The Repopulation may be the science fiction sandbox MMORPG that we've all been waiting for.
That's a very grandiose statement to make, I know. Hear me out, though, and you'll see why this may just beStar Wars: Galaxies 2.
First, a little background on the team behind this upcoming MMORPG. The company Above and Beyond Technologies is headed up by Joshua Halls and J.C. Smith. Joshua Halls seems to be a relative newcomer to professional game development, but J.C. Smith has been involved with Nintendo for several years. The rest of the team is an amalgamation of professionals and amateurs with aims to become professionals, and the quality of the game even in its alpha state is testament to their collective skill. Regardless of what happens with Repopulation, I see great things in store for this team.
Back in June, A&B ran a Kickstarter for The Repopulation that asked for the very modest sum of $25,000 to finish the game by mid 2013. Considering that Star Citizen earned itself seven million dollars through crowdfunding, and that The Repopulation itself earned just over $50,000 in its Kickstarter, I think they were selling themselves a little short. They would have been better served by paying more attention to their Kickstarter campaign at this time. That said, the influx of cash certainly has added a lot of polish to an already-polished game.
Spiritual Successor to Galaxies
Even just watching the few videos on Youtube that A&B has released will get you excited about the game if you're a fan of SWG. While the crafting system is certainly different from how SOE did it, preferring to use an overall grading system ranging from F0 to A9 instead of Galaxies' 1-1000 resource attribute system, the feel is similarly complex. Your skill at crafting improves on a per-recipe basis, not just a per-category one, as with SWG. You may be fantastic at producing light weapon components but abysmal at medium weapon components. This kind of system provides for a lot of variety in crafted items, and bodes well for a player economy.
Also, The Repopulation has a unique item decay system. Items have a Minor and Major condition, which decrease over usage. They can be increased by repairing an item, but repairing reduces the item's durability. Eventually, you will either wear out or repair your item into oblivion, requiring a replacement in much the same fashion as SWG had.
The Fittings System
Interestingly, The Repopulation has an item customization system which completely separates visuals from mechanics. You choose the appearance of items using molds, and then you can give the items stats by adding various Fittings. Fittings wear out just like items, and come in the same F0 to A9 grades. There's a lot of complexity here, and a lot of opportunity for customization. Now, that does mean that inevitably there will appear Flavor of the Month item Fitting combinations, but no game is safe from that.
Fittings first appeared in conceptual form in the now-defunct Hero's Journey, the very first MMORPG built on Simutronics' Hero Engine. Hero Engine, made famous by Star Wars: The Old Republic, has a special place in my heart. I worked as a world builder GM for Hero's Journey prior to its cancellation, and the engine was so easy and fun to work with that I was giddy with anticipation on what HJ would amount to. While that game never materialized, Fittings have seemed to survive through The Repopulation, which also uses Hero Engine. That makes me very happy.
These Graphics Don't Suck
Generally, indie games tend to fall into one of two categories - either they're artsy, or they're just bad. On rare occasions you'll find one that hits a very high-quality mark that competes with AAA titles. The Repopulation is one of those that has great visual appeal without catering to a niche audience. Some of the visual feel is comparable to Star Wars: The Old Republic, in terms of animation flow and physics determination. However, most of it has its own particular theme that suits the game's premise very well. The GUI is well presented and clean.
In essence, The Repopulation's UI looks a lot like how I'd imagine SWG would look, if given ten years to advance. The spiritual succession remains intact there. The icons being 2D instead of 3D is a departure, but a lot of the flavor is still present.
Creature Handlers Rejoice
The Repopulation features a pet taming system comparable to SWG's. You find juvenile creatures and tame them, then teach them abilities they can use in combat. Also like SWG and other games since, you can harvest creatures for their parts. However, The Repopulation's creature-harvesting system is even more complex than SWG's. Like with item crafting, you gain skill in harvesting from specific types of animals, so while you might be excellent at fetching skins from the six-legged scorpion-like beasties, you might suck at getting bone from others.
Oh, and Entertainers Too
Yes, The Repopulation will have entertainers. And yes, they're a lot like SWG entertainers, being able to buff other players at campsites by dancing or playing music. But they're a lot more, too - they can weave stories, tell jokes, and customize buffs to a degree Galaxies players opined for.
Nation Building: Beyond Galaxies
In SWG, player cities were a much-anticipated and enjoyed feature. However, The Repopulation goes a step beyond even this. Not only can players build out cities using buildings, furniture, city walls, and other decorative goodies, but they can populate those cities with NPCs, manage the NPC populace, declare war or allegiance with other player nations, and command player militaries with custom ranks and titles.
The nation system provides the third faction that SOE never got around to developing in SWG. If you choose to align yourself with a player nation instead of one of the two NPC nations, you have access to a host of customizations that are currently only touched on in EVE Online.
The One Failure
No game company, especially an indie company, is immune to failure. In this case, Above and Beyond's big failure is in its marketing. Only through word of mouth is hype spread about this game. While A&B does have a presence at a few major industry conventions, they have no advertising to speak of, and no marketing strategy. As a result, the player population could be devastatingly small at release for such a player-centric game. This may spell disaster for A&B unless they have help.
So, if you're at all interested in the kind of sandbox MMORPG that Star Wars: Galaxies presented, give The Repopulation a look! I know I'll be following its development very closely over the next year. There's a lot more about the game that's similar to SWG, so head over to their website and check it out.
First, the game is being made by an Indie studio which is strike 1, secondly it is a Sci-Fi title which is strike 2 and thirdly it is a sandbox which is strike 3. None of those 3 things are good for a game and only lead to niche audinces and poor gameplay.
