Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Dream a big Dream (ex SWG Dev tells it how it is)
Tiller
Member LegendaryPosts: 11,488
WoW is a threat to some developers, so what does that mean for us? Half assed games with little effort because for them it's not financially viable to "dream a big dream"
http://rubenfield.com/blog/2006/07/24/dream-a-big-dream/
Here is an article that relates to this blog somewhat.
http://www.bit-tech.net/gaming/2006/08/31/the_best_upcoming_mmorpg/1.html
What's this have to do with SWG? Plenty, Raph dreamed a big dream but it was chopped away by LEC and SOE out the gate and look what happened, it continues to this day. Little of his vision remains and little of the community that loved it remains. Hopefully a company will come along that will "Dream a big Dream" and set the MMO world on fire again all while paying little mind to the "WoW threat". We are sick of developers focusing on small nonexistent markets because they are afraid to push the limits in fear of trying to compete with WoW. When will they learn that by avoiding making a flop, they are creating the flop they are trying to avoid? Time to make a game for "Real" MMORPG players again. Who will answer the call?
?
Comments
But I think in the long-term, the model that will prevail is similar to the film industry. It takes millions of dollars and years of work to make a movie, and the bigger the movie, the more expensive it is to make. So "big hits" have gotten fairly formulaic and unoriginal.
But every once in a while, that successful producer and director get to make one 'their way', or an independent film-maker comes out of nowhere to produce an original and very financially successful gem.
Yeah, right now it seems like every MMO is being made by the gaming equivalent of Michael Bay when it comes to originality .... but eventually there are going to be some Kevin Smiths and Jim Jarmuschs too. There's thousands of men & women in the game industry now and more every year who are saying 'this is crap, we can do better'. Somebody will.
But yeah, that kind of originality is few and far between in movies... and now sadly, in games.
C
kzinKiller you are correct. I don't think it will be someone who will set their goals to beat WoW or have 1 million players within a year just based on the IP the game was created on. It will be a company who wants to build a game the way they like and one they would like to play. They will be ignoring all the supposed "Industry standards" imposed on them by other WoWite genera types. It will be a game for everyone but will mostly be what some sissy wads now call “hardcore” (OMG who would do such a thing?) When WoW hit it left developers in the industry reeling for years, it's time to come out of that now and move on. You can't copy their success and you can’t compete with it if you try to hard. But you can make a game a good coplex game that people want to play (like we have been asking for). That's success right thur....I guarantee.
Now, sure, it does appear that Mel actually IS crazy, but it didn't tank, did it? Made more money than Harry Potter.
Gaming has some huge advantages over film for an "indy" to be a success, too. Word of mouth can make or break a game -- it broke SWG and made WoW. Websites review new games practically every day. Retail distributors no longer control distribution, because the whole game can be DL'd over a broadband connection, so it doesn't matter if Best Buy likes your product, if the online reviewers love it and gamers love it, you can go from 1,000 to 1,000,000 subscribers in a month.
Made me drool over the Autoduel MMO. That's what I hoped Auto Assault would be.
Shayde - SWG (dead)
Proud member of the Cabal.
It sounds great, so great in fact, I pitty those who canceled
I don't like it when you say things. - A Vanguard fan who does too.
09f911029d74e35bd84156c5635688c0
Blair Witch Project. Better, although rather radical comparison.
Or better yet, Batman Begins. AAA production, but radically different. Top notch effects, but, Batman? Real? With only tech gadgets? Trained with real trainers? A scared kid with a vengance? And not even a real batmobile?
A movie within an IP, but it puts so much spin on the presentation, that it doesn't get caught into the IP pitfalls.
There's always a way. Nut mainstream is about ROI and risks. This won't change. But from time to time, different projects will surface and reap that market as well.
Shayde and tillamook
Check your Inbox
Personally I think we're stuck in the same place FPS games were a few years ago.
After Quake, every FPS had to be just the same. Rinse and repeat. Then came Half-Life and everything changed.
