres to hoping Brad gets hired. He deserves a job anyway.

cheers!

[Mippo]

I wouldn't admit to being a punter either~

[Azrayne]

Originally Posted by jayrebb

After reading the last few pages of nerdrage, heres to hoping Brad gets hired. He deserves a job anyway.

cheers!

I want them to hire Brad just so we can find out if nerdrage really can be fatal.

Do it for science Curt!

[Itzena]

Originally Posted by jayrebb

After reading the last few pages of nerdrage, heres to hoping Brad gets hired. He deserves a job anyway.

cheers!

Wait, I thought you were Brad?

[Northerner]

God, the years of Ut on ignore (a rather exclusive list for me: population of Makata, Fedor (occasional and depending on how much of a dick he's being in SS), Lunal and hrm, I think that's most really... I know regret ever doubting that decision.

Baseball boy is in a very enviable situation. He earned/has a big chunk of money and has retired pretty young. He's at the perfect age to leverage that into a hobby/passion/whatever and even if he fucks it all up, he's still fine. Lucky for us, his passion is MMOs and hell, it might just turn into something really damned special. I certainly know of a few million armchair quarterbacks (sorry Curt on the mixed metaphors) that would love to be in the same situation.

Who the hell knows how it will turn out though. Perhaps decades of steroids and oxy abuse will turn him into Brad 1.01 or perhaps he will sell his soul to EASports for their new MMO division (shit, there's something about that bothering me but I'll forge ahead!). Who knows.

Even after all these pages and posts, I'm still interested in seeing how it plays out. Then again, I was a long-term poster on Sigil's forums and well, yeah.

[Caliane]

Originally Posted by Believe

To who? I guarantee any MMO developer isn't holding their breath trying to reach WoW numbers, or ever expect to.

WoW was/is a phenomenon, it's pretty ridiculous to consider anything that doesn't reach that level to be a failure.

Very true.

I think its very important to point out competition is going WAY up as well though.
Mistakes, and weaker games in the past put up decent numbers. EQ with all its faults, lineage1 and 2, even UO and DaoC had some major issues really.

Recently games like WAR and Conan were both pretty well done games, but effectively failed because they weren't at the bar. They were missing components gamers are demanding in an mmo today. The bar has been raised. A game can aim and hit a niche market like Eve, though as well.

[Rayne]

Originally Posted by Caliane

Very true.

I think its very important to point out competition is going WAY up as well though.
Mistakes, and weaker games in the past put up decent numbers. EQ with all its faults, lineage1 and 2, even UO and DaoC had some major issues really.

Recently games like WAR and Conan were both pretty well done games, but effectively failed because they weren't at the bar. They were missing components gamers are demanding in an mmo today. The bar has been raised. A game can aim and hit a niche market like Eve, though as well.

We've been hearing this crock of shit for 4 years now.

"Numbers don't matter", or, "as long as it does well enough to sustain itself, it'll do fine" or, "it'll appeal to a niche market".....

Bullshit. Did you even bother to consider the astronomical costs associated with building some of the games you mentioned? WAR, Conan, Vanguard, and other high end games like them, won't likely ever see any considerale profit relative to thier development costs.

They failed BECAUSE they shot for the bar and missed. By a country fuckin' mile.

You think these guys will be any different? HELL NO! They're setting thier sights directly on that same exact bar. And if they don't at least come somewhat close, you'll be adding thier game to the list when we're talking about the same shit years from now about some other game.

[Blackulaa]

What is funny is that the money it takes to make MMOs doesn't have to necessarily be that high. It's one of the industries, like mine (music) where you can bs your salary to a range that if you actually took those skills to other industries your salary would DRASTICALLY drop.

Talent industries (entertainment, sports, politics are always the screwiest (word?) when it comes to finances.

The thing about these industries is that it's the only places you will get epic wins and epic failures.

MJ's Thriller vs Costner's Waterworld for example.

[Palum]

Originally Posted by Rayne

Bullshit. Did you even bother to consider the astronomical costs associated with building some of the games you mentioned? WAR, Conan, Vanguard, and other high end games like them, won't likely ever see any considerale profit relative to thier development costs.

They failed BECAUSE they shot for the bar and missed. By a country fuckin' mile.

I think you're over generalizing. Vanguard was a complete failure, yes. Between client problems, polish issues and generally unfinished content it was never going to be anything.

WAR, on the other hand, did not fail because they 'missed the bar'. WAR had a small number of crippling design decisions that killed it. For all the retarded UI responsiveness, stock PvE and repetitive BG grinding, it was fun and would have succeeded. It didn't because of, IMO, two very simple reasons. One was the destro bloat (entirely expected by everyone BUT mythic and no contingencies planned) and the second was simply the EXP grind required to get to the fun part of RvR, especially when no one else is on to RvR with.

AoC was also fun but suffered from some ridiculous bugs like female combat animation delays and the complete lack of content between 50-60.

None of those would have killed WoW, but there have been many MMOs that have been so very close to becoming a critical success and opening up the genre to more investors. The main issue is studios keep making games people don't want to play. WoW is a huge enabler to the gaming population because its a game made by people who want YOU to play it. Gone are the days where you can make really shitty game mechanics and annoy the everliving crap out of anyone trying to achieve anything in your game and retain subs. Can you imagine if a game got released with the downtime and obfuscated mechanics of EQ today? It would get ravaged and canceled faster than HGL.