Ok this one I had to reply to,now let's see what game matches this criteria oh yes......
i guess the player base who will be playing Repop are mostly the ex SWG, Earthrise players who always look for sandbox, but GW2, SWTOR etc players will not even look at this
I'm an ex-SWG player and a founding SWTOR player with a current subscription to that game. I am very much looking forward to playing this game when it eventually comes out. I've been longing for an open, evolving world that doesn't make you out to be "the hero" for a very long time. One set in the now or in the future, not fantasy land. Don't get me wrong. I like the fantasy genre, but it is over saturated with games and is played out for me. From the descriptions and from everything I have read, it looks to be a good game that I can finally settle down in and call home.
i guess the player base who will be playing Repop are mostly the ex SWG, Earthrise players who always look for sandbox, but GW2, SWTOR etc players will not even look at this
I'm an ex-SWG player and a founding SWTOR player with a current subscription to that game. I am very much looking forward to playing this game when it eventually comes out. I've been longing for an open, evolving world that doesn't make you out to be "the hero" for a very long time. One set in the now or in the future, not fantasy land. Don't get me wrong. I like the fantasy genre, but it is over saturated with games and is played out for me. From the descriptions and from everything I have read, it looks to be a good game that I can finally settle down in and call home.
I know the feeling. I'm burnt out on fantasy. I don't want to be a hero. I just want a game that lets me roam about, do my own thing, build a little here, distroy a little there and genrally write my own story.
i guess the player base who will be playing Repop are mostly the ex SWG, Earthrise players who always look for sandbox, but GW2, SWTOR etc players will not even look at this
I'm an ex-SWG player and a founding SWTOR player with a current subscription to that game. I am very much looking forward to playing this game when it eventually comes out. I've been longing for an open, evolving world that doesn't make you out to be "the hero" for a very long time. One set in the now or in the future, not fantasy land. Don't get me wrong. I like the fantasy genre, but it is over saturated with games and is played out for me. From the descriptions and from everything I have read, it looks to be a good game that I can finally settle down in and call home.
I know the feeling. I'm burnt out on fantasy. I don't want to be a hero. I just want a game that lets me roam about, do my own thing, build a little here, distroy a little there and genrally write my own story.
A game where you aren't the center of the entire universe and the world doesn't revolve at your whim? A game that violates the 'It's all ME; I'm the hero' principles taught to us by 8-bit Mario and Zelda? Zomg!
/sarcasm
Really though, the story centric games have great stories, but I'd rather read a book if I'm looking for a story. In a game, I want a world. A living, breathing mutable entity where I am one tiny speck in a sea of tiny specks, for good or ill, and where that good or that ill is up to me.
i guess the player base who will be playing Repop are mostly the ex SWG, Earthrise players who always look for sandbox, but GW2, SWTOR etc players will not even look at this
I'm an ex-SWG player and a founding SWTOR player with a current subscription to that game. I am very much looking forward to playing this game when it eventually comes out. I've been longing for an open, evolving world that doesn't make you out to be "the hero" for a very long time. One set in the now or in the future, not fantasy land. Don't get me wrong. I like the fantasy genre, but it is over saturated with games and is played out for me. From the descriptions and from everything I have read, it looks to be a good game that I can finally settle down in and call home.
I know the feeling. I'm burnt out on fantasy. I don't want to be a hero. I just want a game that lets me roam about, do my own thing, build a little here, distroy a little there and genrally write my own story.
A game where you aren't the center of the entire universe and the world doesn't revolve at your whim? A game that violates the 'It's all ME; I'm the hero' principles taught to us by 8-bit Mario and Zelda? Zomg!
/sarcasm
Really though, the story centric games have great stories, but I'd rather read a book if I'm looking for a story. In a game, I want a world. A living, breathing mutable entity where I am one tiny speck in a sea of tiny specks, for good or ill, and where that good or that ill is up to me.
That is the most awesome sauce bit about Sandboxes. Just give me some toys to play with and let me go. Then I'm a happy camper.
Originally posted by Onomas This, but also its a sandbox. Sandbox = player created items, crafting, player based economy, etc....
F2P = i can have as many accounts as i want. Thus i can make multiple characters. Will/could either:
1) Flood the market with items and resources driving prices down or up.
2) Not allow dedicated go to crafters.
3) Since everyone can do the same thing and craft the same items, there wont be a need to have player interaction/selling. Example in SWG a DE needed items from a weaponsmith and a artisan and would need to buy/sell/trade for those items in order to make his/her item. If everyone can have multiple accounts this is taken out of the equation. Severly hurts the economy and need for others.
4) If a player exploits, chears, uses dubs most companies dont IP ban, allowing that person back in within minutes.
5) F2P = no money for this company. Cosmetic items? Who needs those? If the company doesnt make money = no support, no expansions, no new content, etc... Eventualy most games that are F2P start adding items that arent "cosmetic" to the mix to make more money ( boosts, mounts, weapons, etc...) It could happen, and that would be a shame.
6) The game company seems to have a solid game here. They are selling themselves short by jumping onto the F2P band wagon right off the bat. They could do 5 or even 10 dollar per month subs.
F2P brings a lot of other issues to the table and just feel any successful sandbox wont thrive on this system. Perhaps i will be wrong, but i have never played a F2P game that was free and didnt have a ruined economy.
Yes you can make 20 accounts if you want. But those 20 accounts are of no more use to you than 1 account (botting/exploitation aside).
