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World of Darkness: Development to Continue at a Slower Pace
SBFord
Former Associate EditorMember LegendaryPosts: 33,129
In a new interview, CCP's Helmar Petursson reveals that the development of World of Darkness will indeed continue albeit at a slower pace once the current round of layoffs at the company is complete.
"We have good people remaining here, which are going to advance World of Darkness on a much slower pace. So we still very much have an operation here in Atlanta, but it's much smaller than it was before. It's about 100 people that are here remaining, working on customer support and World of Darkness, but they are also adding value to EVE Online this winter, and there will also be a team here working on Dust as well."
During the interview, Petursson also admits that the reduction in staff is ultimately his responsibility and that CCP is actively working with those affected to find other industry jobs.
The interview also goes into a bit of detail about the overall restructuring of CCP and the company plans to regain the trust of its core, the EVE Online community.
Read the full interview at the link above.
Comments
really this is a tragedy. i mean i wasnt a huge WoD player in the PnP but i loved reading the books and when i heard they were making this i was really excited. Im still excited for this game but im sad face that its going to take even longer. especially when they want to focus on EVE (understood) and dust (ehhh?) not sure why a PS3 only title shooter? really?
It couldn't possibly go any slower than it already is.
To me, the most ominous statement in the interview is this one:
"Development of World of Darkness will continue, and the game will launch in a less ambitious form, he said -- and will be driven, as EVE has been, by its community, not by internal initiatives."
Details have always been short with this title, but putting the game out in a less ambitious form than they had planned does not bode well to me.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
I understand their choices. Eve Online has taken a hit and they are doubling back on their old choices and doing right by their paying customers, the Eve Online players. It's anoying as all hell because I was really looking forward to World of Darkness coming to fruition but if it means that CCP has to lose its credibility to do so, then I can live without World of Darkness right now.
It's not often that a company will about face on descisions they have made and accept when mistakes have come up. It's refreshing. The recent expansion is not so much a mistake in the eyes of the wider MMO community as say SOE's ruining of Star Wars Galaxies, but the fact that they have doubled back where SOE failed to is rgood news and I for one hope that Eve Online grows in strength.
It came up a few months ago that CCP was fighting a bank balance situation with the funding for Eve and development for two other MMO's bleeding them dry. Hence why alot of people believe the cash shop reared its ugly head in Eve. It is however a great shame that hardworking indaviduals have had to lose their jobs as a direct result of CCP's poor planning.
Don't be so afraid. CCP was a tiny indy company when it released Eve which was a shell of what it is now, a record breaking server with vasts amounts of loyal fans who enjoy the depth of the game everyday.
World of Darkness will still have cross technology coming from Eve Online and Dust 514. It will also still have 100 people working on it as opposed to the tiny number of people who worked on Eve at release. A game developed hand in hand with the community has proven to have much greater appeal than an MMO that's directed by market research and industry "proffesionals".
So this will also be an shallow underdeveloped F2P craofest among all others, klinging to life via microtransactions and whatnot? I was REALLY looking forward to this game, not so much any more...
I'm still waiting for TOR/TSW/GW2, and one of those better blow my mind, or I'm giving up. I'm starting to lose hope in the MMO genre all together...
The reason the cash shop reared it's ugly head is because they are down 50% of their subscription base of actual real customers and didn't notice they went from 1.2 accounts per player to 3 accounts per player post PLEX.
Here is the math:
MMOs are subject to inflation. Lets say 3% every year.
Lets assume for easy math that CCP makes $1 USD on every account for NET profit.
Each year that $1 is effectively reduced by 3% because of inflation. So to break even (wash out inflation) they need increase their net profits by 3% each year or raise the subscription rate 3%, JUST TO BREAK EVEN.
So what does that mean. Well given 100k subscribers that means (for simple math) they make $100,000 profit (we are just using $1 each account for easy math). The next year they need to make $103,000 to wash out inflation. That means they need to add 3000 subscribers in a year just to break even. This is true for every MMO.
Now when an MMO caters just to their established player base what is actually happening is this: Each year, about 3000 of those existing players become irrelivant. Why? Because they need 3000 NEW players to keep the MMO alive. Each year, year by year the existing player base is less and less relevant unless they can bring in 3000 new subscribers. And that assumes the new subscribers become permanent subscribers.
