Group-Based PvE MMORPG Embers Adrift is Launching October 15th 2022 | MMORPG.com

Ridrith

Uwakionna said:

Same premise under which I funded Pathea games and their first game Planet Explorers. As long as the team demonstrates ability to learn from their first production and translate that into better future products, it'll still be a net positive for the industry.

For this game in particular, may not last long, but considering it as a stepping stone for the studio to improve itself is at least some optimism.

Yeah, no. If they're going to make a game that is little more than "test game" to prove their abilities and to push forward, then they shouldn't be charging users a 15 dollar subscription fee and a 50-60 dollar box price. If they're going to ask for a premium AAA price point, they better deliver a product that matches that same level of quality.

People are welcome to buy whatever they want and waste their money, but hell no. I'm not about to give my money away. They better prove they're worth the box price and subscription.

cheyane

The problem for me when I played during one of their events was that it wasn't even half as engaging as Everquest on P99. So how are they going to appeal to this older game mechanics crowd?

Uwakionna

Ridrith said:

Uwakionna said:

Same premise under which I funded Pathea games and their first game Planet Explorers. As long as the team demonstrates ability to learn from their first production and translate that into better future products, it'll still be a net positive for the industry.

For this game in particular, may not last long, but considering it as a stepping stone for the studio to improve itself is at least some optimism.

Yeah, no. If they're going to make a game that is little more than "test game" to prove their abilities and to push forward, then they shouldn't be charging users a 15 dollar subscription fee and a 50-60 dollar box price. If they're going to ask for a premium AAA price point, they better deliver a product that matches that same level of quality.

People are welcome to buy whatever they want and waste their money, but hell no. I'm not about to give my money away. They better prove they're worth the box price and subscription.

It's not like they set out to make a "test game", just that they're learning. Part of that will hopefully translate into improving this game, like Pathea improved Planet Explorers.

However your position is also understandable. Charging a full box price plus subscription for a game that everyone can look at and see as "underbaked", is not the launching point for generating any goodwill towards the studio.

I'd also point back to my criticism that I don't think they will be able to solve some of the more fundamental problems for elements like combat. They can add more content to the game, but they need to revamp how core systems and loops actually play as well, and that's likely outside their scope to pull off.

Just wanted to be a little optimistic though.

Quizzical

Slapshot1188 said:

Quizzical said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Ungood said:

But still, DDO is by nautical miles the absolute best adaption of D&D into an MMO Format.

I had fun in DDO many years ago.  I tried to go back.  Twice.  It just ahs not aged well at all IMHO.  But I have fond memories of things like the Gygax voiced Delara's Tomb.

I think that DDO has aged very well.  Sure, the graphics look dated, but so what?  They've kept the game in a playable state so that new players can join today and have a decent game to play right from the start.  That might sound like a low bar, but it's actually unusual as older MMORPGs go.

Most older MMORPGs seem to only care about maintaining some tiny sliver of endgame content.  They'll make the rest of the game trivial so that it's miserable to slog through it, but then require you to do exactly that in order to get access to the endgame content that they still care about.  DDO allows you to make the lower level content trivial if you want that for some inexplicable reason, but it also allows you to scale it up to be as much of a challenge as you like.

Neverwinter is an MMO set in a Dungeons & Dragons setting, but mostly ignores D&D mechanics to make an MMORPG the way that they want to make it.  DDO stays much closer to D&D mechanics.  You can argue as to which way is better.

I dunno.  Maybe it's just subjective but I do not think DDO has held up well at all.  I'm no graphics snob but I gave it a good try twice and just could not do it.  Some folks still play it so obviously there are people who feel differently.

The first time I tried DDO at all was in 2020.  It wasn't just nostalgia.  I was evaluating the game by the standards of 2020, not 2006.  I played for several months and quit, but still intend to go back at some point, if only because there are so few MMOs that actually try to make the lower level content interesting.

Quizzical

Theocritus said:

Sub: Removes a significant portion of potential players (f2p and b2p players)

No PVP: removes a good 1/3-1/2 of potential players

Group based: removes a significant portion of potential playerbase (the soloers)

Basically this game is hoping that it can attract people that loved the genre 20 years ago..Sure there are still some out there but it is a very small niche for a game in 2022.

I'd rather see a game do something well than a lot of things badly.

Games that try to be half PVP and half PVE tend to do both badly.  It's better (and cheaper) to do one or the other well.  Similarly with games that try to cater both to grouping and soloers.