You can do anything and everything on one toon. To flood the market with resources, or deprive it of resources, you don't need 20 accounts. This also isn't a micro economy - you're going to have a helluva time affecting the overall economy for any peroid of time regardless of what you do. Don't sell to crafters, undercut them, whatever, but your actions will be a single drop (whether accomplished on 20 toons or on 1) in a huge bucket. If you think the few people who will spend years to master everything in the game will ruin the overall economy, you're mistaken.
And on that same line, you have no idea how long it will take to be a master of everything. I honestly couldn't even tell you how long because the skill list isn't finalized. We recently added a skill that isn't on the website yet afaik. This isn't Wow where people max out in 6 hours. In 6 dedicated hours of skilling up you're barely going to scratch the surface.
We are implimenting tools that will allow us to find, track, and effectively deal with exploiters/botters/etc. I can't really elaborate on it, not my area of expertise, but it is something we are working on.
The developers have no interest in creating a pay2win system. They don't like them and they don't want it in Repop. I have faith that they will stick to their guns on this. People spend a lot more than you think on cosmetic items, btw, especially in a game where they otherwise are not required to spend money.
Repop was designed as a F2P game. We aren't jumping on any bandwagon, we are utilizing a particular method to open this game to the greatest possible audience. There are memberships that provide bonuses/perks that are the equivalent of a box fee, but we're giving everyone the oppertunity to not just take a quick peek at the game but dive in and experience it all and then decide if it's worth your money or not. We're counting on delivering a product that the players will pay for, not because they're forced, but because they value it highly enough to want to spend money here.
Whats this "we" stuff? Are you part of the dev team making the repopulation?
Because most the stuff you claim "we" are doing others have claimed in other games and they failed, horribly.
For a big one:
"You can do anything and everything on one toon"
That right there means a dead economy. Dont care how many times people say it doesnt, ive played tons of mmo's and majority being sandboxes and that has always ruined the crafting/player economy in every single one. It wont be any different here because the devs cant control how players spend their time.
There is a lot you state here that do not go well with sandboxes. And majority of F2P games are filled with hyper active 12 year olds and ruins the mojo. Look at all these other games F2P, pathetic in almost every aspect.
And sandboxes dont have limits, F2P with cash shop = limits.
"To flood the market with resources, or deprive it of resources, you don't need 20 accounts. This also isn't a micro economy - you're going to have a helluva time affecting the overall economy for any peroid of time regardless of what you do. Don't sell to crafters, undercut them, whatever, but your actions will be a single drop (whether accomplished on 20 toons or on 1) in a huge bucket. If you think the few people who will spend years to master everything in the game will ruin the overall economy, you're mistaken."
Been done ^^^^ already in other games. SWG as an example, the economy was ruined by this exact thing. With one account i could cross server trade lots and have fields of harversters and mass produce all kinds of resources. Its how i kept my 5 crafters rolling. Could flood the market easily with the 5-10 million units of resources i could gather.
And by your statement it sounds as if the game wont last years down the road. Another bad sign. Think long term not short term. Its the hardcore dedicated players and your loyal fan base that always get hurt the hardest. A year down the road i wont need a single thing from any player you are basicaly saying, again hurts the player based economy.
Unless this game will be designed to be a loot based economy like themeparks, then on that note any crafting or player absed economy is dead already.
Yes im voiceful on these subjects, many a good games/sandboxes have been ruined by neglecting the truth and the past. Nothing against you, but tired of good games getting hammered for poor execution or foresight.
In EVE Online a player technically can do everything on one toon. There is no limitation to what you can and cannot skill up in the game. The only thing is that it takes years to do so, and most people choose to focus on specific elements of the game.
EVE has a thriving player based economy. While yes it is a sub game, players can earn enough credits in game to buy game time with in game currency. They may not spend real world money on a sub for the game. This is not a drain on the economy though as that cash goes into the pockets of people who sold them the game sub, they turn around and invest it into the game.
Also, harversters are not something The Repopulation wants to implement in the game.
That means players will have to log in and manually harvest the 5-10 million units of Ore.
They will have to run the materials through hostile territory more than likely, as a lot of the safer zones will likely be over harvested. If you want the good stuff, you have to work for it.
Secondly, I'm thinking that you're looking at The Repopulation crafting and thinking that a person is going to be able to pop a ton of ore into their bags, queue up 10 chest pieces, then throw those on the auction house.
If you take a look at the Alpha crafting video, you can see there's a little more to crafting than having the mats in your bag and clicking one button repeatedly. Crafters are going to have to perform quality control on what they are crafting to ensure that they recieve good end results. They have to make sure that they have all of the items they need to ensure that they recieve good end results. They also have to make that item a few times before they get the best results possible.
It is a step by step process and a rather detailed one. If someone is going to spend the time to refine that 5-10 million units of ore, using their 12 hours a day game time to do it, more power to them. They're going to need all the right materials to make sure that they have a viable end product and they're going to have to skill up their refining abilities to get the best quality product.
They put that on the market, and crafters who don't have 12 hours per day to play the game can buy the ore. The crafters will probably get a very good buy if, as you're implying, there will be an army of harvesters traversing the landscape harvesting everything and anything they find.
It's all in the details.
The hardcore and longterm players, just as in a game like EVE Online, are going to be the players who will recieve the most return on their time invested in game. Through the social connections made in the game and through their own character advancement.
Major difference though...1 year of play time is NOT that long to master every skill. EVE online it would take you 27 years if they didnt introduce new skills.
I like EVEs approach much better. should be damn near impossible and you would want a specialized character.
