MMOG Subscription Analysis Provides New Insights 309
Thanks to jer0 for pointing to SirBruce's updated MMOG Subscription Growth analysis page, which tries to "chart the trend in active subscriptions" for major MMO titles using public and private data. This "major revision" has the "chart separated into three tiers" dependent on subscription size, and shows Lineage as the worldwide MMO leader at "just under 2.7 million" (though this may be reliant on bulk 'PC Baang' subscriptions in countries such as South Korea, and the game has "only 7,000 [subscribers] in the United States.") Other notable entries include City Of Heroes ("surpassed 180,000 subscribers... proof that a well-executed MMOG can still garner substantial numbers even in the current competitive climate"), and the also recently launched, but less successful Horizons ("After peaking at around 35,000 subscribers, they have since fallen to somewhere between 20,000 and 25,000 subscribers.")
Horizons? Huh? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
There were no equipment drops as far as I was aware. Only items that could be used by crafters to create equipment.
The combat was extremely boring and had little to keep anyone interested.
The only interesting things was the extensive crafting system but it wasn't enough to keep this game from dying a slow death.
Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:4, Insightful)
monsters, I go hunting for spiders in my apartment, or track down
the bear that killed a local farmer's sheep.
Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:3, Funny)
Will you marry me?
Re: (Score:3, Informative)
AE Employee here (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:AE Employee here (Score:4, Interesting)
If you are referring to the actual "ATI Radeon" card, you're nuts to even try gaming on it -- too old/slow. I am aware that ATI users had more video related issues than NVidia users for Horizons. I can't say exactly why that is. I can say that there were many who used ATI video cards with absolutely no problem, including myself.
* Was it actually possible to unlock the new races from launch, or was the game shipped before the races were even in the game?
Yes, I believe it was. They had at least some of the Satyr and other race content in when it shipped. It was always a switch that AE had to throw though -- there was no ability for the gamers to initiate the unlock without action taken by AE on the server side.
* Do you think they'll pull out of chapter 11 and turn a profit?
Sorry, won't answer that question right now.
* Have the show-stopping bugs been fixed? (ati issues, gui issues, etc)
Yes. You have to remember the perspective of the publisher. Just because you as an individual have a show-stopping problem doesn't mean that everyone else does too. The client really was in pretty good shape when the game shipped. The real quantity of show-stopping support requests that we got was pretty low, and the majority of them I would categorize under "customer on crack" rather than an actual bug. The quantity of people who try to play graphic intensive games using a Pentium 200 and S3 Savage 4 video card no longer amazes me.
Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Horizons? Huh? (Score:5, Informative)
Since a corporate takeover from the inside [gamemethod.com] by David Bowman (of Asheron's Call fame, who was fired for "agressive ladder-climbing"), the game underwent an extreme redesign, and hasn't been the same since.
It made its retail debut around December of this year, still very much in beta, for which it received sound derision. The bugs were incredible. The game was a flop
Artifact Entertainment filed for bankruptcy a few months ago, and last month handed pink slips to half its developer staff. This seemed aimed at making the game a viable target for a buyout, but nothing has happened as yet.
David Bowman ran AE and Horizons into the ground. All in all, I wouldn't play an online game with no future. Subscription numbers are dropping steadily every month. Horizons is on its deathbed, waiting to die.
I was in the Beta (Score:2)
I am playing the game - even as I write this (Score:5, Informative)
First off, let's deal with the "corporate takeover from the inside." There are two camps in regards to this. There are the Allen camp and the anti-Allen camp. David Allen was the CEO of Artifact Entertainment before the "takeover," and provided most of the early days ideas, concepts and designs.
The Allen camp claims it was a vicious, ruthless takeover, taking Allen's baby away from him and then ruining it.
The anti-Allen camp claims that Allen was fired due to incompetence and inability to make all his nice ideas into something real, and then the remaining staff created a game as best as they could with the funds and time left at their disposal.
Thing is - WE DON'T KNOW. We can never know either. All we have are Mr. Allen's biased articles and interviews and AE's official (and thus, naturally, biased) comments. In the end, this becomes a non-issue, since it's the game itself that is important, and not who made it and who not made it.
Also, AE did not file bankruptcy, they filed bankruptcy -protection-. The difference is huge, and the story is long. Details can be had www.istaria.com, for instance.
Alright, now for the game itself.
Horizons of today is a completely different game than Horizons of pre-launch, or even at launch. I'm not going to say much, in order to not come off as biased, but I will bring up a few of my personal likes.