Slapshot1188

Quizzical said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Quizzical said:

Slapshot1188 said:

Ungood said:

But still, DDO is by nautical miles the absolute best adaption of D&D into an MMO Format.

I had fun in DDO many years ago.  I tried to go back.  Twice.  It just ahs not aged well at all IMHO.  But I have fond memories of things like the Gygax voiced Delara's Tomb.

I think that DDO has aged very well.  Sure, the graphics look dated, but so what?  They've kept the game in a playable state so that new players can join today and have a decent game to play right from the start.  That might sound like a low bar, but it's actually unusual as older MMORPGs go.

Most older MMORPGs seem to only care about maintaining some tiny sliver of endgame content.  They'll make the rest of the game trivial so that it's miserable to slog through it, but then require you to do exactly that in order to get access to the endgame content that they still care about.  DDO allows you to make the lower level content trivial if you want that for some inexplicable reason, but it also allows you to scale it up to be as much of a challenge as you like.

Neverwinter is an MMO set in a Dungeons & Dragons setting, but mostly ignores D&D mechanics to make an MMORPG the way that they want to make it.  DDO stays much closer to D&D mechanics.  You can argue as to which way is better.

I dunno.  Maybe it's just subjective but I do not think DDO has held up well at all.  I'm no graphics snob but I gave it a good try twice and just could not do it.  Some folks still play it so obviously there are people who feel differently.

The first time I tried DDO at all was in 2020.  It wasn't just nostalgia.  I was evaluating the game by the standards of 2020, not 2006.  I played for several months and quit, but still intend to go back at some point, if only because there are so few MMOs that actually try to make the lower level content interesting.

Maybe that is part of the difference.  I played it around launch time and really enjoyed it.  When I went back twice... not so much.

Ungood

Quizzical said:

Ungood said:

Uwakionna said:

Ungood said:

Because of that I don't need another one to be made, if anything, I would rather if they took the money they piss into these "Old School Remakes" and put them into Updating and Improving the existing Old School MMO's out there.

I would point out, that's rather the purpose of people making new "old school" games.

Trying to rebuild existing games, updating their old engines, and revamping the code for even just slightly better visuals, is no small task. The cost compared to just developing a new game from a new engine at it's foundation is actually quite comparable in cost in the long run.

It's simpler to start with a modern toolbox than to try and squeeze sub-modern quality out of an even older toolbox.

Part of the reason so few MMO have done such upgrades in their life span.

If it was simpler, why don't we have better games?

Love that reality getting in the way of the dream.. 

If upgrading older games is simpler, then why are so few of the old games still in a playable state for someone new who wants to start today? 

This is a great question.

And it comes down to raw unbridled stupidity and corporate greed.

Ungood

Quizzical said:

The problem with making a close copy of an old game is that you don't attract many new customers.  People who weren't interested in the old game won't be interested in the new. 

I disagree with this idea.

I think a lot of gamers would in fact like to get into some of the older games, if they were brought up to Modern Spec's.

No joke, if a game like DDO has BDO's graphics, with a solid system that didn't lag like a bitch all the time, an Updated UI, it could pull in a lot of new people, and I mean, a fuck ton of people who have been looking for a good D&D MMO, which from my understanding, is quite a deep well of gamers.

Mendel

Uwakionna said:

Ridrith said:

Uwakionna said:

Same premise under which I funded Pathea games and their first game Planet Explorers. As long as the team demonstrates ability to learn from their first production and translate that into better future products, it'll still be a net positive for the industry.

For this game in particular, may not last long, but considering it as a stepping stone for the studio to improve itself is at least some optimism.

Yeah, no. If they're going to make a game that is little more than "test game" to prove their abilities and to push forward, then they shouldn't be charging users a 15 dollar subscription fee and a 50-60 dollar box price. If they're going to ask for a premium AAA price point, they better deliver a product that matches that same level of quality.

People are welcome to buy whatever they want and waste their money, but hell no. I'm not about to give my money away. They better prove they're worth the box price and subscription.

It's not like they set out to make a "test game", just that they're learning. Part of that will hopefully translate into improving this game, like Pathea improved Planet Explorers.
<snip>

I doubt that people would pay Tesla-level prices for an electric car built by a bunch of nobodies without any experience.  Or Coke to charge market level prices for some bottled swamp water.  That's exactly what these people are asking their customers to do.  Premium prices for premium products works; premium prices for inferior products doesn't.

