The Way Forward...

Slapshot1188

To this point those who were skeptical of the game's wild ambition and low resources were mocked, ridiculed and ignored by the Ivory Tower.   Today the developer was forced to layoff team members.   I think this could have been avoided and it really pisses me off that people continue to make the same mistakes as those that have gone before them.   Here is my advice to prevent the rest of the studio from similar disaster:

1. Forget everything that happened up to this point.  Start fresh.  If you were starting the project right now what would you promise/do?

2. Reevaluate the monetization concept.  The ideas below are not all inclusive and maybe these aren’t the right ones, but the existing one is NOT the answer. I am shocked that someone who has a degree is psychology thinks it is a good idea to tie a pain point of the game (dying) to the monetization.   Most companies try to get you to feel good about spending disposable income on their product. Anyhow... Here are some options.

• a. The ageing mechanism is an integral part of the game’s design.  We get that. But tying the monetization into it is a clear negative.  Many people go nuts when they get killed in a PvP game.   More go nuts when they get killed in a PvP game and lose their items.  Now CoE is going to actually take it further by allowing someone who kills you to cost you money in the form of lost play time on your character. THIS IS BAD.   You can still have deaths age a character, but split it off from the monetization.   If a spark was supposed to last for 9 months convert that into 6/12 month subs

• b. You already have one of the most over the top cash shops I have ever seen.  Saying it will close at launch is actually the worst of both worlds IMHO.   Keep the cash shop open.  Your community has proven that they will buy thousands of tokens to vote for king or expand their village.  Sell unique role playing items in the shop.  Let them buy a new emote and special dyes…  

3. Scale down the scope of the game.   Instead of “Hundreds of thousands”  on each server set your sights on something more realistic like 10,000.  Then once that is achieved expand. Nobody says you can't have future enhancements and try for your dream numbers but building your game under the assumption that hundreds of thousands of characters will be on each server is just a plan to fail.

4. Take a good long look at the OPC concept.  This is a complex feature rife with opportunity to fail on both the technical side and the fun/gameplay side.   I suggest you consider pulling it from being a launch feature to something you experiment with further down the line.  

5. Decide on what can realistically be accomplished by 1st half of 2020.  Be conservative.  Cut anything else you need in order to insure you hit that date.  Go back in later if you can and add it, but if you push past 2020 you may as well fold up shop now. Be open with a timeline and budget.  Show monthly milestones and prove you can hit them.

6. Collapse the Asia Pacific server.  It simply does not have the population to survive.  In its place launch a “clean” server with no pre-sold kings, lords or mayors.  This way the diehard fans that have supported you get to keep what they bought, but you open up the game to a huge portion of people who simply will not consider joining a game with so many advantages sold.

7. Open yourself to external interviews.  Get away from the echo-chamber.  You don’t need yes men, you need people around you who will challenge your concepts and ideas.  Don’t get defensive.  Humility goes a long way. Most importantly… look at those projects that have come before you. LEARN from them.  Do not continue to repeat the same mistakes.

8. Say what you mean, do what you say and do it in the time you say you will do it.

9. Ditch the “Us vs Them” mentality.  Sending the Ivory Tower out to smite down Harbingers might play well to the dedicated base, but it’s a huge turn off to most of the population.  

OrangeBoy

OPC at the level described didn't seem very realistic to me, and the fact that there would be tens of thousands of bots walking around would make the game less immersive.

So, definitely it needs to be removed and assessed again.  

Hopefully it turns out okay, but they need to stop everything for a day and revaluate what they are actually doing and not blame others.

MadFrenchie

The layoffs certainly make me wonder about Caspian's earlier comments about investors.  If he truly turned down all potential investors (assuming there were some), then those layoffs are on him.

The downside to not having anyone focused on the business side of things on the team.

GeezerGamer

@MadFrenchie Things like what you just said make me think this project is in absolute dire straits. Caspian knew he needed to find an investor or he'd have to lay off. But in his situation, it's not as simple as A or B. He needs to maintain his public image to continue getting funding from Crowd Funding or from a potential investor. An announcement like what we have seen this week is a self inflicted gunshot wound. There is no way around this. He's going to lose funding. Potential players will think twice and investors won't think once.

