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For you Koster lovers out there...
Ransom73
Member Posts: 227
Just an FYI...
He has gotten funding, started his own studio, and will be announcing his next project very very soon.
Stay tuned.
Comments
Nasedoo: You said traders would get a revamp under my supervision.
Darth Lord Blixtev: I am altering the deal. Pray I don't alter it any further.
"The man who exchanges Liberty for Iconic classes is a fool deserving of neither." - Me and Ben Franklin
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
raph!
raph!
raph!
he needs to get his buddy lord british to forget that fps crap and work together do lead us from the "smedsy"
and "wowconic" mmo world!
Oooh...dont say things like that. It almost gives me hope. Ive learned to block out hope.
Where did you get that info? You wouldnt happen to have a link, would you?
Here's the link to the entry on his blog, there's not a lot of info there, more of a teaser than anything else.
Nostaw Dudley - Pistoleer/BH SWG (Died of NGE)
Nostaw - SoR (Undecided)
Nostaw - Human Commando Auto Assault (In Limbo)
MMO Future - Can't see anything I really wanna play.
Sorry for the lack of posts lately…
lots to do with the new studio, like finding office space, setting up
payroll, and all that. Expect to hear more on that soon. If you happen
to be a server programmer, drop me a line, I’ll be hiring soon.
I am off to Vegas for business meetings and the Game Designers Workshop. No, I won’t be gambling.
Im drooling now
Hauken Stormchaser
I want pre-CU back
Station.com : We got your game
Yeah?, Well i want it back!!!
A** Still Raw From Your Last SWG Subscription? Come join us at RLMMO.com
Here is what I had to say in response to his blog:
Star Wars Galaxies of old (in its essence) could be remade. It need not BE Star Wars. Cause let's face it, the original game as not really very star warsy as the term applies to how close to the source material the game was. But that was more due to the lack of Star Warsy content than the systems and gameplay options. The design was outstanding.
Now if Raph takes the design model of the original SWG game and applies it to an ORIGINAL Future-fantasy themed MMO that has no pre-existing source material to try to live up to, It could satisfy a whole lot more.
Being a Star Wars fan drew me to SWG, early on. But being a MMO gamer, it was the gameplay and sense of community that kept me. Raph did his job very very well to make that happen. What he does next will be of great interest to me.
In Christ,
G. B. Jackson
The Opinionated One
"The man who exchanges Liberty for Iconic classes is a fool deserving of neither." - Me and Ben Franklin
In UO's case, the main change to that game was made while Mr. Koster was still in charge (I believe the Trammel split was his decision) and it has been the content additions that have made the game worse. In SWG's case it was because the content it was originally designed to contain (the original design was to be a "sandbox" game with directed content quests and player made quests) was never implemented and then most of what made the game fun was ripped out.
It'll be very interesting to see what Mr. Koster's next game will be like, considering it will be made by his own studio which will allow him to retain control of it after it is launched. I'll be very interested in how the game evolves over time.
wonder if he needs some more personell at his studio..
I could be the mad norwegian: security guard, cleaning guy, waterboy, critic, QA testerboi, pizza runner, janitor, bodyguard, cheerleader....you name it!
Good luck Raph... can I sign up for Beta now? Just NO ELVES DAMMIT!
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
I realize I said I quit. I never said it was forever
Seriously, the numbers reported on how hard it is to start a new business are VERY skewed toward failure because of the extremely high number of complete dumbasses who jump in with no real experience and without a real plan. I'd like to see the odds calculated for a person with Raph's experience, ability, vision, and planning skills.
Being involved in my 4th startup I have a lot of experience in talking about this. For my first, I was one of those dumbasses. I decided I would just cold-call my way to custom computer programming success. I had no startup capital, not even a month's living expense to fall back on. By year 3 I was making 35k a year (in 1996). Not horrible, but less than I could make on the market so I closed shop to work as a consultant for a year at 40 bucks an hour (that was more like it!).