Originally posted by Onomas This, but also its a sandbox. Sandbox = player created items, crafting, player based economy, etc....
F2P = i can have as many accounts as i want. Thus i can make multiple characters. Will/could either:
1) Flood the market with items and resources driving prices down or up.
2) Not allow dedicated go to crafters.
3) Since everyone can do the same thing and craft the same items, there wont be a need to have player interaction/selling. Example in SWG a DE needed items from a weaponsmith and a artisan and would need to buy/sell/trade for those items in order to make his/her item. If everyone can have multiple accounts this is taken out of the equation. Severly hurts the economy and need for others.
4) If a player exploits, chears, uses dubs most companies dont IP ban, allowing that person back in within minutes.
5) F2P = no money for this company. Cosmetic items? Who needs those? If the company doesnt make money = no support, no expansions, no new content, etc... Eventualy most games that are F2P start adding items that arent "cosmetic" to the mix to make more money ( boosts, mounts, weapons, etc...) It could happen, and that would be a shame.
6) The game company seems to have a solid game here. They are selling themselves short by jumping onto the F2P band wagon right off the bat. They could do 5 or even 10 dollar per month subs.
F2P brings a lot of other issues to the table and just feel any successful sandbox wont thrive on this system. Perhaps i will be wrong, but i have never played a F2P game that was free and didnt have a ruined economy.
Yes you can make 20 accounts if you want. But those 20 accounts are of no more use to you than 1 account (botting/exploitation aside).
You can do anything and everything on one toon. To flood the market with resources, or deprive it of resources, you don't need 20 accounts. This also isn't a micro economy - you're going to have a helluva time affecting the overall economy for any peroid of time regardless of what you do. Don't sell to crafters, undercut them, whatever, but your actions will be a single drop (whether accomplished on 20 toons or on 1) in a huge bucket. If you think the few people who will spend years to master everything in the game will ruin the overall economy, you're mistaken.
And on that same line, you have no idea how long it will take to be a master of everything. I honestly couldn't even tell you how long because the skill list isn't finalized. We recently added a skill that isn't on the website yet afaik. This isn't Wow where people max out in 6 hours. In 6 dedicated hours of skilling up you're barely going to scratch the surface.
We are implimenting tools that will allow us to find, track, and effectively deal with exploiters/botters/etc. I can't really elaborate on it, not my area of expertise, but it is something we are working on.
The developers have no interest in creating a pay2win system. They don't like them and they don't want it in Repop. I have faith that they will stick to their guns on this. People spend a lot more than you think on cosmetic items, btw, especially in a game where they otherwise are not required to spend money.
Repop was designed as a F2P game. We aren't jumping on any bandwagon, we are utilizing a particular method to open this game to the greatest possible audience. There are memberships that provide bonuses/perks that are the equivalent of a box fee, but we're giving everyone the oppertunity to not just take a quick peek at the game but dive in and experience it all and then decide if it's worth your money or not. We're counting on delivering a product that the players will pay for, not because they're forced, but because they value it highly enough to want to spend money here.
Whats this "we" stuff? Are you part of the dev team making the repopulation?
Because most the stuff you claim "we" are doing others have claimed in other games and they failed, horribly.
For a big one:
"You can do anything and everything on one toon"
That right there means a dead economy. Dont care how many times people say it doesnt, ive played tons of mmo's and majority being sandboxes and that has always ruined the crafting/player economy in every single one. It wont be any different here because the devs cant control how players spend their time.
There is a lot you state here that do not go well with sandboxes. And majority of F2P games are filled with hyper active 12 year olds and ruins the mojo. Look at all these other games F2P, pathetic in almost every aspect.
And sandboxes dont have limits, F2P with cash shop = limits.
"To flood the market with resources, or deprive it of resources, you don't need 20 accounts. This also isn't a micro economy - you're going to have a helluva time affecting the overall economy for any peroid of time regardless of what you do. Don't sell to crafters, undercut them, whatever, but your actions will be a single drop (whether accomplished on 20 toons or on 1) in a huge bucket. If you think the few people who will spend years to master everything in the game will ruin the overall economy, you're mistaken."
Been done ^^^^ already in other games. SWG as an example, the economy was ruined by this exact thing. With one account i could cross server trade lots and have fields of harversters and mass produce all kinds of resources. Its how i kept my 5 crafters rolling. Could flood the market easily with the 5-10 million units of resources i could gather.
And by your statement it sounds as if the game wont last years down the road. Another bad sign. Think long term not short term. Its the hardcore dedicated players and your loyal fan base that always get hurt the hardest. A year down the road i wont need a single thing from any player you are basicaly saying, again hurts the player based economy.
Unless this game will be designed to be a loot based economy like themeparks, then on that note any crafting or player absed economy is dead already.
Yes im voiceful on these subjects, many a good games/sandboxes have been ruined by neglecting the truth and the past. Nothing against you, but tired of good games getting hammered for poor execution or foresight.
In EVE Online a player technically can do everything on one toon. There is no limitation to what you can and cannot skill up in the game. The only thing is that it takes years to do so, and most people choose to focus on specific elements of the game.
EVE has a thriving player based economy. While yes it is a sub game, players can earn enough credits in game to buy game time with in game currency. They may not spend real world money on a sub for the game. This is not a drain on the economy though as that cash goes into the pockets of people who sold them the game sub, they turn around and invest it into the game.
Also, harversters are not something The Repopulation wants to implement in the game.
That means players will have to log in and manually harvest the 5-10 million units of Ore.
They will have to run the materials through hostile territory more than likely, as a lot of the safer zones will likely be over harvested. If you want the good stuff, you have to work for it.