His situation demanded he accept the unfavorable terms of a deal. He didn't. So either he didn't have such offers in the 1st place, or he plays Russian Roulette with 6 bullets in the chamber.

IT's not a choice. It's live or die. So he chose death? I don't think so. I think he's been handing out lie after lie after lie after lie. 

Like the whole SpatialOS decision. That is such bullshit it smells all the way to where I am sitting.
on one hand we heard it was a financial decision. On the other we heard it was because JavascriptSDK was discontinued? How convenient.

@Slapshot1188
Your advice is sound, but if you ask me, I think SBS is way beyond saving. Just my gut telling me, no hard evidence, but like what I said above, there are a lot of things that just don't make sense so I believe we are looking at the surface scab of a deep ulcerated wound and Caspian is saying, it's just a little scratch.

MadFrenchie

Not a crazy interpretation of the situation by any means.  At this point it's a waiting game, one where I don't envy the backers one bit.

Nor do I envy the employees that got laid off.  I'm not sure I could make such a decision.  I'm not sure why he did.  If it goes tits up, it'll be an interesting postmortem.

A large part of me hopes we get a game from all of these crowdfunding endeavors, if for no other reason than as public experiments of rather outlandish design philosophies, relatively speaking to the rest of the industry.  If they all fail before delivering a finished product (whatever that means these days), none of the unique mechanics will have ever been truly put to the test out in the wild.

genaknosc

Again the spin. Basically - we're running out of money, and laying off people, but this is good!

EponyxDamor

I think you make a lot of good points regarding the potential viability of the game, especially point 2. The monetization concept of this game is awful; tying what would normally be a subscription fee to the process of dying is without a doubt an awful idea. If SBS did receive offers from publishers and choose to stick with this monetization model rather than changing it, it was a terrible idea not to listen to them; this would have easily been the best place to compromise for this game.

Also, I don't buy into the whole "cosmetic item shops are bad" reasoning for turning down publishers, especially when they're already selling every bit and piece of the game through their cash shop pre-release. This is another compromise that didn't really seem far off from what they're currently doing.

To be honest, I'm not even sure I believe that SBS got the offers they claim from publishers, either. Caspian claims that they receive offer after offer, and even had publishers fly to them to make offers on CoE. Instead, only to laugh at SBS and offer them money for their engine. Are we really making publishers out to be literal hand-wringing villains at this point? These kind of stories just seem too far fetched to me ... Especially with how niche CoE is.

Slapshot1188

OrangeBoy said:

OPC at the level described didn't seem very realistic to me, and the fact that there would be tens of thousands of bots walking around would make the game less immersive.

So, definitely it needs to be removed and assessed again.  

Hopefully it turns out okay, but they need to stop everything for a day and revaluate what they are actually doing and not blame others.

Yup. At this point it doesn’t even matter who’s fault it was.  They just need to pretend it’s day one and get a realistic plan from here.

OrangeBoy

Some guy on the CoE forums suggested releasing gameplay footage to revitalize the game to consumers, which I think and have always thought to be a good idea.

Question is, if SBS released more videos detailing the mechanics and aimed to intrigue by showing demos of the talents, skill trees, and everything that makes CoE unique, would it make a big difference?

Initially, I had periodically checked to see some footage of what was mentioned and promised for around 8 months in terms of the aforementioned mechanics, but now it's a struggle to find anything refreshing other than the boring tribes brochures

Tiamat64

OrangeBoy said:

Some guy on the CoE forums suggested releasing gameplay footage to revitalize the game to consumers, which I think and have always thought to be a good idea.

Question is, if SBS released more videos detailing the mechanics and aimed to intrigue by showing demos of the talents, skill trees, and everything that makes CoE unique, would it make a big difference?

