Originally posted by Rekrul Originally posted by KenshuAni Did Raph have a forum name, and if so, does anyone remember what it was? I never really paid attention to the RL names of the devs back in beta/early launch, so I am just a bit curious.
Holocron.
I thought Holocron was Haden Blackmon. Thanks for the quick reply, though.
Mnemon, although the departure was quite amicable, it’s also very true that SOE and I were heading in different directions. So yeah, I’d say that was one of the reasons.
Interesting little snippet in the responses to the piece.
_____ When Sony and Lucas set out to create the NGE, we said, How can we do this and make it similar to WoW? We wanted it to be all about Iconic characters like Luke, combat and locking our players into a class. So we created a system that would restrict players and make all professions the same and there would be minimal gameplay around making that change. We definitely borrowed a lot of ideas from WoW that worked and figured out how to make them fit for SWG Julio Torres (2005)
Originally posted by dolanious Kosters "Commandments" come off as hypocritical, considering he was a top dog at SWG (even if he wasn't working directly on it, he had major influence over there) and allowed every one of his so-called commandments be broken. _________________________________________________________
These commandments are a summation of one man's experience in the game design field. I don't know what goes on behind the scenes at these companies, but I think you see many games either release too early or never at all.
Is this the creative people soley or is it a falling apart of the communication process between those who create and those who put up the money for the end product? I can't imagine any one person is responsible for what happened once the game went live. I do think from what I have read that Raph Koster's brilliant thinking gave us the framework of the game that offered so much to so many people.
I remember the Theory of Fun thread. Raph must have been off in the front offices doing whatever it was he did by then. He did peek in and offer some comments in that thread. This was of course the time of the Combat Upgrade. People had wanted one for a long time, and isn't it correct that a different version of the combat upgrade was being Alpha Tested, and it was well received from what you could glean, then whammo, the CU as we know it was released. So the Theory of Fun thread wasn't tooooo fun.
So...my point being, he was likely acting as more of an internal consultant than a designer once the live game ball was rolling. So, don't blame Raph!
Is this the creative people soley or is it a falling apart of the communication process between those who create and those who put up the money for the end product? I can't imagine any one person is responsible for what happened once the game went live. I do think from what I have read that Raph Koster's brilliant thinking gave us the framework of the game that offered so much to so many people.
Yes, this is it for the majority of software projects that are considered failures. The whole software industry lacks maturity, it has not been around very long and has not settled down enough to be mature. Every year there is a new methodology introduced, and every year they get closer to the mark.
Synergy between business and creative will happen one day, but the solution lies within our slow changing educational system that seems hell bent on telling us what to think instead of how to think. The solutions lie outside the box we call "current understanding".
I realize I said I quit. I never said it was forever
Originally posted by KenshuAni Originally posted by Rekrul Originally posted by KenshuAni Did Raph have a forum name, and if so, does anyone remember what it was? I never really paid attention to the RL names of the devs back in beta/early launch, so I am just a bit curious.
Holocron.
I thought Holocron was Haden Blackmon. Thanks for the quick reply, though. Haden Blackman was Shug_Ninx.
Thou shalt not mistake online worlds for games, for they encompass far more; nor shalt thou forget that play is noble, and game is no epithet.
Thou shalt not disrespect thy players, nor treat them as mere database entries or subscriptions, but rather as people, for thy power is granted you by them. Thou shalt not remove fun or implement unfun for the sake of longer subscriber longevity, nor shalt thou consider thy sort of fun to be the only sort of fun to be had, for many and mysterious are the ways of enjoyment. Thou shalt not blindly do what has been done before, but rather shalt know why all is as it is, and how it could be different. Thou shalt create and follow rules that bind thyself as well as the players, for thou art of the community, not above it. Thou shalt not make thy world a place for players to do real harm unto one another, or for thee to do harm unto players. Thou shalt not covet thy neighbor’s userbase, but instead be true to thine own userbase, for thou hast made them a garden, and thy job is cultivation. Thou shalt make every activity within thy world one that stands alone enjoyably; if it be a game, then thou shouldst make it a fun game on its own merits; if it be other, then thou shouldst make it true to itself. Thy world doth not make boring things into enjoyable things merely because it is thy world. There shalt be no number nine. Honor thy ancestors, for they solved most of thy design problems.
i remember a game built by these rules, it was brilliant.
