That Is Quite A Lot Of Jedi

Vanguard just reinforces the point, though. If memory serves, Brad McQuaid was not the most popular name at the time the game was released. If anything I’d bet some people that could have been fans skipped the game based on his name alone.

Shame, too, as it was a damn fine MMO (surprisingly).

[edited to draw attention to weird bug in apparent post time; by my clock, post was made at 9:28 AM Pacific time]

Under my theory that a large reason why World of Warcraft reached 10m subscribers is because of Blizzard name-brand appeal, I could see Old Republic reaching at least 1m subscribers on BioWare name-brand appeal. Unlike Blizzard, Bioware is not reputed as the company that can do no wrong, but they do have a lot of fans. Further, they’re probably a bit closer to recent fan memory seeing how they’ve actually been releasing games lately.

But then, I am perhaps overmuch the optimist, as I thought Vanguard could secure 250k. So to sour that optimistism a bit, I’ll say there’s a difference between getting 1m players to try the game and to keep them. From what I’ve heard so far, I’m not sure Old Republic has the kind of retention mechanics it needs.

Well. So much for that Mass Effect MMO I always wanted.

Option 2 – They’ve spent $40M developing the game, the client costs $40 up front so they break even with a million people. Subscription fees are pure gravy

Oh. My. God. Are they serious? When that thing does the expected crash and burn will make the Warhammer Online fiasco look like nothing.The MMO economic bubble WILL burst with that MMO. Mark my words.  [Quote this in reply]

Words marked. Just in case you have to eat them later

Hmmm, Blizzard was not a single-player game company prior to WoW either. Diablo, Starcraft, and Warcraft have had/have massive online communities associated with them. For those people already playing daily on battle.net, moving to World of Warcraft wasn’t that big a change.

Option 2 –They’ve spent $40M developing the game, the client costs $40 up front so they break even with a million people.Subscription fees are pure gravy   

The developers don’t see $40 per box sale. The retailers, the distributors and the publishers all take big chunks out of that. Even if (as in Bioware’s case) the publisher and distributor are their own parent company, the dev studio still won’t see a significant chunk of that cash.

if it has some fresh game mechanics on top of bioware story telling it could do 2m subs. if its a wow-clone with a story it will probably miss that mark. and lets remember that total EA costs are likely to be mostly marketing and not necessarily development costs. of course that article is in reference to console games but i see no reason for EA to change its behavior much for its big MMO project. we really won’t know how much it will cost to develop until the game is done and the financial report is out.

So EA is willing to spend as much as a typical summer blockbuster movie on a game that’s virtually guaranteed to make at least as much as the run of the mill summer blockbuster movie?

Look, if you have a product that you believe in, then you should be spending tens of millions to get it out the door if that’s what it takes. If you have a product that has the serious potential to compete with the biggest name in the business, then you spend a hundred million, or two hundred million, if that’s what it takes, and that’s what you can afford.

The 80 million that Blizzard spent making WoW looked like a big gamble at the time but now it’s looking like the smartest 80 million that any one has ever spent.

You’ll be a lot smarter about games if you think of them the way you think about movies. Don’t get so caught up on what’s being spent, and think more about whether it is being spent on the right things. Spending 50 million dollars on a game that is trying to occupy the same space as the billion dollar behemoth is stupid (Warhammer Online). Spending 150 million on the game that’s got a kick ass dev team, kick ass concept, and the ability to be the #1 grossing MMO on earth? It’s smart.

P.S.– I love Raph Koster, but the next time he or any one else insists that the AAA MMO is going to die some time soon, please remind him that there are consistently 2-3 AAA titles a year, and the next time some one has a breakthrough title (probably TOR, but we’ll see) that number is going to go up. If the heads of EA and Activision had their way, every game they make would be a AAA MMO, because it’s the ultimate expression of creating a franchise and then riding it until it dies, coughing up blood and money.

$250,000 per year to pay the salaries of 25 employees?Really?Damn, and i thought I was underpaid.  

Per month.

