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If I had millions of dollars in disposable income
TheLizardbones
Member CommonPosts: 10,910
and I had a great desire to revive or rebuild a game, I think I would take a shot at Myst Online: Uru Live. It's an adaption of the Myst style of game, but taken online with other players. It's not an MMORPG, but with some work, it could be a decent MMO.
Some things that need updating are the controls, and game engine to make the game feel more modern. I would probably use the first person point of view as the primary point of view, with an optional third person point of view. I would add some better chat and player interaction mechanics, but I wouldn't change the game itself a whole lot. I'd love to start the game with the original Myst and Riven games, but done in fully interactive 3D, kind of like Myst Live.
It would never make money, I'm sure, but I'd love to actually do it, and play the resulting game even if only a couple thousand people played it. It would be disposable income after all. :-)
Why in the world did I think this up? Beau Hindman is doing a play through of Myst over at Massively.
A very close second to this is BattleTech: The Crescent Hawk's Inception which has become downloadable abandonware.
What about you guys? If you had enough disposable income, is there a game you'd like to rewrite or revamp for the current era of games?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
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Main Game: Eldevin (Plat0nic)
2nd Game: Path of Exile (Platonic Hate)
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
If I had multi millions I would take up Jet Skiing and co-eds at college along with with blackjack. I definitely wouldn't try to make money off of an MMO.
I'm gonna get me a yacht, an ounce of cocaine, fifteen whores, and in a week show you what a millionaire looks like.
My Thoughts on Content Locust
No. I'd be to busy actually going and seeing places and cultures that I'll probably never get to see as it is. Lets assume I got bored of that and nothing else came up (doubtful). Also assuming I had a big enough wad of cash. In that case: (hahahaha a lot of huge "if's") I would then talk to Craig Morrison about dumping a wad a cash and see about funding Anarchy Online development.
I wouldn't want to own a single thing or expect anything other than them staying true to their game/vision. Leave income schemes out of it. After all it would be my money being spent not theirs on development. Just leaving them with maintenance costs.
Seriously. So much more on my list of things to do other than funding a virtual world.
If I had a Million Dollars I would hire a great PR firm for about $250K and have a killer video of a game trailer made for another 250K.
I would start a Kickstarter and have my PR firm take control. Promise the World, use all the key words and sell the dream. The 250K showcase Video will be awesome.
As the Millions start rolling in there will people warning of my evil plan. But the Fanboys will drive them away. The hype will carry this game into tens of Millions.
Once I have about 20 Million I will pay some kid 10K to make an MMO with RPG maker and say "oops I failed" and "small team". Some diehard fanboys will defend me to the end.
I will take my 19 Million or so that is left, and retire in STYLE....
EDIT: I am NOT joking btw (even though its funny)
I got it. Even said what I would do if I choose to blow it on a mmo development and what I would expect. Which isn't much. "Them to stay true to their vision and leave money making schemes out of it."
Just so much more on my list other than spending that kind of money on a MMO. If I ever win something like a large Powerball only way I'll ever come across this kind of money, the last thing I am going to think about is spending it on a virtual world. If I were a coder or something it might take higher precedence.
You'd need some type of applicable skills to go along with those multi millions, be it business, programming, marketing, etc. Most of the quality talent wouldn't be willing to leave their jobs for a one time project even if you offered significantly more than what they are earning on their salary, and motivating and directing people to keep up quality work isn't something that's as simple as throwing money at them.
Actually I say there are four viable options for starting a game studio:
1. Hire mostly new promising talent fresh out of college and a hopefully snag a few people with experience in the game industry to train them and hunker down for a long start to completion on your first game that probably won't be anywhere near the quality you are looking for.
2. Be an influential person in game development already or at the very least have loads of connections in the industry. It's the only way you'll get trust to get experienced developers on board with your vision.
3. Have a realistic scope and become an indie studio. Money would definitely be more than enough pull here.
4. You can outsource work or even start a studio overseas in places where opportunities aren't as good for high income jobs to work on your game. This will likely be overseas. I can name a few studios that have done this in countries like China.