Secondly, I'm thinking that you're looking at The Repopulation crafting and thinking that a person is going to be able to pop a ton of ore into their bags, queue up 10 chest pieces, then throw those on the auction house.
If you take a look at the Alpha crafting video, you can see there's a little more to crafting than having the mats in your bag and clicking one button repeatedly. Crafters are going to have to perform quality control on what they are crafting to ensure that they recieve good end results. They have to make sure that they have all of the items they need to ensure that they recieve good end results. They also have to make that item a few times before they get the best results possible.
It is a step by step process and a rather detailed one. If someone is going to spend the time to refine that 5-10 million units of ore, using their 12 hours a day game time to do it, more power to them. They're going to need all the right materials to make sure that they have a viable end product and they're going to have to skill up their refining abilities to get the best quality product.
They put that on the market, and crafters who don't have 12 hours per day to play the game can buy the ore. The crafters will probably get a very good buy if, as you're implying, there will be an army of harvesters traversing the landscape harvesting everything and anything they find.
It's all in the details.
The hardcore and longterm players, just as in a game like EVE Online, are going to be the players who will recieve the most return on their time invested in game. Through the social connections made in the game and through their own character advancement.
Major difference though...1 year of play time is NOT that long to master every skill. EVE online it would take you 27 years if they didnt introduce new skills.
I like EVEs approach much better. should be damn near impossible and you would want a specialized character.
The game devs have stated thatit'll take more than one year to master all of the skills.
In The Repopulation people will have to be online and performing activities to skill up. Players would have to spend 24 hours a day and 7 days a week in game working on skill ups to master every skill as quickly as possible.
Yes there will be someone who tries to do it, but it isn't something that will happen overnight or within one year.
That also doesn't mean that a person who has mastered every skill has mastered every recipe, tamed every pet, built every pet, or collected every rare harvestable etc.
It is going to take time.
What The Repopulation DOES do is that it gives folks the opportunity to focus on everything they WANT to do in game. Be that working on a flavor of the month build or being a grenade launcher toting, pet taming, medic.
This will mean specialization, but interest based specialization, not class or profession forced specialization.
This will give veteran players a chance to log into the same character and do something new after they have leveled up one skill or another. They wouldn't have to re-roll to continue to enjoy the game, they can do it all on one character.
Personally I prefer playing a game that lets me specialize based on interesest and do so with one character as opposed to breaking out in alts.
It would take well longer than a year to master every skill and mastery, and the gain for doing so would be pretty small. By that over a year statement, we're talking about the most hardcore players. The 60+ hours a week guys. For an average player it would take several years. Then if you raise the skill cap by one tier, it would take a significant amount of time to catch up to the max again. While someplayers will set out to do that, it would be something they did as an achievement, and not at all a requirement for power. You'd have more options, but not significantly more power.
The limitation on combat types is the equipped weapons, so you can only play a single role at a time, with a penalty for switching during combat. For craftings resources are your limitation, as well as the need to master each recipe type if your trying to produce the very highest grade results. So while it is possible to eventually master everything, it would be more of an achievement than anythign else.
I'm very hopefull about how this game will turn out. The developers seem to be making what I think are some very good decisions on the direction its development is taking.
It's a well known fact though that it is rare for a brand new company with a low to medium budget will make a game that's highly successful - in your words "one of the best sandbox MMOs" is incredibly unlikely. There have been innovative attempts like this in the past with games like Archlord, Saga of Ryzom, Tabula Rasa and probably others I can't think of right now.. all did pretty bad.
You never know though - Eve has managed to find a niché crowd and enjoys about 500k subscribers or so. DarkFall also did pretty well from what I understand. Neither are regarded as the best and both are very specific playerbases only.
I'll keep a watch on it - it's a long way off yet.
It's a well known fact though that it is rare for a brand new company with a low to medium budget will make a game that's highly successful - in your words "one of the best sandbox MMOs" is incredibly unlikely. There have been innovative attempts like this in the past with games like Archlord, Saga of Ryzom, Tabula Rasa and probably others I can't think of right now.. all did pretty bad.
You never know though - Eve has managed to find a niché crowd and enjoys about 500k subscribers or so. DarkFall also did pretty well from what I understand. Neither are regarded as the best and both are very specific playerbases only.
I'll keep a watch on it - it's a long way off yet.
the playerbase of darkfall got backstabbed yet again by av..
most of us prolly coming to this game..
So many nice features in this game.. need to see first if they can deliver
I am looking foward this game but I fear its smaller development team will cause it to fall pray to the same trappings as several other indie sandbox games. Huge dreams, little tallent/manpower.
Things I expect to see is a huge influx of players the first few weeks if not months of the game, where there will be a great deal of griefing, grinding, and macro/afk bot'ing. I would be greatly surprised if the game launches with less bugs than other indie games, or that it runs half way decently on mid range rigs for months.
I am looking foward this game but I fear its smaller development team will cause it to fall pray to the same trappings as several other indie sandbox games. Huge dreams, little tallent/manpower.
Things I expect to see is a huge influx of players the first few weeks if not months of the game, where there will be a great deal of griefing, grinding, and macro/afk bot'ing. I would be greatly surprised if the game launches with less bugs than other indie games, or that it runs half way decently on mid range rigs for months.
