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New interview with Jack Emmert
echose7en
Member UncommonPosts: 55
Champions online and STOs bad reaction from gamers is down to WOW being the new benchmark (read: damn since wow has come out we cant get away with reskining crappy games).
Was shocked that chucking out reskined CoX games with lack of content got him bad reviews?
Looks like hes really thinking of putting a sub on a coop game? maybe even with cash shop like the other games?
Comments
Loved the part where he sead he was shocked about how much bad press Champions Online got and they had to take a reality check.
Then they copy/pase the game and riskinned in it and called it StarTrek Online, man this guy lost alot of marbles.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
I find it more funny that he thinks CO and STO are better games then CoX. The guy really is way WAY out of touch with reality. I wouldn't doubt it if that CoX has more subscriptions then CO and STO put together.
Some times, his interviews are just like any other interview with a corporate face. Every now and again, though, he hits a level of candor that puzzles me. It's certainly not honesty that I expect from any MMO developer down on his luck.
from the interview:
It's funny, the honesty -- people say "You shouldn't have done Star Trek," or "If you had to do it in 18 months, then you shouldn't have done it! You should've known that you were going to do a bad job!" I'm like, "Yeah, right." We had the Star Trek IP, we had done MMOs in 18 months that have been successful, we're going to say "No"? It's just funny being cut apart for being honest.
When you say this is a "new direction," does that mean you're done with introducing new traditional MMOs?
JE: No, I don't think it's out of the question, but I think our development philosophy is different. Mainly, make a great game, and don't worry about how many quests you have or how long it takes to level. Just make great games. And that's what we're focused on right now -- fun, good, high-quality products, triple-A products. No more 75 Metacritic scores [laughs]. My heart just can't take it anymore.
this is a good read, and i think jack is even being somewhat honest. but this bit i have copied is what imo is of concern. he talks over and over again in the interview aobut what other studios are doing, and completely refuses to acknowledge that one thing that made sto and champions bad was time. 18 months is not enough time to make a decent mmo today. either you are going to fall short on quality, content or both.
the last paragraphs says nothing about taking the time to make a good game its about quality according to jack. if this is true, we can look forward to neverwinter being a highly polished 20 hours or so. how is that better than a 40 hour game (sto) that is not ready for launch?
if jack thinks hes going to launch a smaller game than sto that is more "polished" and get good reviews..... i strongly disagree. it might get good reviews from mainstream reviewers (allthough i doubt this)... but the players will be screaming about lack of content within days.
most of this interview seems fairly honest, this last bit seems like pr spin to me. jack is setting people up for a neverwinter with less content than sto or champions. thats not going to work even in a single player game imo.
IF THE ONLY DEFENCE FOR CRITICISM OF A GAME IS CALLING SOMEONE A TROLL OR HATER, THAT SAYS A LOT ABOUT THE QUALITY OF THE GAME
In his defence ( as much as that possible , let's say for arguement case that they do get quality into the product) they can put out a quality game in 18 mo. It just will be little or no content. That being the case will people :
1 ) buy a game that has no content .
2 ) pay as sub for a low to no content quality game while the dev gets around to adding it ?
I say no , in both cases , so this latest ploy by Cryptic will most likely fall far short of where it needs to be . Failure is a good thig , it humbles and causes change. In this case I hope it become a message to the entire industry. It's possible that Atari may fail, where will the chips ( assests ) fall then ?
Having read the article I can honestly say that he doesn't get it. CO and STO have no soul, no purpose , no sense of achievement . You play them but in the end it matters very little . There is no sense of personnal accomplishment or achievement with either of these games. Cryptic doesn't get that aspect . Fun to them is meaningless . I can't count how many times I logged off with the feeling of , meh. In other MMO's it meant something to achieve a crafting level , or finish a quest or raid. It meant something to finish a dungeon or take down a boss. CO and STO it means nothing , you can either grind for the best gear/ship or you purchase it, even the faction aspect is meaningless. Meh ! That's why these games are failing.