Justifying it as a learning experience just doesn't change the business.  Maybe 'we were learning' could excuse a bad product.  Once.

OldKingLog

Theocritus said:

Sub: Removes a significant portion of potential players (f2p and b2p players)

No PVP: removes a good 1/3-1/2 of potential players

Group based: removes a significant portion of potential playerbase (the soloers)

Basically this game is hoping that it can attract people that loved the genre 20 years ago..Sure there are still some out there but it is a very small niche for a game in 2022.

This might actually be a boon for the game. This will mean that the brunt of the player base will be MMO veterans. An older group of players who have the extra money for a subscription, and the free time to play an old fashioned time sink MMO. Considering how many people still play EQ there certainly seems to be a market for this game to do well. I think MMORPGs started going to hell when after Wow's success companies started thinking they needed to draw a player base of millions to be successful.

Mendel

OldKingLog said:

Theocritus said:

Sub: Removes a significant portion of potential players (f2p and b2p players)

No PVP: removes a good 1/3-1/2 of potential players

Group based: removes a significant portion of potential playerbase (the soloers)

Basically this game is hoping that it can attract people that loved the genre 20 years ago..Sure there are still some out there but it is a very small niche for a game in 2022.

This might actually be a boon for the game. This will mean that the brunt of the player base will be MMO veterans. An older group of players who have the extra money for a subscription, and the free time to play an old fashioned time sink MMO. Considering how many people still play EQ there certainly seems to be a market for this game to do well. I think MMORPGs started going to hell when after Wow's success companies started thinking they needed to draw a player base of millions to be successful.

Soulbound's major competitor *may* actually be EQ1/EQ2.  How is Soulbound planning to attract those Daybreak customers and convert them to their game?  It's likely to take some master level marketing plan to compete at that level given the unfinished state of Embers.

Slapshot1188

Mendel said:

OldKingLog said:

Theocritus said:

Sub: Removes a significant portion of potential players (f2p and b2p players)

No PVP: removes a good 1/3-1/2 of potential players

Group based: removes a significant portion of potential playerbase (the soloers)

Basically this game is hoping that it can attract people that loved the genre 20 years ago..Sure there are still some out there but it is a very small niche for a game in 2022.

This might actually be a boon for the game. This will mean that the brunt of the player base will be MMO veterans. An older group of players who have the extra money for a subscription, and the free time to play an old fashioned time sink MMO. Considering how many people still play EQ there certainly seems to be a market for this game to do well. I think MMORPGs started going to hell when after Wow's success companies started thinking they needed to draw a player base of millions to be successful.

Soulbound's major competitor *may* actually be EQ1/EQ2.  How is Soulbound planning to attract those Daybreak customers and convert them to their game?  It's likely to take some master level marketing plan to compete at that level given the unfinished state of Embers.

Soulbo...?
Soulbo...?

That name should never be spoken in public!  Thats Coe

Kyleran

Mendel said:

Uwakionna said:

Ridrith said:

Uwakionna said:

Same premise under which I funded Pathea games and their first game Planet Explorers. As long as the team demonstrates ability to learn from their first production and translate that into better future products, it'll still be a net positive for the industry.

For this game in particular, may not last long, but considering it as a stepping stone for the studio to improve itself is at least some optimism.

Yeah, no. If they're going to make a game that is little more than "test game" to prove their abilities and to push forward, then they shouldn't be charging users a 15 dollar subscription fee and a 50-60 dollar box price. If they're going to ask for a premium AAA price point, they better deliver a product that matches that same level of quality.

People are welcome to buy whatever they want and waste their money, but hell no. I'm not about to give my money away. They better prove they're worth the box price and subscription.

It's not like they set out to make a "test game", just that they're learning. Part of that will hopefully translate into improving this game, like Pathea improved Planet Explorers.
<snip>

I doubt that people would pay Tesla-level prices for an electric car built by a bunch of nobodies without any experience.  Or Coke to charge market level prices for some bottled swamp water.  That's exactly what these people are asking their customers to do.  Premium prices for premium products works; premium prices for inferior products doesn't.

Justifying it as a learning experience just doesn't change the business.  Maybe 'we were learning' could excuse a bad product.  Once.

Apparently you've never owned a Tesla.



Also, Stormhaven is the dev for Embers.