After a year of that, I got a call from a friend who knew somebody that had found investors to build some medical software and he was looking for somebody to handle the technical design and project management. So I became CIO of that company, hired a staff, and got busy. The company also did document management in another division and the CEO got involved in chasing down a contract from the US Navy. It took our focus off of the medical software, dates started slipping, and the investors stepped in one day and sacked the CEO. The company fell apart because the investors were even bigger morons.
The third startup was based on some software and hardware Interactive Voice Response system a friend had coded and designed in 1993. He sold a few of these systems over the years at varying prices ($70,000 for the first, and $25,000 for the last) as standalone systems. He was asking my advice on how to market this system so he could get out of his "day" job. I looked at what he was doing and suggested to him to change his business model to one that nobody was doing just yet but talking about. He gave me 25% of the stock in the company to join him in making it work.
We brought the hardware side of his system in house and rewrote his software as an Internet web-based app and sold it on a monthly per user subscription basis. This allowed him to sell to a much bigger market, as small companies could now afford to use the system. Within 3 years that business was doing just under 3 million per year. However, like a lot of partnerships go, ours went sour and I had to force him to buy me out because I could not stand his ethics or lack thereof. But I still count this company as my largest personal success to date and I still receive monthly payment for my stock. The company continues to grow.
I'm currrently on my 4th business startup, and it is doing decently after 3 years. Not as successful as the previous one, but then the market is a more difficult one. But I would still categorize it as a mild success. We started this one without money as well, but we both have the benefit of alternate income as well as our previous successes in building new businesses. My current partner has also built a successful company.
The point of all this is, yes, starting a business is tough, but the failures that you are constantly scared with by book authors and your bosses who try to talk you out of leaving are due to inexperience and/or lack of funding. I would also add a lot of new businesses fold because an entrepreneur did not understand that the rules of life change. There are no "business hours", no "paychecks" ( be prepared to see bills go unpaid, it's not the end of the world, you can repay them and fix your credit).
As long as Raph has somebody high up in his company that has experienced growing a startup firm before on staff he will do great. If this is the first time for all of them, I highly recommend getting an experience entrepreneur into their management staff. An experienced businessperson with no experience in operating a startup is not sufficient, they are too risk averse and will panic and be useless. Growing a business and running a working business are two different things.
My prediction is Raph will do just fine and we will meet up in his new game someday, raise our glasses and say "Cheers".
/StepOffOfSoapBox
I realize I said I quit. I never said it was forever
He said something along the lines of "completely different" and "different sector". But it was a comment within context, so I can't back it up.
Of course, things could have changed.
This is going to sound crazy to the few people who even saw this movie... TITAN AE ONLINE FTW!!!
A game set in a similar setting to the end of that movie would be perfect for a sandbox style sci-fi mmo with a focus on world building. At the end of the movie they have a freshly terraformed planet waiting to be populated, cool aliens and ships... if you saw it, you know what I am talking about. That movie is the perfect IP for this type of MMO, especially since the story isn't so firmly established that it ends up limiting the games potential rather than fostering it.
-----Zero Punctuation Eve Online Review-----
We don't need another DnL on our hands.
It better be an MMO. He's just got too much talent in that area.
WoW is a good example of what happens when you release when ready. Servers bust at the seams due to word of mouth.
Running out of funds means your business plan wasn't followed, or it wasn't any good in the first place. Anyone who knows their stuff should know to shoot high when cost planning an MMO.
Star Wars Galaxies of old (in its essence) could be remade. It need not BE Star Wars. Cause let's face it, the original game as not really very star warsy as the term applies to how close to the source material the game was. But that was more due to the lack of Star Warsy content than the systems and gameplay options. The design was outstanding.
Now if Raph takes the design model of the original SWG game and applies it to an ORIGINAL Future-fantasy themed MMO that has no pre-existing source material to try to live up to, It could satisfy a whole lot more.
Being a Star Wars fan drew me to SWG, early on. But being a MMO gamer, it was the gameplay and sense of community that kept me. Raph did his job very very well to make that happen. What he does next will be of great interest to me.
In Christ,
G. B. Jackson
The Opinionated One
/agree
Give us pre-cu minus the Star Wars! (I'll take THAT over Star Wars minus the pre-cu.)