Initially, I had periodically checked to see some footage of what was mentioned and promised for around 8 months in terms of the aforementioned mechanics, but now it's a struggle to find anything refreshing other than the boring tribes brochures

That only is feasible if there's an actual build where gameplay exists.  Right now at most there's... a MUD which may contain some of the tools to eventually build the game itself.

Unless people think releasing gameplay video where the gameplay is basically a bunch of text scrolling by and some typing (if even that build actually exists) will bolster confidence in the project, I suppose.

Wellspring

Unless they're willing to offer full refunds to everyone at the same time, what you're suggesting Slapshot isn't feasible. They can't drastically change the product after it has already been sold.

Just taking one of your suggestions, simply reducing the scope of the servers from 100,000 to 10,000 people. Leads to either a) the Kingdoms are much smaller than advertised, or b) each server will have less kingdoms.

a) Kings have already planned their kingdoms with dukes and mayors etc. If you reduce their size, you're taking away from what they've already purchased, and you're disrupting their kingdom planning. Some maybe okay with this, but not everyone.

b) Kings have picked their servers. For SBS to now say each server will only have 2 kings instead of 6 (or whatever amount can support 10,000), what happens to the displaced Kings? Open multiple regional servers? So now you need 3 servers of 30,000 players to support the packages you've already sold.

I just don't see how redefining the game at this point is going to go over well.

Slapshot1188

There are 16000 pledges as far as I know.  That’s over 4 servers. Designing the game for hundreds of thousands on each server seems to be a huge waste of resources at this time.  

You can still have 5 or 6 kings on each server.  Still have Dukes and Mayors. You can even eventually ramp up to that original target number if needed.  

Wellspring

It's like if you preordered a car with 1,000 horsepower. If after a year goes by, they tell you "oh it's going to be delayed and it turns out building a 1,000 HP car has turned out to be too difficult for us. We are instead going to deliver to you a 100 HP car instead."

IDK about you, but I would be demanding a refund...

Edit: Not just in specific response to server sizes, but to them dropping any of the promised features. IMO, you have to be willing to do refunds if you're going to change what was promised.

Slapshot1188

I agree that when a project is substantially changed (time, content, tech) that refunds should be offered.  Being realistic here though.. they just had layoffs.  If they offered refunds I don’t think they could survive long.

Tiamat64

Slapshot1188 said:

I agree that when a project is substantially changed (time, content, tech) that refunds should be offered.  Being realistic here though.. they just had layoffs.  If they offered refunds I don’t think they could survive long.

Honestly, if that's the case where they can't survive if they offer refunds, but they have to offer refunds because they're no longer able to provide what they were selling, truly being realistic would be to say "They're hosed no matter what happens now."

(although really, the actual realistic truth is the project was doomed from the start.  Requiring crowdfunding JUST to make a MUD JUST to eventually use that MUD to create SOMETHING JUST so you can bring up the project to a publisher to publish?  All for an MMORPG where the planned business model is $30 per year from each customer on average? Cripes)

Kyleran

Tiamat64 said:

Slapshot1188 said:

I agree that when a project is substantially changed (time, content, tech) that refunds should be offered.  Being realistic here though.. they just had layoffs.  If they offered refunds I don’t think they could survive long.

Honestly, if that's the case where they can't survive if they offer refunds, but they have to offer refunds because they're no longer able to provide what they were selling, truly being realistic would be to say "They're hosed no matter what happens now."

(although really, the actual realistic truth is the project was doomed from the start.  Requiring crowdfunding JUST to make a MUD JUST to eventually use that MUD to create SOMETHING JUST so you can bring up the project to a publisher to publish?  All for an MMORPG where the planned business model is $30 per year from each customer on average? Cripes)

Publisher's are often accused of being many things....

Bad at math isn't one of them.

GeezerGamer

Caspian wanted another "Star Citizen".
I just don't think they planned on that not happening. 
I dunno, maybe they can dig out. 
I doubt it.

Tiamat64

GeezerGamer said:

Caspian wanted another "Star Citizen".
I just don't think they planned on that not happening. 
I dunno, maybe they can dig out. 
I doubt it.