Mendel

Slapshot1188 said:

Mendel said:

OldKingLog said:

Theocritus said:

Sub: Removes a significant portion of potential players (f2p and b2p players)

No PVP: removes a good 1/3-1/2 of potential players

Group based: removes a significant portion of potential playerbase (the soloers)

Basically this game is hoping that it can attract people that loved the genre 20 years ago..Sure there are still some out there but it is a very small niche for a game in 2022.

This might actually be a boon for the game. This will mean that the brunt of the player base will be MMO veterans. An older group of players who have the extra money for a subscription, and the free time to play an old fashioned time sink MMO. Considering how many people still play EQ there certainly seems to be a market for this game to do well. I think MMORPGs started going to hell when after Wow's success companies started thinking they needed to draw a player base of millions to be successful.

Soulbound's major competitor *may* actually be EQ1/EQ2.  How is Soulbound planning to attract those Daybreak customers and convert them to their game?  It's likely to take some master level marketing plan to compete at that level given the unfinished state of Embers.

Soulbo...?
Soulbo...?

That name should never be spoken in public!  Thats Coe

My bad.  Apologies.  Two studios with the initials 'SS', neither of which have a functional game.  We really should take extra precautions with SS companies.

OldKingLog

Mendel said:

OldKingLog said:

Theocritus said:

Sub: Removes a significant portion of potential players (f2p and b2p players)

No PVP: removes a good 1/3-1/2 of potential players

Group based: removes a significant portion of potential playerbase (the soloers)

Basically this game is hoping that it can attract people that loved the genre 20 years ago..Sure there are still some out there but it is a very small niche for a game in 2022.

This might actually be a boon for the game. This will mean that the brunt of the player base will be MMO veterans. An older group of players who have the extra money for a subscription, and the free time to play an old fashioned time sink MMO. Considering how many people still play EQ there certainly seems to be a market for this game to do well. I think MMORPGs started going to hell when after Wow's success companies started thinking they needed to draw a player base of millions to be successful.

Soulbound's major competitor *may* actually be EQ1/EQ2.  How is Soulbound planning to attract those Daybreak customers and convert them to their game?  It's likely to take some master level marketing plan to compete at that level given the unfinished state of Embers.

Stormhaven Studios man not the twats at CoE!!

That said, I agree if the game is not made very well that could indeed keep people away. Though considering how many people still tried badly broken games like Pathfinder Online and whatever the hell Richard Garriot's last wretched abortion is called, who can say for sure.

Iselin

All this talk of not modernizing old games and not a mention of WOW?

You can love or hate modern WOW but that's a game that has been taking advantage of expansions to do just that even to the point of incorporating things like some RTX features in their Shadowlands expansion.

Not only can it be done but it should be the norm, not an exception.

Uwakionna

Ungood said:

Quizzical said:

The problem with making a close copy of an old game is that you don't attract many new customers.  People who weren't interested in the old game won't be interested in the new. 

I disagree with this idea.

I think a lot of gamers would in fact like to get into some of the older games, if they were brought up to Modern Spec's.

No joke, if a game like DDO has BDO's graphics, with a solid system that didn't lag like a bitch all the time, an Updated UI, it could pull in a lot of new people, and I mean, a fuck ton of people who have been looking for a good D&D MMO, which from my understanding, is quite a deep well of gamers.

In the theory of "A new game updated with X, Y, and Z" perhaps. But if they announced tomorrow "DDO is getting new graphics," it's not that likely to draw a rave beyond the brief flash of headlines and a few people ranting on forums like this one for several pages. It's like people hearing about their latest expansion.

Uwakionna

Mendel said:

Uwakionna said:\

It's not like they set out to make a "test game", just that they're learning. Part of that will hopefully translate into improving this game, like Pathea improved Planet Explorers.
<snip>

I doubt that pe-
<snip>

Y'know, there were two paragraphs you snipped addressing what you responded with.

Quizzical

Slapshot1188 said:

Mendel said:

OldKingLog said:

Theocritus said:

Sub: Removes a significant portion of potential players (f2p and b2p players)

No PVP: removes a good 1/3-1/2 of potential players

Group based: removes a significant portion of potential playerbase (the soloers)

Basically this game is hoping that it can attract people that loved the genre 20 years ago..Sure there are still some out there but it is a very small niche for a game in 2022.