Variety and freedom: Character development in Horizons is very flexible. You can decide to do anything at any moment. You can build complex characters with multiclassing, leveraging individual strengths of the different classes. For instance you can train up a warrior based class for the melee capability, and then switch over to a mage based class to get some magic support, then to a cleric based one to enhance your survivability. Since you can join any and all schools available in the game, you can do a lot of things. (Exception is dragons, more on that later.) Tired of killing things? Go join any of the crafting classes and start building weapons, armor, houses, food...
Construction: Unlike many games where you buy a premade house to put your things in, in Horizons you buy a Plot. The plot has a set size and any of three zonings which determine what structures can be put on the plot. (RCI - Sim City players will be familiar with those.) When you've placed a building on your plot only the basic scaffolding is actually placed. You then have to build it yourself. Putting in that final stone block on a building and seeing it complete is very gratifying.
Crafting vs fighting: While Horizons is very crafting centric, it's hardly a must. I know several players who have opted to ignore crafting in favour of more adventuring, and they are doing well. Likewise, if you don't like fighting you don't have to do that either - as long as you can outrun the occasional monster wandering around dangerous resource places.
Dragons: To my knowledge, Horizons is the only current MMORPG that allows players to play as dragons. Playing as a dragon is a -very- different experience to any other race.
Community: Due to how Horizons plays, it tends to attract social people, or "team players." In no other game have I met a community so helpful, kind and cooperative as in Horizons.
In the end, Horizons is not for everyone. It is a niche game, and everyone knows it. Chances are it might be for you. In fact, you know what? Don't listen to me. Don't listen to what anyone else says about this game either. Go download the trial and play the game to get your own perception. It won't cost you more than your time and some bandwidth. If you don't like it, fine, leave it. If you like it, a winner is you! I will give you one advice, however. Don't be afraid to join the community. Ask for help, trade, just plain chat. The communication inte
I *LOVE* Horizons! (Score:5, Interesting)
Horizons is hands down my favorite of all of those. I foresee myself playing this game for years to come.
The game has a much more mature player base than any other I have seen, a complete lack of d00ds/griefers (the lack of a PvP element probably is a part of this). The game certainly is less attractive to power-levelers who do become bored with it rapidly. The game is also the most "solo friendly" of anything I've played since AC1. I have always hated forced-grouping games, and Horizons gives you both the ability to participate in a community, as well as a chance to be self-reliant if you choose.
For me the attraction is the very immersive world. The world itself is a beautiful one, the player models from Dragon to Dryad are great, the crafting system is first-class, and the multi-schooling system is much more enjoyable and intriguing for me than rigid class systems like EQ/DAoC had. I love the *process* of playing Horizons, and just interacting with the world. If you are a goal-oriented person in a race to level 100, then yes this game may not be for you.
There ARE issues with the game at this time, and they ARE making some major improvements, which I expect to really transform the game over the next 6-12 months. For a game like Horizons, I am willing to give this game the time it needs to fully mature. I currently play mainly on the Blight test server and there are a LOT of changes coming in the very near future.
Visit Tazoon.com [tazoon.com] to see a greater amount of positive feedback from CURRENT players who really love this game, and learn WHY they like it. It has a loyal diehard fanbase that I have not experienced since my three years with AC1.
But most of all, try the 7-day free trial and make up your own mind about this game.
Runescape numbers inflation? (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Runescape numbers inflation? (Score:3, Funny)
Note: figure completely made up.
Re:Runescape numbers inflation? (Score:2)
If it was "all active accounts", the February 2002 data point would be around 150,000 players. If it was all accounts ever created, the February 2002 point would be around a million.
Re:Runescape numbers inflation? (Score:3, Interesting)
It's gotta be the most popular MMOG out there.
Re:Runescape numbers inflation? (Score:3, Informative)
Someone earlier was saying the assumption is 1/5 (20%) of your subscriber base online at anyone time - that's like 2.5 hours everyday. If that is realistic, then you're only talking 50K. Really, considering his methodology, being off by 2X is not that ba
Call me lame (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm wondering how they will incorporate bullettime into the online/realtime arena.
I'm afraid it will suck though, but if it's cool, that will be the first online game I will pay a subscription for.
For me the other online MMOPROPRFPRFRPGR's are too boring in the long run.
Re:Call me lame (Score:5, Funny)
So be it. Your LAME!
Nothing can turn me off a game faster then seeing a bunch of dweebs with names like n30, The0n3 and teh1 running around chanting "whoa, dude!" over and over.
Re:Call me lame (Score:5, Funny)
You can tell Keanu has gotten older, because in The Matrix the line is only "Whoa."
And *presto* bullettime (Score:5, Funny)
This unique feature gives real strategic depth to an FPS game, because you can think a minute for every move.