Bugs are a fact of life, whether you are an indie developer or a huge developer and I would argue that more bugs get through the larger developers than the smaller, simply because they don't care and want to get their money back through initial sales and figure they can fix it later. That's not as true with smaller developers, since if they don't get the revenue upfront, then they're screwed. This is especially true for a game being released as F2P, which means no upfront revenue at all and a heavy reliance on the cash shop. So one could argue that Above and Beyond are going to be a lot more diligent about shipping a broken game, since it is basically their livelihood at stake. As far as how the game runs, with smaller developers, they are generally going to have lower end machines, since they don't have the extra money to run on more expensive machines. Point of fact is that one of the lead developers is actually running on a medium to low end machine and would have an idea if the game started running dog slow without having to rely on third person information.
Originally posted by Wellspring I watched the trailer and I have to disagree with the OP. The graphics DO suck...
That was the Alpha trailer. Graphics is already much better thanks to the update to Hero Engine which introduced many new features. And I bet it will improve even more before release.
I am looking foward this game but I fear its smaller development team will cause it to fall pray to the same trappings as several other indie sandbox games. Huge dreams, little tallent/manpower.
Things I expect to see is a huge influx of players the first few weeks if not months of the game, where there will be a great deal of griefing, grinding, and macro/afk bot'ing. I would be greatly surprised if the game launches with less bugs than other indie games, or that it runs half way decently on mid range rigs for months.
Bugs are a fact of life, whether you are an indie developer or a huge developer and I would argue that more bugs get through the larger developers than the smaller, simply because they don't care and want to get their money back through initial sales and figure they can fix it later. That's not as true with smaller developers, since if they don't get the revenue upfront, then they're screwed. This is especially true for a game being released as F2P, which means no upfront revenue at all and a heavy reliance on the cash shop. So one could argue that Above and Beyond are going to be a lot more diligent about shipping a broken game, since it is basically their livelihood at stake. As far as how the game runs, with smaller developers, they are generally going to have lower end machines, since they don't have the extra money to run on more expensive machines. Point of fact is that one of the lead developers is actually running on a medium to low end machine and would have an idea if the game started running dog slow without having to rely on third person information.
The same was said about Star Vault, 3 years ago when they started posting information about Mortal Online, and about Aventure when they posted information about Darkfall Online. I agree that it doesnt matter the size of the developer bugs are going to happen. But smaller development teams means less manpower, and that inturn means if there is a bug, they have to devote the little manpower they have to fixing that issue instead of improving or expanding, or even completing the game.
If you have 5 people working on something, and it takes all 5 to get it done. And when it is released and there is an issue with something in game, well instead of working on the next feature you have to pull 1 or 2 people off of it, or roughly 40% of your available manpower, to fix that issue. This means you have lost 40% of your productivity for that cycle. And after working in the automotive world on cars for 10 years I can tell you, fixing mistakes made by you, dont make you money.
A larger development team of say 20, has the same issue, they devote 4 people to fix the problem, giving them 200% more manpower on the problem, and are able to fix the problem in HALF the time as the smaller team, and still have 80% of their available manpower on the original task. Meaning they are still able to complete things in timely maner, and thus make money.
The same was said about Star Vault, 3 years ago when they started posting information about Mortal Online, and about Aventure when they posted information about Darkfall Online. I agree that it doesnt matter the size of the developer bugs are going to happen. But smaller development teams means less manpower, and that inturn means if there is a bug, they have to devote the little manpower they have to fixing that issue instead of improving or expanding, or even completing the game.
If you have 5 people working on something, and it takes all 5 to get it done. And when it is released and there is an issue with something in game, well instead of working on the next feature you have to pull 1 or 2 people off of it, or roughly 40% of your available manpower, to fix that issue. This means you have lost 40% of your productivity for that cycle. And after working in the automotive world on cars for 10 years I can tell you, fixing mistakes made by you, dont make you money.
A larger development team of say 20, has the same issue, they devote 4 people to fix the problem, giving them 200% more manpower on the problem, and are able to fix the problem in HALF the time as the smaller team, and still have 80% of their available manpower on the original task. Meaning they are still able to complete things in timely maner, and thus make money.
Problem number one with your argument is the misconception about how many people are actually working on the game. Problem number 2 is your assumption of how many people it would take to actually fix the problem. Then your third issue is that you are making assumptions about how far along the game actually is.
Let's correct some of that, shall we? First, you don't need a large team to develop software, nor does it take more than one person to track down and fix a bug. HP bought out a studio that developed software which was being marketed to financial institutions for document management basically. There's more to it, of course, but I'm simplifying for the sake of it's beside the point. You know how many developers they had for that task, which got the company sold for several million dollars, as well as a continued revenue of multimillion dollars a year? They had a total of 6 people developing and writing this program, across several platforms at the time the company was sold.
But hey, MMO's are much more complicated, right? I get that. So let's break it down for ease of understanding. Let's say one person works on animations, another works on the AI, while maybe one or two implement the features into the game, while we have another who actually puts all of this together into a cohesive product. So you're claiming that the guy who does animations is going to know how to troubleshoot a problem witth the AI and is going to work with the AI programmer to find the problem? Then, of course, is the simple fact that a lot of work can simply be outsourced, with those numbers not contributing to the actual developer count of the company. Then we also have volunteers and people who are contributing for reduced pay in anticipation of reward further down the line.
Then comes the assumption of how far along the game is. You're overlooking a simple fact that a lot of the features are already in place. At this point, most of the hard work is done and it's simply adding extra features and fine-tuning a lot of other things. With the groundwork already in place, this isn't as daunting a task as you seem to want to make it out to be. Bugs could happen and most likely will happen, but that doesn't mean that the problems aren't insurmountable, nor does it mean that manpower has to be taken from other areas to fix it. And you're right, they could still run into a problem that is game-breaking and push the target release date back by quite a bit. You either have faith they can overcome the obstacles, or you don't. Some of us choose to wait and see and are looking forward to the prospect of the game. Not with bated breath, but simply for curiousity and longing. Most of us have been burned far too many times to get hyped up again until we see it.