This might actually be a boon for the game. This will mean that the brunt of the player base will be MMO veterans. An older group of players who have the extra money for a subscription, and the free time to play an old fashioned time sink MMO. Considering how many people still play EQ there certainly seems to be a market for this game to do well. I think MMORPGs started going to hell when after Wow's success companies started thinking they needed to draw a player base of millions to be successful.

Soulbound's major competitor *may* actually be EQ1/EQ2.  How is Soulbound planning to attract those Daybreak customers and convert them to their game?  It's likely to take some master level marketing plan to compete at that level given the unfinished state of Embers.

Soulbo...?
Soulbo...?

That name should never be spoken in public!  Thats Coe

In his defense, I don't think Soulbound has much chance of converting anyone to their game.

Quizzical

Iselin said:

All this talk of not modernizing old games and not a mention of WOW?

You can love or hate modern WOW but that's a game that has been taking advantage of expansions to do just that even to the point of incorporating things like some RTX features in their Shadowlands expansion.

Not only can it be done but it should be the norm, not an exception.

WoW is in the unique position of having such an enormous playerbase that they could justify spending a lot of money on modernizing graphics in an effort to merely keep the players that they have (or get them to come back at the next expansion), without needing to attract any new players.  For any other game from that era, a massive effort at modernizing graphics that only serves to improve retention of existing players and not attract new ones would be an enormous waste of money.

WoW actually makes it very difficult for new players to jump in now.  At any given moment in time, the latest expansion is the only content that they particularly care about.  The rest is in a semi-broken state where they'll scale the difficulty to be so easy that no one will ever get stuck, but it's dreadfully boring to play through.  And then they force you to play through it anyway to get to the latest expansion, unless you're a whale who will pay for a level boost.

Iselin

Quizzical said:

  For any other game from that era, a massive effort at modernizing graphics that only serves to improve retention of existing players and not attract new ones would be an enormous waste of money.

Unlike you apparently, I don't have access to the financial records to know if the cost of modernizing for the sake of retention would have been an enormous waste of money or not.

All I know, not being an insider like you, is that they didn't and also didn't retain.

I also didn't say anything about "massive effort" that's your all-or-nothing take, not mine.

Uwakionna

Thing is we don't know how much modernizing helped retention there. For every WoW you have a DAOC, a Anarchy Online, and even an APB that all did graphics updates and never really resurged or staved off their decline.

That's more the metric looking at; those that did, but didn't retain. As it ends up with WoW being an exception to the norm of the trend.

In the battle to retain, graphics seems like less of a priority than other features. Something you can point to the DAOC community and see how the majority that still play seem to be on private servers that deliver unique rulesets, rather than visual updates.

What it seems to regularly impact most is new users. Most visual updates, unless you're rebuilding the games entirely, won't be enough, because a good chunk of people likely won't even pay it any mind. If an EQ expansion only garners an "it's still going?" from most people, adding some new graphics won't change that.

It's where "new" wins out, even if the goal of said "new" is just to recreate the old school.

Iselin

The thing is that WOW did not do a massive overhaul all at once. Their thing has been to update regularly with every expansion--some more than others and none more labor-intensive than Cataclysm with their huge rework of legacy zones. It was clearly a strategy for them to keep refreshing and the end result is that retail WOW looks and plays like a modern game and the others from the same generation do not.

You can guess all you want about if or how much a difference that makes in attracting new players and retaining old ones but clearly their business plan was to keep updating whereas others' plans was not.

And I'm not disputing that "New" doesn't have superior appeal to "old but improved." New always wins that comparison.

You'd have to ask Blizzard if the extra labor spread out over a decade+ was worth it or if it was an "enormous waste of money." I do know that they have had much better retention than anyone else that started a game in the mid '00s and did not update.

While you're at it ask the old Blockbuster owners how they feel now about having laughed the Netflix folks out of the room when they came to offer it to them for $50 mil. I know, I know it's a bit different but it's easy to look at Netflix as a tech upgrade on Blockbusters that they could have done themselves even without buying Netflix.

Continuous tech upgrades are something all MMOs should factor into the cost of doing business. How much or how little of it they should or can afford to do is for them to figure out but a plan to not ever do it and just pump out expansions with nothing new but content is what you do if you just want to milk it until it's dry and then kill it.

Uwakionna

That's not far off from how DAOC attempted it, their graphics updates came in stages with their expansions as well. Same point as before.

Iselin

Whatever DAoC did it sure as hell can't be mistaken for a modern game as WOW can. Same point as before.