And it will contain a programmable backdoor so that you feel how it is to be in the Matrix when it is hacked.
Re:Call me lame (Score:2)
No Piracy Concerns (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:No Piracy Concerns (Score:2)
I've played Ragnarok online for a little while on a hacked server, so I leeched the game and played it for free.
The server's gone now, but I lost interest before it disappeared.
Re:No Piracy Concerns (Score:4, Insightful)
Online games require similar development as traditional games, thus the initial cost of the game (and distributors and stores want their cut, etc). You generally get a discount on future products that link to the game (expansions) if you already own the original. Although you can download games, it takes a LONG time even over cable modems, and many people actually like to have a disk and the associated packaging.
But they also require other things, and these are what your $13/mo subscription pays for:
Some big disadvantages of online gaming
Lineage language (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Lineage language (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:Lineage language (Score:3, Interesting)
AFAIK, it's based on the systrans translation engine...
(that was about... 3 or more years ago... now should be even better)
Don't know anyone that plays Lineage... (Score:4, Insightful)
Or is it one of those things that "it's world famous in Korea...and Korea is the center of the universe" kind of thing? I know, Korea has more people online per capita than the US, but still, do they have to subjected to such a sucky game? Someone move a EQ server into Korea or something. Those poor poor people!
This shows that being the most popular certainly doesn't mean the best!
Re:Don't know anyone that plays Lineage... (Score:2)
Re:Don't know anyone that plays Lineage... (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Don't know anyone that plays Lineage... (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Don't know anyone that plays Lineage... (Score:5, Informative)
It's been going on longer than that. Korea and Japan have been invading each other about as often as England and France have.
Clan Lord? (Score:2)
I played that once a long time ago. Very cool.
The funny thing is... (Score:3, Interesting)
Yes, I feel that in 10 years we will see a sharp decline of subscribers from ALL MMOGs due to OD'ing or parents kicking their 30 year old kids out of the house and force them to get jobs.
Seriously, though, I don't get it from the players perspective. You pay $30-$50 a shot to BUY the game and the first month. Then you pay $10 a month to play. You, then, PAY (?!?!?) for major updates to the system (cleverly named 'expansions')???
What does that $10 go to? Just playing on the servers?
The other sad thing is that the games aren't fun to a casual gamer. You have to be a teenager or college kid without any outside distractions to do well in these games. Once you are good enough, its your duty to be an ass to all casual gamers so they eventually quit and never play again.
What MMOG really need is a 'death' time. You 'age' in the game, and once you hit like 60 you die. That way kids that play the game 8+ hours a day can start at level 16 and work to super massive skills, but the casual gamer can start at 30 when a few skills have been mastered and they can play without fear of some child named 1337 d00d smacking them around and being an ass.
</rant>
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:5, Funny)
I play MMORPG's a lot, as does my wife....and we own our own house so we're not in line to be kicked out of our parents basement...but I digress.
I've always thought there should be a RPG that has aging and perm death. All these kiddies walk around saying how lame PvP is on different games yet they curl up in a ball and piss themselves when I tell them my thoughts on PvP and MMORPGs
You should start out very young, age through the game and at some point in the future die of old age if the environment doesn't kill you. Also, if you die, you're dead....you lose everything and can never come back. Your account AND credit card that you used to set up the account are locked and can never be used again! If you want to join the game again you have to buy a whole new version with a different credit card.
Anything less than this and you're a little girl care-bear loser wimp! Don't even try to argue with me! You're a wimp care-bear! Eat it and STFU!
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:3, Funny)
You should start out very young, age through the game and at some point in the future die of old age if the environment doesn't kill you. Also, if you die, you're dead....you lose everything and can never come back. Your account AND credit card that you used to set up the
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2)
Even better! Let the loser wimp care-bears play the safe PvP servers on other games! If you have nothing real to lose, you have nothing to lose...so what' the point?
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:5, Insightful)
The game would have to be reasonably easy, and reasonably fast paced. Most games these days keep people tagging along by installing longer and more involved advancement methods. If jimbob spends 6 months getting to a high level, then dies to a dragon somewhere, he's going to quit. If he spends 2 days getting to the same level and dies, he'll be just as likely to start over as quit.
There is also the min/maxing problem that many modern gamers fixate on. They see two states for their character: max level/stats, and newbie. The entire point of the game is to be the best they can be. Everything accomplished on that route is considered "work" and is what makes the game "lame".
"Journey" type systems where the point of the game is having fun exploring a world are doomed to failure because of this mindset. Nethack is the best example of this type of game.
I find it a hilarious no-win situation on the part of the developers. I also find it hilarious that players are only happy with a game when they are the highest level, and fail to see that if the "level grind" were completely removed, they wouldn't have played the game to begin with.
