Profile: Dedthom
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• • Poll: Have you bought gold??

  • I bought gold from a friend from work once. She had the gold I had 10 extra bucks and needed a mount so it worked out. I wouldn't buy from a site though, to many unknowns.

  • Posted: 12/04/08 7:19 AM
    General Discussion
• • Not another fantasy MMO!

  • Originally posted by bobfish
    

    I think you missed the point of my post, there was a reason I picked number of players as the measuring stick, because it is the only real comparable factor of an MMO.

    When you go to the suit with the money and say "I want $30mil to make an MMO, here is my design document" they will ask you for a return on investment, you will then have to prove to them that your product can pay back that $30mil with interest in a finite amount of time.

    Now the only way you can possibly work this is to base your figures on existing products in the market place, because if you go "Its never been done before" they will just laugh at you.

    So taking that on board, you can cite SWG and EVE as positive examples of sci fi MMOs, though a suit would argue that SWG was only successful because of its license (whether this is true or not). This then leaves you with just EVE and if you are presenting a design based on avatar and ground combat, then you don't really have anything to base it on.

    Yet we then look at the other side of the coin which is fantasy, you can cite EQ, EQ2, DAoC, WoW, AoC, WAR, L2, and others as being successful and examples of the return you can make. Whilst you may cry foul about WAR and AoC being in there, it is all about how you play the figures, if I want something impressive to say, I will turn around and say a half finished fantasy MMO with the right concept managed to sell over 400,000 units in the first week (AoC), a finished fantasy MMO with the right concept but inferior execution managed to sell 750,000 units in the first week (WAR). And the market leader has a subscription growth every year since launch leaving it currently at over 11 million subscribers world wide. Now imagine what we can do with our design which learns from the mistakes AoC and WAR made and takes into account the successful features of WoW!

    The suit will be impressed by these big figures and your manipulation of them to show the financial return and you will be given your $30mil to start work on your fantasy MMO. This is why we get so many MMOs that follow the WoW pattern, not because the market wants them, but because the suits won't invest that much money in anything that isn't proven.

    Now, I'm not saying a sci fi MMO can't be big, SWTOR will be, but I don't think anyone other than LucasArts is willing to invest in a big budget sci fi MMO at this time without any figures from existing MMOs to back up the investment. After SWTOR is out, I fully expect there to be some big sums of money invested in that genre which will hopefully yield at least one AAA title.

    You sir or ma'am, as the case maybe, of all the posts that have followed my start, some good some bad some just stupid, have hit the nail squarely on the head with this post.
     

     You have answered my question exactly as to why there will not be a big league sci fi MMO. Not in the near future and probably not until the very fabric of the industry changes.

    Of course this being said, with the poor performance, I don't like to use the word failure so liberally as other because I feel a MMO has not failed as long as some people find their niche in it, of some of the new fantasy MMOs if a few good sci fi MMOs hit it big then companies may start looking into the genre. Unfortunately I don't think SWOR will be leading the way.

  • Posted: 11/26/08 12:35 AM
    General Discussion
• • Not another fantasy MMO!

  • I see that Mortal online is now listed on MMORPG.com and thought "great! Just what we need is another fantasy MMO!"

    What is going on here? When are the sci fi fans going to get some love?

    Of all the games listed on this sight 40 are listed as sci fi.

    Some of these games are older games, some barely qualify as playable and others barely qualify as sci fi.

    When are we going to get a really good sci fi game that is well balanced, has combat that makes sense for modern and futuristic weapons, and has both planetside and space exploration?

     When is a company going to take a chance to come out with an MMO that is more then a spaceship sim or more then a cheap rip off of some well known and over done IP?

    Of all the games scheduled to be released only a small handful are sci fi. Why won't a big name company back a good sci fi game?

    Please don't tell me SWOR is the next great sci fi game, if you notice it is listed as fantasy and that is what it will play like.

    AO is great if  you like standing six feet from you target shooting one another, and the nano thing is just magic with sci fi names.

    Come on where is the realistic vaccum will kill you, gravity on all world isnt 1G, ships can land on those big balls of rock and metal , MMOs?

    Has WoW created an enviroment in this industry that has caused devs to only see dollars when spell chucking sword wielding, barely dressed nymphs are involved?

  • Posted: 11/25/08 2:30 AM
    General Discussion
• • Was this game suppose to be a fantasy MMO?

  • Looking at the screen shots, it looks like the ships are casting spells. Was this a fantasy MMO in the making and then the devs reskinned and changed the design to a spaceship MMO?

  • Posted: 11/21/08 11:28 PM
    Hostile Space
• • Why is Spellborn not being talked about?

  • This game has peeked my interest. I wasn't paying much attention to it hoping other game would be good but now that I am more interested in games that are different in what ever way, then I give tCoS a whirl.

    I find many of the Asian games are getting better then the used to be.

  • Posted: 11/17/08 11:32 PM
    The Chronicles of Spellborn