Now in the MMO world about a 50% retention is normal as far as I can see (Warhammer for instance launched to over a million initial sales but only had 500k subscribers at the 6 month mark. I think that is shitty but the investors didn't seem to mind so wtf do I know... 50% of purchases didn't like the game enough to subscribe, not counting all the sales after the inital weekend mind you over 6 months but eh, but I digress) so that means in reality we need to assume 4500 new accounts every year (3000 / 2 is 1500, 3000+1500=4500) to just break even.
PRE-PLEX when I surveyed Jita when I first started there was about 1.2 accounts per actual player (I asked CEOs to interview their members and get numbers to me). POST-PLEX (just before Incursions) that same survey netted 3 accounts per player. Comparing the 150,000 subscribers back then or 125000 real customers to the big brag of 280,000 subscribers, hell lets use the most recent 300k they talked about at 3 accounts per player (100k real customers) they LOST 25,000 actual subscribers in 4 years.
Too bad they never bothered to take their subscription numbers and divide it by distinct IP addresses (net cafes are a small statistical outlier such that a simple accounts per IP isn't going to be that far off) to see the real picture.
So now CCP is facing a bubble. When PLEX costs keep rising that means supply doesn't exceed demand and the largest input of PLEX is from new players buying PLEX codes to get a quick bump of cash. But without enough new players the PLEX will keep climbing. At some point, the cost of PLEX will exceed what a player is will or capable of footing, all those 3 accounts per players will crash like any financial bubble.
When CCP released Incarna they wasn't a flood of new players, they still continued to hemmorage players. Buying White Wolf's WoD was a smart move since they likely new that Eve was in a dangerous place for sustainability. The problem is Eve and that PLEX bubble might be approaching so fast that Eve may end up a liability on the balance sheet that would kill any chance of WoD getting out the door. They have to take drastic action now to short up Eve to keep it flat at least long enough to get WoD out the door. Then hopefully WoD will have enough margin to subsidize Eve long enough to get it fixed.
Dear CCP here is a good start: "STOP WITH THE DELUSIONAL CAMPAIGN OF "EVE IS REAL" NONSENSE. It just makes you all look like a bunch of psychotics that can't tell reality from fantasy.
the IP should be given to a different Dev company EVE seems about all CCP can handle.
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
I really cannot imagine the pace getting slower. Heck they just officially admitted that they were working on it last year. This doesn't give me high hopes at all.
So I guess at this point we can conclude Eve Online's initial success was an accident, and not due to CCP being some genius tiny company.
Next.
If they sell it to Blizzard we can have vampire pandas...
"Train by day, Joe Rogan podcast by night, all day!"
Might be awkward, considering CCP own White Wolf, which owns the WoD IP.
Although not impossible, it would be a little weird to get another dev to work on your IP when you're a dev company.
Epic sadface ]:
Really want WoD to continue, quicker if possible. This isn't good news at all. x-x
Big WoD fan here but the thing is, if you don't expect anything, you cant be dissapointed. The moment they said "2012 at the earliest" I knew its actually 2014. I am not sad. I hope they dont drop it tho.
"To be a rock and not to roll..."
This project is as dead as a can of spam combined with their other layoffs. Sell it CCP. Sell it to another dev ASAP! Maybe Activision since they did the other WoD computer games and WoD is a different niche market from WoW.
then i call DOOOM!
Watch your thoughts; they become words.
Watch your words; they become actions.
Watch your actions; they become habits.
Watch your habits; they become character.
Watch your character; it becomes your destiny.
Lao-Tze
Well when they announced that the initial game will only have vampires it basically left the wind out of their sails. Leaving out werewolves and mages makes the game basically just another vampire game.
I basically crossed this game off my list right there. We will have to wait for another studio to make something like this.
I believe it is a urgent task to have EvE in good shape and get Dust out the door.
I absolutley dont know how Dust will be percived, so it may be a neckbreaker or not, i have no clue.
For WoD i had have some hopes but i fear, they may underestimate the expectations that gamers have today, tomorrow compared back the days when EvE launched.
A second EvE would faill totally today, nobody will accept inferior quality and quantity of gameplay!
So i really hope they get things done right and focus on a good WoD even if it means it will be delayed for years.
"Torquemada... do not implore him for compassion. Torquemada... do not beg him for forgiveness. Torquemada... do not ask him for mercy. Let's face it, you can't Torquemada anything!"
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