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2)
The journey to 65 (in the case of EQ) is where most of the fun is!
That's also why you rarely rarely see someone that's a griefer/jerk/idiot that's 65 in EQ. Yes, there are some, but it's rare. The kiddies just don't have the patience.
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2, Interesting)
Actually, I played EverQuest for 5 years (from Day 1 until recently). Before EQ, I played many games, typically buying at least one $50 per month only to get tired of it and never play it again. With EQ, I payed a few times the $50 for expansions and took the lon
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2)
CoH hasn't been nearly as bad for the casual gamer as a lot of the other games. There's no uber loot you must spend forever camping to get (tho I hear i
You ought to play one (Score:3, Interesting)
1) A good number of women. The stereotype seems to be all males and that wasn't true. Our PA was probably 30-35% women.
2) Lots of married people, with children. Some couples, some s
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:3, Insightful)
I refuse to play a game that requires time from me daily and charges me $10 a month. Just saw one too many of my friends get pulled into games like EQ.
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2)
And it brings some people together. I know several people that have met and married in real life through Everquest. They are happily married and two couples have already started families.
So it's not totally a waste of time for some people, but a social hobby.
Guess it depends on the person.
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2)
There are some out in the world who cringe at this statement. To think that our society has become so depraved that people cannot meet in the real world to start that foundation of civilization, the family.
Re:The funny thing is... (Score:2)
How and why they met are secondary really.
Free MMORPG list (Score:5, Informative)
isn't there a reason they're free? (Score:2)
Re:isn't there a reason they're free? (Score:2)
Yeah, and that whole GNU/Linux thing that's free just says something about it too.
Re:isn't there a reason they're free? (Score:2)
There's a big difference between free by design and free by market bitch-slap.
Free MMORPGs (Score:3, Informative)
Subscription != Bargain (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Subscription != Bargain (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd give some a shot, like City of Heroes or SWG, and I wouldnt mind burning 10 bucks for the first month if I decided the game sucked. But it'd cost me 60 bucks minimum to find out that the game sucks. Actually City of Villains, the sequel, sounds even better, since I'd much rather be Venom than Spidey, or Sinestro than Lantern, etc..
I kind of don't get i
You've already missed the first MMOFPS. (Score:2)
I'll assume you never heard of (The now defunct) 10Six. It was an MMO FPS with RTS aspects. Your only opponents were players, and their automated turrets/vehicles. An amazing amount of fun, hosted through the even more defunct Heat.net.
Also, PlanetSide is pretty much a MMOFPS. Likewise with WWIIO. I can't claim to make a soli
Or Subscription == Bargain? (Score:2)
When viewed that way games like Doom3 are worth $40 but no more of a value than playing City of Heroes month after month.
Re:Or Subscription == Bargain? (Score:2)
No real accuracy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Take Horizons, their subscriber base in the US is probably less than 10K, but that is in essence a seperate game from the European operations under GN. Artifact Entertainment is in Chapter 11 as we type, they have a big show down with their provider at the end of the month, a provider whom they basically defrauded for many months. Their bankruptcy documents provided a lot of insight into these groups.
As for AC/AC2. Who knows, they won't tell as their numbers have never been good. A company proud of its numbers will tell you. A company with something to hide from players and investors tells a whole different story.
Horizons Bankruptcy filing docs. (Score:2)
Please mirror this item, it is 770k and I doubt my rented web server can handle the strain.
Contains publically available documents on their declaration in PDF format.
MMOG stats I'd like to see... (Score:4, Insightful)
ATATD. (Score:4, Interesting)
It's just hard to describe.
http://www.atitd.net/ [atitd.net] Current - Non Beta version
http://www.atitd2.com/ [atitd2.com] Beta Version
http://www.atitd.info/ [atitd.info] Info on the game
In the game: Karsus
ATITD :: Amazingly Well Done (Score:5, Interesting)
The game takes place in the Egypt of antiquity, and all players begin as peasants. The goal of the game is to build "the perfect society" according to the Seven Virtues. You learn how to build structures, and learn new skills at "state sponsored" schools dedicated to the Seven Virtues, eventually completing tests to move higher in the tech tree.
Three things I find of particular interest: cooperative learning (wherein citizens donate materials to Universities in order to unlock higher skills for *all* their region), the ability to teach skills to other players, and player-written laws.
If you don't like the way something works in the game, propose a law. If it has enough votes (and doesn't break game mechanics), the "law" is written into the game by the devs. And speaking of the devs, they seem *very* responsive to player ideas. You really get the sense that they care about the enjoyment factor.