In this particular case, I think it's early damage control for NNO. When STO launched many said in the forums that they would be more willing to give Cryptic more time to hammer things out if someone had just made some kind of apology, something along the lines of "Hey guys, we messed up here but we're going to work hard to correct all the problems." Instead we were told that those who were complaining "Just don't get it." Having found out that a monthly subscription plus a cash shop isn't very viable when your games are hemorrhaging players, I think they are trying to hedge their bets with this next game and build some good will in the process. It will be interesting to see if it works.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
This is the part that gets me: "we had done MMOs in 18 months that have been successful" What successful, 18 months to develop MMO have they done? Certainly not CoH/CoV, which took longer than that to make (and it can be argued that it didn't get successful until after Jack and co. left). CO? Please; that game was bleeding players, and only recently started to regain some of them. STO? Absolutely not; unlike CO, STO shows no sign of turning things around yet.
*edit for additional thought* Also, Jack talks about how Fallout is a great game, but isn't being made an MMO because of resources. Perhaps someone should have told him that there is a Fallout MMO in the works. Considering his current position, you would think that he would like to keep tabs on the competition.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
I have heard it said in both the engineering and computer programming fields that when you want something "Good, Fast, and Cheap", you really get to pick two of those.
Sure, I'm willing to bet a big software shop could do a good MMO in 18 months, but they'd be breaking the bank doing it, which rather defeats the purpose people like Emmert are going for.
In the case of Cryptic, time is not the issue as much as the money, and what kind of stuff that comes out the other end of that effort is there for everyone to see. They do cheap, and they get cheap.
It is no more complicated than that.
I thought he was he was talking about fallout 3 at that point and claiming it wasn't a mmo because bethesda didn't have the resources which is odd since I don't ever remember bethesda claiming they wanted to make fallout 3 a mmo.
While he was speaking of Fallout 3, there is a Fallout MMO in the works. Either way you read it, it's an odd statement; he was comparing Bioware making SW:TOR because they have the budget and team for it, but Fallout 3 wasn't made as an online game because of resources. As I said though, there is a Fallout MMO being made now.
On another note, thanks to that interview, we know who comes up with Cryptic's insipid core philosophy for their games now:
"Neverwinter was, at least initially... I'll be honest, my initial version is far different. My initial version was a flat-out MMO that would essentially be different zones in Neverwinter, and there would be various entrances and critters scattered throughout. And my initial idea -- and again, we flushed this down the toilet because this was a while ago -- but it was essentially going to be a dungeon that would be instanced between you and your friends. Any real story, per se, was all about exploration."
Sounds just like CoH/CoV, CO, and STO doesn't it?
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
In that interview he specifically states that making City of Heroes took them a year and a half.
I'm pretty sure that's bullshit, but then again most of what Jack says is bullshit.
I think a year and half is about right for the original City of Heroes. If you count from when they scrapped the original skill based design and started coding the archetype system that was released. What he fails to take into account is all the world work that went in before the game mechanics were finalized.
Well, that's too bad, isn't it? If it had been pighsit, they could run Bartertown on it.
Damage control for Atari should include tying Emmert up and stuffing him in a closet or firing him (which would likely involve buying him off). His curious perspective has never really helped anything, and it amazes me that companies are still willing to hire him. He must pitch himself really well.
His cockeyed view of gaming almost ran City of Heroes into the ground. NCSoft was well rid of him when they bought the IP and enabled him to take his money and his ego to trot over to Microsoft and sell them on a Marvel Universe Game (notice how no one talks about that now?) Arrogant, clueless, and inclined toward exaggeration (Lying?), that's Jack Emmert.
"Soloists and those who prefer small groups should never have to feel like they''re the ones getting the proverbial table scraps, as it were." - Scott Hartsman, Senior Producer, Everquest II
"People love groups. Its a fallacy that people want to play solo all the time." - Scott Hartsman, Executive Producer, Rift
I found it funny too, he is so out of touch with the player base its not even funny. I guess he never looks at the forums.