Yea, he should have done what CiG did and hire Crytek to make some AMAZING trailers for him to get all the whales to buy in, hide the fact that it was Crytek that made the trailers and game development hasn't actually started yet, then backstab Crytek later on without a care in the world.

Not his fault that he didn't know to do that though, I suppose, what with CiG hiding the fact that it was Crytek that made the trailers.  But still, Chris Roberts totally had him beat.

Dakeru

Congratulations on reaching legendary status Harbinger!

Superman0X

Kyleran said:

Tiamat64 said:

Slapshot1188 said:

I agree that when a project is substantially changed (time, content, tech) that refunds should be offered.  Being realistic here though.. they just had layoffs.  If they offered refunds I don’t think they could survive long.

Honestly, if that's the case where they can't survive if they offer refunds, but they have to offer refunds because they're no longer able to provide what they were selling, truly being realistic would be to say "They're hosed no matter what happens now."

(although really, the actual realistic truth is the project was doomed from the start.  Requiring crowdfunding JUST to make a MUD JUST to eventually use that MUD to create SOMETHING JUST so you can bring up the project to a publisher to publish?  All for an MMORPG where the planned business model is $30 per year from each customer on average? Cripes)

Publisher's are often accused of being many things....

Bad at math isn't one of them.

Yes. I can say that I have seen this before with other developers.... who would rather throw away a perfectly good game, rather than compromise, and be in a position to get what they hoped for at a later date. As long as the project is still alive there is hope... committing financial suicide might feel morally sound, but it is actually the opposite. A good company does what is necessary to stay in business, so that it can support its employees.

BruceYee

seriously though suggestion #5 for me is the most important but all are fantastic imo.

Slapshot1188

Maybe the Ivory Tower can discuss the ideas on tonight's Twitch Stream with Dleatherus.  It will be interesting to see if they take the chance to look at things realistically or if it's going to be a repeat of the last interview where anything Caspien said was met with "Great point!"

Slapshot1188

Dakeru said:

Congratulations on reaching legendary status Harbinger!

Thanks.  As another Harbinger once said:  

“IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN, I SHALL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE.”

  

MadFrenchie

Superman0X said:

Kyleran said:

Tiamat64 said:

Slapshot1188 said:

I agree that when a project is substantially changed (time, content, tech) that refunds should be offered.  Being realistic here though.. they just had layoffs.  If they offered refunds I don’t think they could survive long.

Honestly, if that's the case where they can't survive if they offer refunds, but they have to offer refunds because they're no longer able to provide what they were selling, truly being realistic would be to say "They're hosed no matter what happens now."

(although really, the actual realistic truth is the project was doomed from the start.  Requiring crowdfunding JUST to make a MUD JUST to eventually use that MUD to create SOMETHING JUST so you can bring up the project to a publisher to publish?  All for an MMORPG where the planned business model is $30 per year from each customer on average? Cripes)

Publisher's are often accused of being many things....

Bad at math isn't one of them.

Yes. I can say that I have seen this before with other developers.... who would rather throw away a perfectly good game, rather than compromise, and be in a position to get what they hoped for at a later date. As long as the project is still alive there is hope... committing financial suicide might feel morally sound, but it is actually the opposite. A good company does what is necessary to stay in business, so that it can support its employees.

Well said.  Those layoffs are on Caspian if he refused to take on the investors he claimed made offers.  If the game folds, the rest of the employee's losses will be on him as well.

Case in point on why, despite the misgivings with publishers like EA or Activision reference monetization, crowdfunding has shown that they server an incredibly important purpose.

GeezerGamer

Slapshot1188 said:

Dakeru said:

Congratulations on reaching legendary status Harbinger!

Thanks.  As another Harbinger once said:  

“IF YOU STRIKE ME DOWN, I SHALL BECOME MORE POWERFUL THAN YOU CAN POSSIBLY IMAGINE.”

  

Who said that?

(Yes, I am being facetious)

Jamar870

Slapshot11188, that sounds similar to what Obi Wan said to Darth Vader during their fight.