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How long will MO last before servers are shut down
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A bad game is bad. Just because a sandbox MMO comes out, doesn't mean us sandbox folks must like it.
Bad game is a bad game no matter what it tries to be. In case there is a missunderstanding I, and assume many others, want a good sandbox game, not a bad one. And MO is a terrible game.
It is an incomplete, bug ridden and amateuristic mess that does not qualify as a game of commercial quality.
My gaming blog
The question on whethere the game can recover relies on two things:
1. Does the compnay have enough cash reserves?
2. Were the core game mechanics in place at launch?
it seems that MO did not meet #2 and this is why I never bought it. The skill system concept is nice (a bit over complicated) but the execution seems hideously poor.
it is vital that when you swing a sword that it hits.
It is important that when you craft you make somehting useful.
It is vital that when you cast a spell it has some effect
Your skills must have an impact when you raise them
All other issues are either eye candy or balance related. Balance will always be an issue and get better over time. Eye candy better improve with time or the game will have difficulty attracting newer players.
DFO has done a good job of getting the fundamentals down before release. At release the core mechanics worked. Balance hasn't happned as quickly as everyone would like but the game has seen excellent improvement over the last year. This is one of the only games I have seen people repeatedly come back to.
If you want to compare MO to DFO you need to understand if the core core mechancis are in place. if they are then MO just like DFO will have something to build on. If the team is still designing and performing major system over hauls after release then the game is going to be on shaky ground.
Eye candy and balance can (and must) occur in a live game. However, if the developers are spending most of thier resources overhauling game systems when the game is live, it is likely the game will struggle to survive.
This is the problem here.
All you people care about is whether a game is "commercial quality" or not. Everyone playing this games knows it's not, and is generally fine with it. I for one don't play, but I DID play Wurm Online for the better part of 2 years and loved every bit of it. That game is not commercial quality either, but granted it's not completely bug-ridded as well.
If all you care about is whether it matches up to multi-million dollar entires to the markt - WTF are you doing here in the first place. You knew it was an impossible outcome for MO from the start.
Get effin real guys, and go PLAY A TRIPLE-A GAME, instead of bitching that an amatuer one can't keep up with the rest. It's more pathetic than the state of MO itself.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
WTF ???
Darkfall isn't based on unreal engine ?!?!
You seem to mix Darkfall and Mortal Online ( which is based on Unreal engine ).
re-read. You mis-read his post.
He is talking about DFO's engine vs MO's Unreal Engine
I apologize if I'm confused, but if you are saying you haven't played MO then what are you even talking about? If you did play MO you'd know no one here gives a rats tail if the game is "commerical quality" or "not". In fact, even those of us that don't like MO appreciate what an independent company is trying to do. MO lacks in every department one can judge a game on. The longer this game goes on and issues appear, the more amature the company seems to be and I really have to wonder how genuine this effort even is.
Only recent comparison I can make to an INDY company developing a game for a similar market is AV. AV is a small independent company that took a gamble with Darkfall and its not on the stock exchange. WTF is Starvault doing on the stock exchange? It's only property is MO and that's hardly an asset to go public at this point over. I find the whole situation very odd to the extreme and a lot of people have already been burned. I genuinely hope they turn this around but if they don't, and there is no evidence they will, a lot of people will have lost a lot of money over a hope and a prayer, and if that happens, the sickest part is they will probably blame those of us that warned them for not sinking more money in to this concept, instead of blaming those who RUN THE FREAKIN COMPANY.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
At it's creation, Starvault offered people to invest in a small cap company, putting that investment at risk in exchange for a potential profit. At the time, they offered about 19 million shares at 1-1.5 euros per share ( 20- 30 million euros) http://www.aktietorget.se/QuotesInstrument.aspx?Language=2&InstrumentID=SE0002149369 Of that capital investment, the CEO actually owns 35%, so the main shareholder who stands to lose money is the guy in charge. http://www.starvault.se/shareHolders.php
Aventurine " has procured a 20 million Euro convertible bond ($27.5m USD) loan with Marfin Bank[27] at the behest of Proton Investment Bank of Greece[28]" http://www.warcry.com/articles/view/editorials/3222-Surlys-Column-State-of-the-Game-Darkfall-Razorwax-and-Aventurine-Heres-the-Rub and has benefited from grants from the Greek government, on the dime of the taxpayers of Greece. (- Aventurine received development grants for Darkfall Online by the Hellenic Ministry of Development related to law 3299/2004 [Private Investment for Economic Growth and Regional Convergence] ; The Hellenic Secretariat of Research and Technology funded our research proposal for the design and development of next generation 3D engine technologies) as well as other investments http://www.aventurine.gr/about/research.html
I'm just saying, don't try to portray AV as a bold indy company taking all the risk on their own and SV as frittering away other peoples money.
Also I think this gets back to the point made earlier in this thread about AV getting by on relatively low subscription numbers, as their debt is clearly higher than SV's.
FYI, I played it's open beta, I don't play it *atm*.
My point still stands when it comes to some posters, namely the guys that can't get over the small things such as mobs bursting into loot sacks or there only being one harvesting animation. There is so much wrong with the game that the little things like that were water under the bridge during my time with it, and I still managed to have fun with it during my playtime in OB. My main issue with the game is not only the bugs, but the players themselves, the ones that trip on stupid things when glaring issues are present.