Originally posted by Cymek I wish my last name was Gates. If it was, I would give Raph $500,000,000. No deadlines, no BS, no bean counters, just him in complete control, complete freedom....just one mission. To make the best open ended MMO ever. /slap self sorry....I'm prone to daydreaming. funny thing is...noone had the capital like SOE did. If they just had patience, the return on investment would have been insane....
It takes money to make money... Unfortunately SOE knows this, but their twist is they would rather cut the controlable costs as much as possible to increase profit margins...
Having access to a billion $ IP - Billions of dollars.. Having access to a massive fan base of said IP - Even more Billons... Singly handedly alienating them due to stupidity - Priceless.
It takes money to make money... Unfortunately SOE knows this, but their twist is they would rather cut the controlable costs as much as possible to increase profit margins...
Yup. And this is what is wrong with the business managers of today. They all read the same magazine articles, written by washed up business hacks that never ran anything successfully. All they think of is cut, cut, cut. I fear for the future of the world that is controlled by this "stockholder-controlled" economy.
It is the pressure placed upon the CEOs by Board Members being pressured by non-loyal stockholders that cause knee jerk reactions like we have seen here. In the past, the markets were run and played by people much more patient than today's "Have it your way, right away" fast food generation. I fear for our children. I have almost given up hope on the whole concept of free market.
The way of the NGE is the wave of the future - toss crap into a fan and see what sticks because we have to do something to increase profits and reduce costs NOW. Reduce 30+ classes to 9 and fire 20 programmers. That saves us $2 million a year or so right there. Add that right to the profit margin. Don't worry that you will no longer be competitive next year or the next. We'll just sell the business unit to somebody else and that will be their problem. Then we can add that sale to our bottom line as well.
I'm not saying they will sell SWG, though it would be advisable to them if they wish to remain in the MMO market (get distance between yourself and the disaster you have wrought). But a lot of companies are run into the ground this way.
Bah..../rant off
I realize I said I quit. I never said it was forever
Originally posted by jrscott Originally posted by Xcathdra
It takes money to make money... Unfortunately SOE knows this, but their twist is they would rather cut the controlable costs as much as possible to increase profit margins...
Yup. And this is what is wrong with the business managers of today. They all read the same magazine articles, written by washed up business hacks that never ran anything successfully. All they think of is cut, cut, cut. I fear for the future of the world that is controlled by this "stockholder-controlled" economy.
It is the pressure placed upon the CEOs by Board Members being pressured by non-loyal stockholders that cause knee jerk reactions like we have seen here. In the past, the markets were run and played by people much more patient than today's "Have it your way, right away" fast food generation. I fear for our children. I have almost given up hope on the whole concept of free market.
Of course, it also takes 20 mil just to make an AAA MMO. That's before launch. That's not a small ammount to gather, and people that do invest will want it back. With interest. And when you do run out of money, you need to cut corners, even if it costs you the game.
As for more patient people? Nah. Robber barrons were playing the market so badly, government had to take measures to stop them, because they were striping every single dime made by companies, ruining everything and anything in the process. And that's 100 years ago. Feudism was about small number of lords working people to death for dime a dozen while cranking up taxes on anything that could be taxed, including window sizes, road width and firewood.
Many people fail to realize where the today's quality of living comes from, and just how bad it used to be. All the factors that led to apearance of unions, social welfare, and similar programs.