I still play EQ and CoH, but ATITD2 looks like it will appeal to people who like a challenge, but want to go a different route.
Re:ATITD :: Amazingly Well Done (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:ATITD :: Amazingly Well Done (Score:3, Informative)
Also, the Linux client runs great! I just started playing this game two days ago and I'm hooked for sure.
I'll describe it (Score:4, Insightful)
Go fetch small piece of natural resource Y.
Put X and Y together to make tool A.
Go fetch small piece of natural resource Y.
Go fetch small piece of natural resource Z.
Put Y and Z together using tool A to make item B.
Repeat until you have 80 units of item B.
Go fetch small piece of natural resource P.
Bake P in item B.
Removed baked P.
Stack baked P.
Call all your friends to gather around and see your abstract art, created entirely of baked P!!11!
*Sigh* (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no standard for the data. For example, Star Wars Galaxies is in the habit of reporting the total number of unique numbers in their database. So everybody who downloads a free trial counts as "a new subscriber"
Finally, we have the biggest laugh of them all. "...proof that a well-executed MMOG can still garner substantial numbers even in the current competitive climate." The problem is that "substantial numbers" does not equal success. City of Heroes has been out for about 3 months. Most of the people currently playing CoH are still in the MMORPG "honeymoon" phase where everything is new, the end-game content is still unexplored, and people are trying out new ideas and new play styles. A year from now, we'll see if CoH is still succeeding.
The same goes for World of Warcraft, Everquest 2, and whatever new games come out. The only measure of a game's success is staying power.
Notes for those who didn't RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
2 - the stats don't differentiate between "players" and "accounts". So a single account with 3 characters may show up as 3.
3 - the stats don't differentiate between active accounts and inactive accounts.
4 - the lineage figures are crap as massive bulk of them come from South Korean cybercafes. It's noted that South Korea apparently doesn't get many Japanese import games, thus it figures that Lineage may have a disproportionately high user base there.
A much better chart would be the server population figures for these games
Re:Notes for those who didn't RTFA (Score:2)
2. That is primary an issue with Korean games. It is not an issue for US based games as that type of gaming community does not yet exist here, or in any real numbers.
3. Again as most of these companies don't give real numbers to begin with!
FWIW, AC2 numbers can be gleaned from the frontpage of www.fallenkingdoms.com They peak at around
new gameplay concepts (Score:5, Insightful)
It goes to show that there's a lot of different things that attract different people; CoH was my first MMO, despite being a long-time MUDder who wrote 100,000 lines of code to expand the Diku/ROM base for a mud I helped make. (I do have an SWG box still gathering dust that I'll use sooner or later)
I think there's two concepts that are waiting to make a lot of money:
(1) MMORPG for people with money. People are desperate to target the $10-15 range. But I think there's a substantial set of subscribers who would pay a lot more for better service. I think the MMO to exploit this will be two tiered. Much like EQ's premium service, but far more so. It will be at least $75/mo -- or possibly not flat rate. It may be $50/mo + $2/hr or something. I know a lot of players are price sensitive, but I paid $3/hr on weekends to get onto compuserve and move an asterick around in a dungeon at 300 baud. And $2/hr doesn't mean squat to me, and if I can get a party of 6 into some real "DM-controlled" sort of adventures at $2/hr, I'm on it. I'd probably want some perks, but it could be very profitable. I know a lot of people who would do the same.
(2) Skill-based play. By which I mean reflexes. I'm a broken record on this topic, sure; but MMOs are "the same". One needs to implement semi-twitch gameplay... perhaps a Q3 style play, with a level of auto-aim that decreases with level. (or simply easier-to-hit monsters) I don't want to completely twitch-base it, I think anyone should be able to fight and win (at least at lower levels), but I think there should be an in-game effect of "skill". Please don't mention planetside; I still want level progression; I still want it to be playable by people who don't have the reflexes. I just want those that do to get an edge for them.
<rant>
On another note, I'd like to pre-emptively predict the utter failure of Dungeons and Dragons Online. They were SURE to get a subscription out of me, until I read an interview, and discover they are MANGLING the D&D ruleset, one of the best things about it... doing things like allowing a +5 attack bonus to let you "perform 5-hit combos with the proper key sequence". What? Are these crack-monkeys making D&D Online or Street Fighter II Online?
</rant>
Re:new gameplay concepts (Score:2)
Anyone who remembers his stint as AC1 lead, or the mess that is AC2 should know enough to stay well the hell away from games he's working on.
Re:new gameplay concepts (Score:2)
Are you John Ashcroft?