This is what we need. The Half-Life of MMOs. I personally don't think any game out or coming out is up to the task.
WAR, Vanguard, AoC, STO, SGO, etc.... These might be "good" games but they won't redefine the mold for MMOs. It'll take someone to "Dream the Big Dream" as the article Tillamook linked was talking about.
Unfortunately, games are getting harder to make by small Developers and typically, small developers are the ones who'll be taking the chances.
Sadly one of the games that did break the mold atleast in it's general ideas was UO and SWG. Hmm, gee. Look who made those games.
Now, EA owns UO and not that EA owns Mythic, who knows what direction that game is headed. I was never a UO fan but it was interesting. I was on the other hand a SWG fan and many of those design concepts for SWG came from UO since much of the UO team was working on SWG.
We all know were that led and it's current state of Patheticness.
Thanks for the links Tillamook, interesting reading for sure. Let's hope someone somewhere takes a chance and makes the MMO equivelant of Half-Life.
Formulaic and unoriginal is one thing, but there's an even dirtier word floating around: Remake. So many of the movies coming out of "Hollywood" today are remakes ("Wicker Man", "Poseiden", even Spielberg's last movie, "Munich", was a remake of an earlier, better movie based on the same book). While the current younger generation has likely not seen any of the original movies, and are happily lapping up this trash, many of us who have been around a bit longer recognize them for what they really are.
Is SOE "remaking" World of Warcraft with the changes they've made to Galaxies over the past 18 months? I think that was their intent, although they aren't even talented enough to steal from another game without botching the job. Raph's attempt to bring freshness and grandness to the MMO industry has died, not with a bang, but with an NGE whimper. While I can hope, I think we'll not see such days of risk and innovation again.
"In fact, long-term we’re going to need far more game oriented solutions
because if we do our jobs right, the simpler products are simply
gateways to turning a passing interest in online products into a
burning desire for more interesting gametypes.
But all we’re doing now is focusing on the preliminary entry into
gaming. Everyone’s piling into that rowboat because we’ve convinced
ourselves that WOW is insurmountable.
And to a degree we’re right. WOW is not something you can ever compete with. So DON’T."
Truer words were never spoken. Couldn't have said it better myself.To bad Torres and Smedly fucked it up.
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
There is a big dream!
PROOF!!
What most of us understand is that the more grand a dream the more attention required to enjoy it. The original build for SWG was awesome. Sure it had problems but they would have been resolved by now if those in development were able to focus on something other then a market share.
Some people dream of making great games while others dream of selling them.
This thread is making me want to vomit thinking about the current MMORPG and Movie indusrty.....
So some good points:
1- I don't buy into, "WoW gammers are morons who hate complexity." Are'nt RTS's and RPG's (What Diablo and Warcraft are) pretty dammed complex? Eventually, THEY WILL GET BORED OF WOW. They will want more then, Loot, raid, and level. I can almost garuntee it.
2- It seems the Developers (the people, not the companies) want complexity too.
3- We want complexity.
These 3 points should give you hope for the MMORPG genre, sure it won't be now. But in the future a good, complex, and interesting MMORPG will exist. In other words, WoW will not kill this genre.
The Movie industry is F'ed though....
--When you resubscribe to SWG, an 18 yearold Stripper finds Jesus, gives up stripping, and moves with a rolex reverend to Hawaii.
--In MMORPG's l007 is the opiate of the masses.
--The absence of evidence is not the evidence of absence!
--CCP could cut off an Eve player's fun bits, and that player would say that it was good CCP did that.
Formulaic and unoriginal is one thing, but there's an even dirtier word floating around: Remake. So many of the movies coming out of "Hollywood" today are remakes ("Wicker Man", "Poseiden", even Spielberg's last movie, "Munich", was a remake of an earlier, better movie based on the same book). While the current younger generation has likely not seen any of the original movies, and are happily lapping up this trash, many of us who have been around a bit longer recognize them for what they really are.