With your claim about small developers, you have to also look at the successes. What about CCP? Or Flying Labs Software? Or Icarus Studios?
Another thing to note here, people keep throwing around this 5 developer number. When this game was first announced, we had already had the bulk of the game systems in place with a team of 2 programmers, 1 in-house artist and two steady contract artists. That was the team that created the first few videos. The team currently consists of 14 people, so it's grown a little bit. We've had over 160 applications to help on the project in that time. It would be easy to add a lot of people to create the illusion of a large team, but I personally think that would be a hindrance rather than a benefit.
Having more programmers certainly does make it easier to squash bugs and develop new features at the same time. Having more artists does allow you to get art done more quickly, etc. But it also makes it more difficult to manage everything that is going on. Most large companies I've worked for get a lot less productivity from each employee than smaller teams. You often have people doing nothing while waiting to be told what to do, or waiting on someone else to finish something that is required before they can get started. Simply adding more people isn't always a good solution.
Comments
Exactly...and don't compare them to the ones who started out P2P and went F2P...whole different ballgame there.
Ok this one I had to reply to,now let's see what game matches this criteria oh yes......
Most Successfull Sci-fi,indie developed sandbox.
Eve Online !!,nuff said
I'm an ex-SWG player and a founding SWTOR player with a current subscription to that game. I am very much looking forward to playing this game when it eventually comes out. I've been longing for an open, evolving world that doesn't make you out to be "the hero" for a very long time. One set in the now or in the future, not fantasy land. Don't get me wrong. I like the fantasy genre, but it is over saturated with games and is played out for me. From the descriptions and from everything I have read, it looks to be a good game that I can finally settle down in and call home.
I know the feeling. I'm burnt out on fantasy. I don't want to be a hero. I just want a game that lets me roam about, do my own thing, build a little here, distroy a little there and genrally write my own story.
A game where you aren't the center of the entire universe and the world doesn't revolve at your whim? A game that violates the 'It's all ME; I'm the hero' principles taught to us by 8-bit Mario and Zelda? Zomg!
/sarcasm
Really though, the story centric games have great stories, but I'd rather read a book if I'm looking for a story. In a game, I want a world. A living, breathing mutable entity where I am one tiny speck in a sea of tiny specks, for good or ill, and where that good or that ill is up to me.
That is the most awesome sauce bit about Sandboxes. Just give me some toys to play with and let me go. Then I'm a happy camper.
Major difference though...1 year of play time is NOT that long to master every skill. EVE online it would take you 27 years if they didnt introduce new skills.
I like EVEs approach much better. should be damn near impossible and you would want a specialized character.
The game devs have stated that it'll take more than one year to master all of the skills.
In The Repopulation people will have to be online and performing activities to skill up. Players would have to spend 24 hours a day and 7 days a week in game working on skill ups to master every skill as quickly as possible.
Yes there will be someone who tries to do it, but it isn't something that will happen overnight or within one year.
That also doesn't mean that a person who has mastered every skill has mastered every recipe, tamed every pet, built every pet, or collected every rare harvestable etc.
It is going to take time.
What The Repopulation DOES do is that it gives folks the opportunity to focus on everything they WANT to do in game. Be that working on a flavor of the month build or being a grenade launcher toting, pet taming, medic.
This will mean specialization, but interest based specialization, not class or profession forced specialization.
This will give veteran players a chance to log into the same character and do something new after they have leveled up one skill or another. They wouldn't have to re-roll to continue to enjoy the game, they can do it all on one character.
Personally I prefer playing a game that lets me specialize based on interesest and do so with one character as opposed to breaking out in alts.
It would take well longer than a year to master every skill and mastery, and the gain for doing so would be pretty small. By that over a year statement, we're talking about the most hardcore players. The 60+ hours a week guys. For an average player it would take several years. Then if you raise the skill cap by one tier, it would take a significant amount of time to catch up to the max again. While someplayers will set out to do that, it would be something they did as an achievement, and not at all a requirement for power. You'd have more options, but not significantly more power.
The limitation on combat types is the equipped weapons, so you can only play a single role at a time, with a penalty for switching during combat. For craftings resources are your limitation, as well as the need to master each recipe type if your trying to produce the very highest grade results. So while it is possible to eventually master everything, it would be more of an achievement than anythign else.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
We'll see I guess.
It's a well known fact though that it is rare for a brand new company with a low to medium budget will make a game that's highly successful - in your words "one of the best sandbox MMOs" is incredibly unlikely. There have been innovative attempts like this in the past with games like Archlord, Saga of Ryzom, Tabula Rasa and probably others I can't think of right now.. all did pretty bad.
You never know though - Eve has managed to find a niché crowd and enjoys about 500k subscribers or so. DarkFall also did pretty well from what I understand. Neither are regarded as the best and both are very specific playerbases only.
I'll keep a watch on it - it's a long way off yet.
the playerbase of darkfall got backstabbed yet again by av..
most of us prolly coming to this game..
So many nice features in this game.. need to see first if they can deliver
I am looking foward this game but I fear its smaller development team will cause it to fall pray to the same trappings as several other indie sandbox games. Huge dreams, little tallent/manpower.
Things I expect to see is a huge influx of players the first few weeks if not months of the game, where there will be a great deal of griefing, grinding, and macro/afk bot'ing. I would be greatly surprised if the game launches with less bugs than other indie games, or that it runs half way decently on mid range rigs for months.