Writer / Musician / Game Designer
Now Playing: Skyrim, Wurm Online, Tropico 4
Waiting On: GW2, TSW, Archeage, The Rapture
I've got to agree with you on all of this.
I have no interest whatever in Mortal Online because of the sheer volume of different things that I have heard wrong with it, not to mention the one really lovely thread we had going here where someone had an issue with the game mechanics involving PK-griefing. That is one example of a fudamental issue though. Yes, there needs to be a serious penalty for PK-griefing (which is different from PK) but the penalty in MO is simply too harsh. That and the client crashes make this a game that doesn't need to be nit-picked because there is enough wrong with it. Fundamental techinical issues and game mechanics need to be ironed out before more minor things, whatever they may be, are focused on. Folks need to remember that the folks behind this game aren't Blizzard, they shouldn't be nit-picked on principle.
(1)TL:DR must be your way of saying that thinking hurts. Then again, this may explain why it looks like you responded to the post without using your brain.
(2) It's not about community, is it? You just have nothing better to do.
Nowadays people WANTS to see new releases to fail, it's so sad.
Exactly! As some other poster said, we don't want to play with sand that has cat poo in it!
Then dont play. I cant remember anyone being forced to play MO. I dont play it as i knew it was in bad state.
Still i dont try to bash the game because its in bad state. Its simply childish.
You dont like it, ignore the game.
EvE doors
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Feel free to correct we if I am mistaken but I am 99.9% sure that their 19,000,000 shares were issued in Swedish Kronors (SEK) which obviously has a HUGE impact on the amount of cash you say was generated. A SEK has an exchange rate of roughly 0.1 Euros... so if you other numbers are correct.. total cash rasied would be 2-3 million euros.
If you really want to know the story.. get their latest financial report (freely available) and translate it into your language of choice. Then look at what their debt and cashflow looks like. Keep in mind that the number that was thrown around back when they started selling the game was about 13,000 subs to stay afloat. Now that may have changed over the last year as more debt was taken on or old debt was retired but it seems like a reasonable target. At $15 that would be 195k per month. That's to pay 20(maybe a few more now) developers, bandwidth, rent, licensing fees, legal retainer, utilities, server hardware, loan interest, listing company, billing company etc. Now they might be able to get by with somewhat less subs but that will start requiring cuts in developers etc.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
They got 20 developers? O.o I thought they were 5-6 all together.
EvE doors
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WHy would you think that? The information is feely available in their financial reports and they have been saying their staff was around 20 for quite a while now...
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Of that 20 though, I think there's only one big developer -- Sebastian. I've heard of some interns doing some work, another 'dev' working on the thieving system (we know how that turned out) and then there are the art folks like gameworld designers, animators, model builders, etc. Then there's also management.
Seems feasible to have a staff of 20.
Sorry for not having enough hate on a company to bother reading most boring stuff like financial reports :-/
EvE doors
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That's pretty serious. I accept that most subscribers don't frequent game forums, but only 200 players have posted they will renew. Even if the ratio is 10:1 (subs vs forum poster) that is a fraction of what is stated they need.
-CC
"Lately it occurs to me,
what a long, strange trip it's been". -Hunter
Oh, I think with the ninja billing they have quite a few more than 200 subscribers.
That said, let's say they kept 5000 subscribers (seems high but let's assume). That will get them $75k a month. From that they have to pay probably 15 employees (because they have some interns), plus pay back the investors, plus pay for the server costs, bandwith, etc.
I honestly don't know how long that $75k a month will last them before investors start asking for real return on their money. And while it's a nice idea to think that they will get the game super developed now that they are live, we have waited a year to see very mediocre changes. Combat by itself needs a total re-working by the accounts of most people on the forum, and server stability is still a large problem. How many months can they go on, without losing subs? And how fast can they fix the server stability, add features in (without breaking things), and re-do combat? The answer to that is really the equation that equal's MO's health in the long term.
You're right, it's not a AAA title, but it is priced like one. If I pay top price for a product, is it not reasonable to expect top quality? Alas, SV haven't figured this one out yet and they appear to believe a successful business plan is to charge premium prices for amateur products. If MO was free-to-play it would make sense, but the fact that they're charging the same as big-budget titles like WoW suggests they're hoping to exploit the dearth of sandbox titles out there and people's willingness to be ripped off due to having little other choice.
Some true words. If i remind another company didnt manage to fix the core design till now (almost 2 years since launch).
EvE doors
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It's not really hate when you like to understand how a company is being run, heading, etc when you're investing in them.
It actually has nothing to do with love/hate but rather trying to speak from fact and not opinion. I can't find their Jan-Mar report (and I'm not going nuts looking) but I'm failrly sure it said 18 employees. The Apr-June one should be available soon so I will check when it comes out.
See.. it's not really a mystery about if/when they run out of money. You can see their cash reserves.. and their burn rate on these reports. Unfortunately even the June one won't have subscription figures. That will have to wait until Q3.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
The difference is AGE OF CONAN (i know that's the game you were referring too) Made a huge profit on box sales; over 800k, they've been riding that cash surplus out since launch (the game loses money each quarter just see their financial statements) I doubt SV will have that kind of cushion to ride on.