Nice, but is it trustworthy? (Score:3, Insightful)
Take for instance his SWG numbers. SOE does not release their population numbers at all, so if they didn't want people to know their numbers why would they tell him as a secret source and not just release that information publically? And the only guess we have is between 200-300k subscribers based on a quote from one of the suits at SOE. A range of roughly 1/3 of the possible total volume can not be taken as accurate. Which makes me wonder how he was able to determine subscription drops +-15k when the only number we have is between 200k and 300k.
Yeah, it's nice he spent the effort to plot this stuff out, but it should really only be looked at as an analysis of what he thinks their subscription numbers are when he fails to provide any sort of sources or documented references. Quite frankly, his guess is as good as mine on most of these games regarding where their subscription numbers are. As a SWG player I can say It certainly appears there are more people playing now compared to six months ago, but that could just by my server(Bloodfin) seeing a population spike while others fall. Not enough for me to make a conclusive argument one way or the other on their total subscriber numbers.
Sorry for the AC post, moderators have been kind of flaky lately and don't want to get burned as a troll for raising a valid concern.
Does "Second Life" count? (Score:5, Interesting)
One aspect that may definitely disqualify it as a MMORPG for sure, is that it actually has women in it.
Second Life has a scripting language (C++-based) and basically allows anyone to create freeform objects with behaviors and properties. The economic model is interesting. You can do things like create an automated dispenser which charges people to create copies of objects you have created. You can also own virtual real estate.
Someone has created an adventure-within-a-world in it that tracks experience. I haven't checked it out yet, but it sounds interesting. You have to "buy" an Adventurer's Pack which gives you all the relevant objects.
So I don't know if it counts. What do you think?
My name in it is Roark Spinnaker, in the event you run into me while I'm flying around in it. I haven't decided yet if I will stay after the free week trial is over.
Re:Does "Second Life" count? (Score:2)
Long-time subscriber Carnildo Greenacre here.
Where does The Sims Online stand? Is it still up? (Score:4, Informative)
I just watched an episode of G4TechTV's "Icons "profiling Will Wright and it was before the full launch of The Sims Online. Someone said something like "it could do well, or fall flat on its face."
Boy did it ever fall flat on its face.
Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:5, Interesting)
Though I don't claim that it's foolproof or that it's guaranteed sucess, I don't think it's a guaranteed failure either. Here is my idea:
A smaller, more focused MMORPG, perhaps even the "massive" part needs to be removed. Target subscription is 500-1500 subscribers, with a set upper limit of probably 1500. Target subscription fee $50 a month (read on before you just dismiss everything outright). Before anyone explodes over that rate, consider that for every other product, there are people interested in paying a premium for just about anything. (Also consider that the hardcore gamer has a bigger game budget than that anyway... but will he devote so much of it to this?)
Not sure about the world itself, but I will admit that it probably has to be either a starwar'ish space thing, or medivieval fantasy (dragons, elves). If you wanted to play, you'd submit an application, and assuming it's not all booked up, you'd be given a choice of up to 2 dozen characters to play, complete with biography summaries of those (and if they were completely unsuitable... wait another day, while we find some other choices for you). I'd also try to weed out all the obnoxious players, too, for that matter. People who want to play in character are important, and if you chalked up more than a few infractions (talking about monday night football in game, using too much modern slang, etc) I'd probably end up canceling the subscription.
Player death would be permanent (choose another character). There would be skill levels, but this isn't pacman and they aren't power pellets (numbers hidden from the player). There would be a true storyline/plot going on, but it's up to the players what happens with it (will the evil lord dominate the known world, blah blah). Also (and I'm still conceptualizing what the tools would have to be to allow this) the DM's in the game would work hard to come up with alot of subplots for players, while encouraging players to not only maintain the plots, but invent/help out/ grow them.
For instance, let's take a very boring character that no one would choose to play. An owner of a small bookshop in the village that passes for a major city in the kingdom. One day walking to the market, a DM uses his "godlike" powers to put a old hag in his path, in a way that he can't help but walk into her, knock her down. She casts a curse, which the player might not even choose to believe (I tend to go for the flavor of story where magic is truly rare, though this world may or may not be that way). That DM flags that player, so that if another DM takes over, they can keep a fairly close watch on him. For the next week of play, whenever he logs in, bad (but not really evil) things happen to the character. Keeps stepping in horse turds, or if he walks past a candle, his head catches on fire (though not allowing it to do significant damage). Let the player decide how to handle it. Will the player seek someone out to reverse it? Will he seek out the old hag and apologize? I don't know.
And I could cook up a few dozen other subplots, for this *boring* character. Town guards extorting protection from him (which is actually an intersecting plot for another character I use an example). Some evil creepy stranger asks you to track down a rare book. Etc.