Despite that, SOE, and Sony in general, apear to have a most unusual way of making money, failing to realize the world around them, making same mistakes over and over.
glad to this this made it over to the SOE forum. even tho my sub has long since been cancelled i still love watching the game play forum turn into a big ball of flaming goodness
Another thing to note is that Raph's contract officialy expired beginning of July. It might explain the much more direct content of his blogs starting around that date.
Its sad but due to WOW's success and large Dev houses not willing to take gambles and risk making a medicore profit you won't see a large sand box style game for a while now especially after Blizzard showed you can make a massive MMO but only if you spoon feed content to your players. What I was hoping for was that blizzard actually helped the MMO genre by introducing a new set of people to the beauty of online gaming and that this would mean you would see companies trying new things and eventually develope a sand box game which was actually very well done and polished. However i don't think we will see that for long time now unless Koster decides to add his magic to something.
Water cooled Intel Corei7 920 D0 Stepping OC'd 4.3GHz - 6GB Corsair Dominator GT RAM 2000Mhz - ASUS RAGE II EXTREME X58 Mobo - 2x HD 5870 in Crossfire X, OC'd 0.9Ghz core 1.3Ghz RAM - Dell 2407WFP Flat Panel LCD 24" 1920x1200
Originally posted by Fignar Its sad but due to WOW's success and large Dev houses not willing to take gambles and risk making a medicore profit you won't see a large sand box style game for a while now especially after Blizzard showed you can make a massive MMO but only if you spoon feed content to your players. What I was hoping for was that blizzard actually helped the MMO genre by introducing a new set of people to the beauty of online gaming and that this would mean you would see companies trying new things and eventually develope a sand box game which was actually very well done and polished. However i don't think we will see that for long time now unless Koster decides to add his magic to something.
WoW demonstrated only one thing. By taking old concept, and strapping tons of polish on it, you can make much more business than by working on design or new concepts.
Polish is the deciding factor.
And this is something SOE doesn't seem to get. Who cares about pre-cu/CU or NGE. They keep changing everything around in search of a silver bullet. Too bad they never learned the most important lesson from Blizzard. Take what you have, then polish, polish, polish.
Comments
I thought Holocron was Haden Blackmon. Thanks for the quick reply, though.
It was Raph, his last post ever on the forum
http://forums.station.sony.com/swg/board/message?board.id=Shadowfire&message.id=301709#M301709
"There are two kinds of spurs, my friend. Those that come in by the door; those that come in by the window"
_____
When Sony and Lucas set out to create the NGE, we said, How can we do this and make it similar to WoW? We wanted it to be all about Iconic characters like Luke, combat and locking our players into a class. So we created a system that would restrict players and make all professions the same and there would be minimal gameplay around making that change. We definitely borrowed a lot of ideas from WoW that worked and figured out how to make them fit for SWG Julio Torres (2005)
Yes, this is it for the majority of software projects that are considered failures. The whole software industry lacks maturity, it has not been around very long and has not settled down enough to be mature. Every year there is a new methodology introduced, and every year they get closer to the mark.
Synergy between business and creative will happen one day, but the solution lies within our slow changing educational system that seems hell bent on telling us what to think instead of how to think. The solutions lie outside the box we call "current understanding".
I realize I said I quit. I never said it was forever
I thought Holocron was Haden Blackmon. Thanks for the quick reply, though.
Haden Blackman was Shug_Ninx.
I wish my last name was Gates.
If it was, I would give Raph $500,000,000.
No deadlines, no BS, no bean counters, just him in complete control, complete freedom....just one mission.
To make the best open ended MMO ever.
/slap self
sorry....I'm prone to daydreaming.
funny thing is...noone had the capital like SOE did. If they just had patience, the return on investment would have been insane....
Having access to a billion $ IP - Billions of dollars..
Having access to a massive fan base of said IP - Even more Billons...
Singly handedly alienating them due to stupidity - Priceless.