From the sound of it none of these options would fit with what you want to do, so I think even with a stupid amount of money to entice experienced developers with, chances are experienced developers are not going to want to leave their cushy jobs at whatever studio they work for to go revamp an old game that did miserably in sales especially when you admit those are likely to be financial failures. That doesn't exactly look good on one's resume.
Also isn't Uru online still available to play as a free to play?: http://mystonline.com/en/
There corrected...I dont think the ounce would spread well amongst you and th whores
This pretty much sums up my if I had money dream too
No matter how cynical you become, its never enough to keep up - Lily Tomlin
For mmo, I would make a very niche game targeted towards a very specific type of gamer (screw the rest, I don't believe in pleasing everyone). After a little bit of thought I'd use SWG's as a influence for the game.
For myself, I'd go on a world tour.
I did ask if there was a game that anyone would want to revamp or rewrite for the current era. If there are no games that someone would want to do that with, I guess a fair answer is the yacht and cocaine thing, though I don't think that's a better use of the money.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Forget the coke and the other two doesn't sound to bad.
Sorry, I didn't help your thread any.
It's Saturday night, a time to be silly.
I'd like to see AC1 revamped and relaunched, mostly because I never got to play it back in the day and it sounded like it had some interesting game concepts I would have enjoyed.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I wouldn't go for an mmo. I think with how little I know about actually programming anything it would be fail.
I'd like to build a single player/drop in co-op game that features a super hero and focus on non-linear rpg. Just you as a hero you created ( from a list of powers and a costume generator like coh had ) in a big city and things just happen. When you start out you don't have any contacts and being new at the job you don't really know what you're doing. Depending on your origin you enter them game from a couple of different ways.
The goal of the game would be to build an infrastructure to help you save the city. Instead of the traditional leveling skills you'd be gaining contacts, hideouts, secret identities and even recruiting other heroes eventual to form a sort of justice league type of thing.
Random events would always be happening and an underlying story line would be hidden among the events as clues. Depending on how well you figure it out you can either be totally surprised by major events or discover them before they actually happen..and foil the bad guy!
If you fail bad enough bad things can start to happen. People start to blame you for things etc etc. And depending on how you handle bad guys and other good guys you'll gain a reputation. So you can pick a dark knight type of path a Tony stark type or even a superman type of game play..or anything in between...maybe even let players be evil....nah that can be part 2 :P
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Me? I'd have an exact scale replica structure made of Striker Eureka (in its 'chest cannon fire' pose no less) for myself to live in. No joke. The 'cockpit' would be a living room / home theatre, bedroom it its 'chest', etc. If I have enough money afterward, I'll have a scale Slattern built across the street.
Oh, and I'd finance somebody competent to make a game based on the universe of the film, perhaps chronicling the beginning of the Jaeger program & such (as the enemies get tougher, the controls & abilities of the Jaegers get more refined, precise, and powerful to mimic the progression of the technology and the Kaiju). Perhaps begin with Axehead / Trespasser & have that part play out more like an RTS or flight sim hybrid... or heck, have it play out kind of like X-Com! Manage the PPDC, funding, etc. Of course, combat would be action-based instead of turn based...
Why somebody would need to finance such a thing is beyond me; you'd think a concept like 250ft. mech vs. 250ft monster would be one of the simplest concepts in the fucking world to translate to a video game, but... well, it took Hollywood this long just to make a proper movie out of it, and that pretty much says it all.
Hell, even taking Godzilla: Save the Earth & transplanting PR Kaijus & Jaegers into it, then selling the thing for ten bucks on XBL would be a thousand times better than what we actually got...
Don't even get me started on why we can't get a decent Robotech game. They're jets that turn into bipeds & fire lots of missiles, why the fuck is it so god damn hard to get a decent game of that? *continues drunkenly ranting to nobody in particular*
AN' DERE AIN'T NO SUCH FING AS ENUFF DAKKA, YA GROT! Enuff'z more than ya got an' less than too much an' there ain't no such fing as too much dakka. Say dere is, and me Squiggoff'z eatin' tonight!
We are born of the blood. Made men by the blood. Undone by the blood. Our eyes are yet to open. FEAR THE OLD BLOOD.
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