Among other things, each player would be flagged as to what subplots had been used with him, and maybe the software should even keep track (suggest?) of possible subplots. With at most 300 simultaneous players, it just might be possible, if everything were automated well for the DM. (They'd have to be good typists though, to keep up with everyone, talking through so many NPCs).
Anyone care to comment on how stupid all of this is?
It can work, but not in a vacuum (Score:3, Interesting)
The trick is, it needs to piggyback on a successful service. You can't develop a game for 1500 people @ $50/mo. Even if you could provide the service at that rate (and I think $75/mo would be more likely, or $30 + a per hour rate), that still won't nearly cover development. But you can have a standard service and have some custom content on the premium service as well as route all content through a period of exclusivity th
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:2)
This idea sounds a lot like A Land Far Away [alandfaraway.org] for Neverwinter Nights. Except for the pay-for-play, of course.
I've often wondered if it would be possible to take something like DAoC or EQ, license the engine and server platforms, and set up something similar to this.
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:2)
Rubies of Eventide closed its doors in Feb, re-opening in July.
It is using a free-2-play model, with a server limit, with a $50 donation to get a unlimited account.
Prime time caps to 125 f2p's, no limit on gentry, hits the upper 100's to low 200's at times. As much as in the p2p days peak...
The response has been amazing, going from less than hundred previous hard core players, including me, to over 1000 players in 6 weeks.
No one is getting rich on it, it basically pays f
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:2)
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:4, Insightful)
This is unrealistic for many reasons. It might work in a small MUD, but for anything largescale (say over 50-100 players) you've got one major component to worry about: balance.
Economic balance. Play balance. Story balance. Everything has to work and continue to work for an extended period of time. Having DMs working fulltime coming up with quests is a nice idea, but with 1500 people that's a lot of DMs, and the balance will quickly spin out of control. (And if you want DMs talking through NPCs, that'd be at least 1 DM per PC, following them around and paying attention to their actions. Waiting 20 seconds to get a response from each NPC as the DM types it would still suck.)
It works like this: if quests lack sufficient rewards, no one will complete them. Sufficient rewards include the following:
However, too much of any of these will throw the game, and you have to be very careful to measure things out and consider how each affects the other across the board. Having 500 DMs constantly handing out arbitrary quests will be fairly quick chaos. Enormous inflation (even simple items cost millions), social breakdown (everyone is an ultrapowerful level-99 adept with infinite money on hand), or spiralling plots (contradictions, dead ends) are the issue here.
And $50/mo is laughable. People choke at $12.95/mo for FFXI (which is high), and FFXI has incredible balance (one of the few MMORPGs with a stable economy even after 2 years).
If you want to play this sort of thing, play a "real" RPG with pencil and paper, where such concerns don't matter. P&P RPGs can be far more fun and flexible anyhow.
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:4, Insightful)
Sign me up for immortality! (Score:2, Funny)
I'd pay more, up to $29.99/month, for a game in which player death is NOT permanent, so if I'm like killed in a car crash or something then the game company resurrects me (presumably so they keep getting my subcription monies...)
Talk about customer service!
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:3, Insightful)
You'd be better off working on research into how to get computers to be able to make up/tell coherent stories on the fly.
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:2)
Let's assume that that was just a bad example and that people can have effect on how the world is run
Re:Anyone care to settle an argument for me? (Score:2)
But I will clarify. Permdeath is critically important, in my opinion. But there are some safeguards. First, I'm weeding out all the 15 yr old ijits and the griefers. Second, no one is allowed to kill you out of character. If the bookseller decides the game is boring, and goes on a rampage... the DM may just reverse your death. That head blow that should have killed you, just knocks you silly. This is going to be problematic, hoping to not have to do it often.
Re:Would I pay for this? (Score:2)
People pay more for the travesty that is EQ, I thought.
$50 may be high, but much less than $25, and my idea isn't tenable (and the other guy was right... it just won't work).
No Puzzle Pirates? (Score:2)
Logarithmic charts would be better (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyhow, the absurd comparisons of random untrustworthy data sources and the poor presentation just shows that this guy needs a good statistics teacher to whack him upside the head. I'm going to go read some Tufte.
MMO was supposed to be the next big thing (Score:5, Interesting)
Yet the sims online was a total failure. I think the reason for this is both simple and important.
What was the difference between The Sims and The Sims online?
The sims is a non-competitive game. It is totally impossible to compare the "performance" of one player vs another. The Sims as played by those still playing it is perhaps even a coorperative game. Most of the content is not created by Maxis/EA but by the users and shared by the users. I even think that people don't by the expansions for the extra content but for the extra capability it gives the community to create their own content.