Exactly and that's why my new nickname for Jack is "doesn't get it". He just doesn't get that while he thinks the way he enjoys his games may be fun it's only marginally so to the vast majority of the players he is trying to reach. In the interview he makes mentions of "metrics" which is something that to my understanding he has always been against and has always had to fight a losing fight to keep his vision of it alive. Many of COH players argued with him about the lack of numbers and he refused to use them I've heard since he left and they added them COH has been a much more stable game with a happier community, in STO there have been many calls for them to make the skills tab better at explaining what the powers do and that interview line seems like this is his "complaint" about that topic again. He just doesn't get that many mmo players being a bit more into the numbers and such than console players want to figure these little things out. He likes to design games with themes suited for an older male audience but he wants to use standards that only work for games designed for children, make sure the graphics look good and that there's stuff to do in it. Jack is convinced that players like games with the depth of All Star Cheerleader for the Wii and refuses to believe that will just not cut it.
He is going to stick with his vision and ride Cryptic into the ground in the process, but don't worry after that he'll probably do some lame interview about how he's leaving the video game field all together and how we can kiss his ass on the way out the door.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
And that is b.s. I followed CoH, and they were working on it longer than 18 months. Besides, as I pointed out, the game didn't become successful until after Jack left, and Paragon Studios started adding in all the features that Jack said they couldn't do; until that happened, CoH/CoV was losing players. Though to be fair, it didn't lose them as fast as CO and STO did.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
It only really counts if you're trying to spin things, as Jack so often does. TR scrapped what they were originally doing, losing a couple years of development in the process, but you never heard them say that it only took them a fraction of the time it actually took; they were upfront and honest about the whole process, and counted the whole time, whenever they were asked about it. This is the main reason he and Cryptic have a credibility problem; they always try to spin the things that are easily verified.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Actually, he hasn't had to sell himself to any company yet; he help found Cryptic, and he's only worked for them so far. Still, as you point out, they should know by now that Jack isn't the guy you want doing PR for your company.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
To be fair is CORPGs easier to make and both GW1 and DDO have been doing fine (DDO did however horrible as long as it was P2P). GW sold 7 million copies and DDO is supposed to have over a million players (but the question is how many of those that are active). Still there is a market for those games, STO is a disguised CORPG that tries to be a MMO and that was a sure failure, NWN could do to Cryptic what GW did to ANET if they do it right and stop being so cheap that they sell anything in the cashshop and takes monthly fees besides that.
If they use GWs B2P method (with just fluff and character slots in the cash shop) and make an acceptable game they can actually get loads of money and sell well. But my guess is that they are too greedy and mess it up, creating another STO instead with little content, monthly fees and premium gear for sale.
There is the chance Jack finally have learned his lesson but it is not something I would bet money on.
Could be worse, Tasos, Barnett and Smedley to mention 3.
How likely do you think it is that they will drop the greed? After seeing what they did in STO, I'm guessing that it's not very likely.
As to Jack having learned his lesson? These last two interviews he has done show that he hasn't: you cannot have both quality and get it done quickly, not with Atari's financial situation, and still have a game that will keep people playing past the first month. Instead, since he has said they are wanting to focus on quality, expect to see even less content than STO had at launch. That is the only way they can currently keep to the 18 month development cycle, and still have everything in the game be even remotely good; they just don't have the money to massively expand their team so that they can have a lot of quality content in 18 months.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
Actually, I rate them as all being equally as bad. Toss Bill Roper (who's a free angent now), Mark Jacobs (formerly of Mythic), and Brad Quaid (who ran Sigil into the ground) in that list as well.
"Oh my, how horrible, someone is criticizing a MMO. Oh yeah, that is what a forum is about, looking at both sides. You rather have to be critical of anything in this genre as of late because the track record of these major studios has just been appalling." -Ozmodan
+Gaute Godager we can't leave him out of the party.