Is SOE "remaking" World of Warcraft with the changes they've made to Galaxies over the past 18 months? I think that was their intent, although they aren't even talented enough to steal from another game without botching the job. Raph's attempt to bring freshness and grandness to the MMO industry has died, not with a bang, but with an NGE whimper. While I can hope, I think we'll not see such days of risk and innovation again.
Sure, remakes are part of the 'success formula' that leads to an awful lot of crap out of Hollywood. But despite that, we get a few really good movies every year, lots of small and relatively cheap indy films that satisfy a more critical audience.
Gaming will probably be the same. There will be 'big budget' games from the major game studios, and most of them will be crap as far as an adult, experienced audience is concerned. If you buy your game based on how much they spent on advertising, you'll get what you get with movies -- you'll see the big BANG BANG BOOM BOOM action stuff. If you do a little research or hear a recommendation from a friend, you'll find the good stuff.
More Gems, these right before he left SOE
http://rubenfield.com/blog/2006/04/11/stop-everything-take-2/
http://rubenfield.com/blog/2006/04/11/stop-it-this-instant/#more-11
So ... you're an MMO game developer and you want to compete against Blizzards WoW?
The first thing you need to think about is How, What, and Why. Then determine if you can reproduce that magical formula. If you cant ... leave it alone.
How:
What:
Why:
$OE has failed in everything under the How and Why sections. The only bright spot was EQ and EQ2. But even both those have had their share of losing fairly large amounts of their playerbase. If you think of it, $OE has what? .... about 8 DIFFERENT games under their belt in the All Access Pass and they only have about 180K customers? Is there something wrong with this picture?
To compete against WoW? It will take a damn good product, time, and money.
No one is going to compete against WoW unless they are going to do what it takes. make a quality product, spend the money, and dont fix what aint broken, BUT please .... please fix what is.
I am so sick and tired of hearing about WoW from the suit
and ties who couldn’t draw a stick figure if they tried. WoW will never happen
again and who cares! I say design an MMORPG with a target market of 350k people
and don’t crap over your fan base. Then make sure the game is a finished game
when you release it. Make smart decisions instead of lazy half ass made
decisions. Iliek Raph a ton but SWG was bonked upon release. Time to shut it down. I want to see him do a new MMO.
I have been working on a side project for an MMO and it has
been a ton of fun. But I am tired of talking to people who say “are you going
to beat out wow”? My reply is who cares! I have had to change my reply to
"that’s not the market I am targeting". Now I play wow and I enjoy
it. But I also play Eve Online and I enjoy that game. And I play a few others. Am I a casual player?
Nope.
I have a career. I have a family. I have a studio I am forming. I say
screw the WoW business standard and let’s take our industry back from the suit
and ties. Make games for gamers and not for the suits. I am a suit and tie
though heheheh.
Go Onsemi WoW twinkies!
I totally agree. I don't see why $OE had to feel they had to compete with Blizzard.
No where in my previous post did i say we or anyone "SHOULD" compete against WoW. So i hope you didn't take it that way.
I do feel that if an MMO company does all the thigs YOU and I say they should do, that with time, it could compete with Blizzard just out of a natural progression of things and in offereing something different that is well put together.
Also I wanna add that I think WarHammer Online will be the only game to compete with WoW. They may even take 1/4 of WoW's player base into the game within a year. Some of the Hardcore players are really getting excited about it. WarHammer is the real WoW for those of you who didn't know. The concept started there.
I know people that play Wow and I know people that "played" WoW and left out of bordom after a couple of years. They also complained about the "kiddie" problem.
I believe that as time goes on the "kids" of yester year are the "adults" today ... and the "kids" of today will be the adults of tomorrow. All this means is that there will be a growing "adult" population that isn't going to want to play the WoW or EQ games .... they will want more of a challenge.
An MMO company that can attract the upcoming "adult" playerbase will be the MMO company that will replace WoW.
But if my MMO company only had 350K - 400K accounts ... i would NOT turn my nose up at that kind of money. LOL