Compare this with the sims online where there is no user created content and that introduces competition with other players. Plus now you gotta work for every credit in game (Many The Sims player use the moneycheat to get the money they need for their family). The Sims is a game where you let your creative juices flow. The Sims online is a grind to compete.
The Sims is also a good example because the sales figures show that the people that play it are not afraid to spend money. Even content downloaded is often paid for as most of the "free" content is hosted from a central site that requires a subscription to offset hosting costs. Add the constant expansions and The Sims player have easily spend hundreds of dollars.
Most MMO games seem obsessed with adding competition even PvP. Sure online combat games are popular but is it popular with the right crowd? Is it possible that people who like Counter Strike will never pay for a MMO version of it? After all why should they, they got their MMO free.
Paid for MMO games perhaps should aim at a different audience. An audience that prefers to have something more then just a grind to compete on a ladder game. Competition gives winners and losers. People are not going to pay money each month to loose to some 12 yr old kid that can afford to spend 24/7 learning every exploit in the game.
Game industry take note. With every leet counter stike kiddie you attract to your game you loose 10 people that just want to have fun.
I am not saying the a massive CS game won't work or sell. Just that at their is a different market as well. Second Life is an example of this.
What I would like to see in a game. No PvP except maybe in arena's with very clear rules and no cheats. A low lvl/irregular player is not worthless, read this as not making it compulsery to first grind to lvl X before you can do anything fun/usefull. Police that constantly checks for assholes ruining it for everyone else. Ban people that can't behave. 1 asshole can easily turn of dozens of players.
Growth would be nice too, you start as a kid with no skills and weak stats, then grow up and eventually grow old and then die. Give the option to retire and make the next character related to the first. A child an apprentice or similar. This neatly would avoid insanely high characters but a child would inherit money and some basic skills avoiding you to start a new low lvl character once you reached the XP ceiling.
But most importantly the game should still be fun when you remove the multi player element.
To many games now are very basic Diablo clones. Nothing wrong with diablo but not everyone likes it and there is no market for dozens like it.
Economics and opportunities (Score:3, Interesting)
Release the client for free, make it open source even, ditto for the server, and then charge, say, $10 a month to use a centrally hosted 'world' (which has all the good stuff). Even a 25,000 players (less than most of the games in this study) would rake in $250,000 per month.. and imagine what, say, 15 hardcore people (who might ordinarily be working on free software anyway) could do with that!
Okay, I'm not saying this is an easy venture by any means, but it strikes me as odd that I haven't heard of anyone trying this. There seems to be so much money and opportunity in it.
Re:Economics and opportunities (Score:3, Informative)
They are doing exactly that.
Client is free, play is free, they get donations.
It is working quite nicely.
Disclaimer: I am an active memember of the ROE community, I may be a bit biased =)
Consider the source... (Score:4, Insightful)
My wife, who works in the MMORPG Industry, tells me that she believes that Sir Bruce's numbers should be taken with a grain of salt.
I'd like to point out that some companies, including the one my wife works for, are extremely reluctant to reveal these kinds of numbers and consider them closely held proprietary secrets. Therefore, it's unlikely that all these numbers came from the game companies themselves. Numbers that did come from game companies might be a bit inflated. It's hard to resist the temptation to make your game look just a little bit better.
Just a word of caution that you shouldn't believe everything you read.... even on /.
Thumbs Up! for City of Heroes (Score:4, Informative)
Its a fun PvE game, the AI on the mobs is quite good - again far better than any other MMORPG game I have tried - and the developers seem to have a handle on what the game needs. They listen and respond to public feedback.
Currently its a bit content light, but they are adding new content and new features quarterly at the moment, and the first (and only) patch was pretty problem free.
I went to DAOC from EQ because Mythic looked like they were doing things right and addressing the aspects of EQ that really bothered me, and the whole RvR thing looked neat. I played it since release until the release of City of Heroes, and was a pretty big DAOC fan. I don't think I could return now, COH has spoiled me. It is lightyears ahead of the competition in my opinion, and while its early still, being only 3 months old, I think it has a very bright future.
Its well worth checking out City of Heroes if you are looking for a new game.
WARNING: Shameless plug (PlaneShift) (Score:5, Informative)
The game is fully free. You don't have to pay to download the game and you don't have to pay to play it.
Greetings,
Re:MMOG's (Score:2, Interesting)
Huge technical challenge to try and get 1000's of people onto the same FarCry (for example) map, but it would really be cool.
I think of GTA because it has to be somewhat pointless. Not like a RTCW:ET setup where you have teams and roles. I can't play that, I have no idea what to do and the knobs who play it can't tolerate a "noob".
I want to just run around, shooting guys, throwi