Yup. And this is what is wrong with the business managers of today. They all read the same magazine articles, written by washed up business hacks that never ran anything successfully. All they think of is cut, cut, cut. I fear for the future of the world that is controlled by this "stockholder-controlled" economy.
It is the pressure placed upon the CEOs by Board Members being pressured by non-loyal stockholders that cause knee jerk reactions like we have seen here. In the past, the markets were run and played by people much more patient than today's "Have it your way, right away" fast food generation. I fear for our children. I have almost given up hope on the whole concept of free market.
The way of the NGE is the wave of the future - toss crap into a fan and see what sticks because we have to do something to increase profits and reduce costs NOW. Reduce 30+ classes to 9 and fire 20 programmers. That saves us $2 million a year or so right there. Add that right to the profit margin. Don't worry that you will no longer be competitive next year or the next. We'll just sell the business unit to somebody else and that will be their problem. Then we can add that sale to our bottom line as well.
I'm not saying they will sell SWG, though it would be advisable to them if they wish to remain in the MMO market (get distance between yourself and the disaster you have wrought). But a lot of companies are run into the ground this way.
Bah..../rant off
I realize I said I quit. I never said it was forever
Unaware of the Jestor?
http://about.me/JestorRodo/
Friends enjoy his classic Vblog - https://www.facebook.com/GoodOldReliableNathan
Yup. And this is what is wrong with the business managers of today. They all read the same magazine articles, written by washed up business hacks that never ran anything successfully. All they think of is cut, cut, cut. I fear for the future of the world that is controlled by this "stockholder-controlled" economy.
It is the pressure placed upon the CEOs by Board Members being pressured by non-loyal stockholders that cause knee jerk reactions like we have seen here. In the past, the markets were run and played by people much more patient than today's "Have it your way, right away" fast food generation. I fear for our children. I have almost given up hope on the whole concept of free market.
Of course, it also takes 20 mil just to make an AAA MMO. That's before launch. That's not a small ammount to gather, and people that do invest will want it back. With interest. And when you do run out of money, you need to cut corners, even if it costs you the game.
As for more patient people? Nah. Robber barrons were playing the market so badly, government had to take measures to stop them, because they were striping every single dime made by companies, ruining everything and anything in the process. And that's 100 years ago. Feudism was about small number of lords working people to death for dime a dozen while cranking up taxes on anything that could be taxed, including window sizes, road width and firewood.
Many people fail to realize where the today's quality of living comes from, and just how bad it used to be. All the factors that led to apearance of unions, social welfare, and similar programs.
Despite that, SOE, and Sony in general, apear to have a most unusual way of making money, failing to realize the world around them, making same mistakes over and over.
even tho my sub has long since been cancelled i still love watching the game play forum turn into a big ball of flaming goodness
____________________________
TheCore
Expect to see more hints soon.
Water cooled Intel Corei7 920 D0 Stepping OC'd 4.3GHz - 6GB Corsair Dominator GT RAM 2000Mhz - ASUS RAGE II EXTREME X58 Mobo - 2x HD 5870 in Crossfire X, OC'd 0.9Ghz core 1.3Ghz RAM - Dell 2407WFP Flat Panel LCD 24" 1920x1200
Polish is the deciding factor.
And this is something SOE doesn't seem to get. Who cares about pre-cu/CU or NGE. They keep changing everything around in search of a silver bullet. Too bad they never learned the most important lesson from Blizzard. Take what you have, then polish, polish, polish.
WoW and SWG are also two very different games one is spoon fed content the other is sandbox that is also a factor.
Water cooled Intel Corei7 920 D0 Stepping OC'd 4.3GHz - 6GB Corsair Dominator GT RAM 2000Mhz - ASUS RAGE II EXTREME X58 Mobo - 2x HD 5870 in Crossfire X, OC'd 0.9Ghz core 1.3Ghz RAM - Dell 2407WFP Flat Panel LCD 24" 1920x1200