Your Perfect MMO & MMO Success

NIII

Day and night (if you're anything like me), we dream of our perfect MMO, while at one point, project managers of various games were in our exact same positions. They too, at one point, dreamed of their perfect MMO, but how close was that dream to what they produced?

 

I come with a few questions;

1. 
   How close do you think you could come to designing your perfect MMO. (you have all assets needed, but can not beam your ideas into your developers' heads)
2. 
   If your perfect MMO was designed, how successful would it be?
3. 
   How loyal would the playerbase be? (2 and 3 are kind of a "Would you please the majority or the minorty?" thing)
4. 
   Would you play your own game? If yes, how often?
5. 
   If your game were unsuccessful, what would your course of action be? Sequel? Overhaul? Closure and anhero?
6. 
   How do you think developers of 'successful' games would answer the above questions?

 

My answers to the above;

1. 
   Personally, I think if my developers didn't come damn close to what I envisioned, I wouldn't release, or I would fire them all and obtain better developers.
2. 
   My perfect MMO would have a moderate sized community, it would be too complicated, time consuming, and demanding for the general public, thus would not sell as well as say, WoW.
3. 
   The community that it did have though, would be pretty loyal I have a feeling.
4. 
   I would live in my game. My developers would contact me in my game for questions about further development in my game. Real life interaction with anything would cease.
5. 
   If the game were a complete flop, and the community were so small that I knew everyone by name, I would probably anhero. Just sayin.
6. 
   I think, in order for the 'successful' games to have been 'successful', the person who envisioned it would have had to sacrifice alot; therefore they probably hate the game.

ckoltai

Originally posted by NIII

Day and night (if you're anything like me), we dream of our perfect MMO, while at one point, project managers of various games were in our exact same positions. They too, at one point, dreamed of their perfect MMO, but how close was that dream to what they produced?

 

I come with a few questions;

1. 
   How close do you think you could come to designing your perfect MMO. (you have all assets needed, but can not beam your ideas into your developers' heads)
2. 
   If your perfect MMO was designed, how successful would it be?
3. 
   How loyal would the playerbase be? (2 and 3 are kind of a "Would you please the majority or the minorty?" thing)
4. 
   Would you play your own game? If yes, how often?
5. 
   If your game were unsuccessful, what would your course of action be? Sequel? Overhaul? Closure and anhero?
6. 
   How do you think developers of 'successful' games would answer the above questions?

 

My answers to the above;

1. 
   I'm pretty good at communicating, and since I have the assets (presumably by that you mean money, time, and skilled developers) I'd say I should be able to get it as close to 100% "perfect" as technology allows.
2. 
   Since my perfect MMO would use a licensed IP that's not hugely popular in NA (Gundam, for those who are curious) I doubt it would ever move beyond niche appeal, although I would obviously hope for mainstream success.
3. 
   Fans of the series are pretty diehard, something I can personally attest to.  I can't picture the playerbase turning on the game without the devs first turning on them.
4. 
   While doing my job as designer, all day.  IMO the main thing a designer needs to do once the game is launched is spend time making sure that their vision continues to stay intact despite the playerbase learning the "exploitables" of the game, min/maxing, content additions, etc.  When the best way to advance in the game is the least fun way, that's when the designer needs to step in and suggest some changes.
5. 
   Sell to Softmax in Korea so they can replace SD Gundam Online  Win-win situation really, although I'll have to watch them ruin my baby...
6. 
   I think they'd answer them with whatever their PR department suggested :P
   
    

Answers in red.