So much crap, so little quality.
Bugs are a fact of life, whether you are an indie developer or a huge developer and I would argue that more bugs get through the larger developers than the smaller, simply because they don't care and want to get their money back through initial sales and figure they can fix it later. That's not as true with smaller developers, since if they don't get the revenue upfront, then they're screwed. This is especially true for a game being released as F2P, which means no upfront revenue at all and a heavy reliance on the cash shop. So one could argue that Above and Beyond are going to be a lot more diligent about shipping a broken game, since it is basically their livelihood at stake. As far as how the game runs, with smaller developers, they are generally going to have lower end machines, since they don't have the extra money to run on more expensive machines. Point of fact is that one of the lead developers is actually running on a medium to low end machine and would have an idea if the game started running dog slow without having to rely on third person information.
I take you to be the type of person that tries to compare the graphics of every MMO on the market to games like Crysis 2 and then complain about it.
All I heard was... "Well aren't you just a little lolly pop triple dipped in psycho."
That was the Alpha trailer. Graphics is already much better thanks to the update to Hero Engine which introduced many new features. And I bet it will improve even more before release.
Executive Editor (Games) http://www.wccftech.com
The same was said about Star Vault, 3 years ago when they started posting information about Mortal Online, and about Aventure when they posted information about Darkfall Online. I agree that it doesnt matter the size of the developer bugs are going to happen. But smaller development teams means less manpower, and that inturn means if there is a bug, they have to devote the little manpower they have to fixing that issue instead of improving or expanding, or even completing the game.
If you have 5 people working on something, and it takes all 5 to get it done. And when it is released and there is an issue with something in game, well instead of working on the next feature you have to pull 1 or 2 people off of it, or roughly 40% of your available manpower, to fix that issue. This means you have lost 40% of your productivity for that cycle. And after working in the automotive world on cars for 10 years I can tell you, fixing mistakes made by you, dont make you money.
A larger development team of say 20, has the same issue, they devote 4 people to fix the problem, giving them 200% more manpower on the problem, and are able to fix the problem in HALF the time as the smaller team, and still have 80% of their available manpower on the original task. Meaning they are still able to complete things in timely maner, and thus make money.
So much crap, so little quality.
As long as it works, it will be.
Age of Wushu has set the bar for qaulity sandbox mmos. Bugs, people running around naked with nothing but pk'ing to do just wont cut for me anymore.
Problem number one with your argument is the misconception about how many people are actually working on the game. Problem number 2 is your assumption of how many people it would take to actually fix the problem. Then your third issue is that you are making assumptions about how far along the game actually is.
Let's correct some of that, shall we? First, you don't need a large team to develop software, nor does it take more than one person to track down and fix a bug. HP bought out a studio that developed software which was being marketed to financial institutions for document management basically. There's more to it, of course, but I'm simplifying for the sake of it's beside the point. You know how many developers they had for that task, which got the company sold for several million dollars, as well as a continued revenue of multimillion dollars a year? They had a total of 6 people developing and writing this program, across several platforms at the time the company was sold.
But hey, MMO's are much more complicated, right? I get that. So let's break it down for ease of understanding. Let's say one person works on animations, another works on the AI, while maybe one or two implement the features into the game, while we have another who actually puts all of this together into a cohesive product. So you're claiming that the guy who does animations is going to know how to troubleshoot a problem witth the AI and is going to work with the AI programmer to find the problem? Then, of course, is the simple fact that a lot of work can simply be outsourced, with those numbers not contributing to the actual developer count of the company. Then we also have volunteers and people who are contributing for reduced pay in anticipation of reward further down the line.
Then comes the assumption of how far along the game is. You're overlooking a simple fact that a lot of the features are already in place. At this point, most of the hard work is done and it's simply adding extra features and fine-tuning a lot of other things. With the groundwork already in place, this isn't as daunting a task as you seem to want to make it out to be. Bugs could happen and most likely will happen, but that doesn't mean that the problems aren't insurmountable, nor does it mean that manpower has to be taken from other areas to fix it. And you're right, they could still run into a problem that is game-breaking and push the target release date back by quite a bit. You either have faith they can overcome the obstacles, or you don't. Some of us choose to wait and see and are looking forward to the prospect of the game. Not with bated breath, but simply for curiousity and longing. Most of us have been burned far too many times to get hyped up again until we see it.
With your claim about small developers, you have to also look at the successes. What about CCP? Or Flying Labs Software? Or Icarus Studios?Survivor of the great MMORPG Famine of 2011
Another thing to note here, people keep throwing around this 5 developer number. When this game was first announced, we had already had the bulk of the game systems in place with a team of 2 programmers, 1 in-house artist and two steady contract artists. That was the team that created the first few videos. The team currently consists of 14 people, so it's grown a little bit. We've had over 160 applications to help on the project in that time. It would be easy to add a lot of people to create the illusion of a large team, but I personally think that would be a hindrance rather than a benefit.
Having more programmers certainly does make it easier to squash bugs and develop new features at the same time. Having more artists does allow you to get art done more quickly, etc. But it also makes it more difficult to manage everything that is going on. Most large companies I've worked for get a lot less productivity from each employee than smaller teams. You often have people doing nothing while waiting to be told what to do, or waiting on someone else to finish something that is required before they can get started. Simply adding more people isn't always a good solution.
https://www.therepopulation.com - Sci Fi Sandbox.
What would help though is having more hours in a day ... i'm always at least 8 short