Really ? I know first hand it is relatively cheap to have large scale data center for housing 100k players compared to the 1.5 mill they bring in subscription fees. I think it would not be too far off to estimate WoW costa few cents per subscription in operational expenses- if even that!, given their scale!Of course if you factor thehuge phat CEO pay and profit expectations,bloated budgets on paper (for tax evasion) then then maybe you can say it costs 100mill to make mmo, heck make it a billion. Movie industry already love to play big budget numbers  

Well, here’s a number for you: posted 9/14/2008, claims Blizzard spent “$200 million” in upkeep since 2004. So about $50/million dollars a year, give or take. “This includes the staff, hardware support and the international customer service team and presumably does not include monies involved in the development of the game.”

Of course, that’s Blizzard, the most overtaxed Western-made MMORPG in existance. Although some Eastern MMORPGs boast over five times Blizzards’ numbers.

[Woah, that's weird, somehow this post went back in time prior to who I was replying to when I made it.]

Where is Derek Smart when you need him? Derek + 150M = titanium gerbils from outer space (with light swords for good measure)

As for the SW franchise, this isn’t their last shot at a MMO (there’s still the pre-teens and Clone Wars) but as for the prime MMO audience, it has to be far better than SWG (albeit that’s not hard)

Shame, too, as it was a damn fine MMO (surprisingly).

No. It. Was. Not.

Unless fine means, “same as what you are currently doing only buggier and a lot more annoying…” Then yes, it was a damn fine game!

Under my theory that a large reason why World of Warcraft reached 10m subscribers is because of Blizzard name-brand appeal, I could see Old Republic reaching at least 1m subscribers on BioWare name-brand appeal.Unlike Blizzard, Bioware is not reputed as the company that can do no wrong, but they do have a lot of fans.Further, they’re probably a bit closer to recent fan memory seeing how they’ve actually been releasing games lately.But then, I am perhaps overmuch the optimist, as I thought Vanguard could secure 250k.So to sour that optimistism a bit, I’ll say there’s a difference between getting 1m players to try the game and to keep them.From what I’ve heard so far, I’m not sure Old Republic has the kind of retention mechanics it needs.  

I can’t say that I’ve played every Bioware game, but I’ve played most of them, and they were all pretty great IMO. Baldur’s Gate and the sequel are classics, and in true Bioware form the sequel was better than the first one. I played Jade Empire, when it finally came out on the PC, and that was a lot of fun, and that’s coming from a guy that doesn’t like the whole Asian backdrop that much. KOTOR was was great. NWN was fun, though out of all the Bioware games I have played this is my least favorite. Mass Effect simply blew my mind, I felt like I was playing in a movie. Mass Effect was even better, and then of course you have Dragon Age, which is simply amazing.

I’m also a Blizzard fan, and they have a pretty awesome pedigree as well, but I’d daresay Bioware has just as much brand name appeal going into their first MMO as Blizzard did going into WoW.

No. It. Was. Not. Unless fine means, “same as what you are currently doing only buggier and a lot more annoying…” Then yes, it was a damn fine game!  [Quote this in reply]

Well, okay, here’s where I’m coming from on this: I remember getting beaten over the head with “the Vision” back when I was hooked on EQ (your first one’s always the strongest addiction, no?).

I played Vanguard somewhat late in its development, after it’d been out for more than a year. And I went in with *extremely* low expectations; this was a chance find of the collector’s edition box for less than $10.

Every element of the game was like “Wow, so *this* is what Bards/Necromancers/Monks (etc.) were supposed to be, could have been, and should have been.” Clear echoes of intent. To me, I saw it not as its own game, but as though someone went back and *finished* EQ. It’s both naive and sappy, but I forgave him for the Vision after playing in Vanguard what he was clearly striving to create in EQ. I get more of a kick out of playing “EQ 1.5: Vanguard Edition” than the current “EQ 2: Disney Edition”.

It’s far from the quality or polish of its contemporaries, and in many ways it sticks to old design elements that MMOs have since evolved beyond, but *for what it is* it’s a damn fine game.

(And, to be fair, I’m someone that played and enjoyed both AO (Adventurer!) and Horizons (Spiritist!))

It’s far from the quality or polish of its contemporaries, and in many ways it sticks to old design elements that MMOs have since evolved beyond, but *for what it is* it’s a damn fine game.

I’d like to chime in that I thought Vanguard was pretty impressive too, at least in terms of what they tried to do with it. Not only because of the slightly better-than-average class detail, but because they tried to make crafting and diplomacy as full-fledged professions as well. One big advantage Vanguard has over its competition is that (aside from there being 4 servers) it has no instancing, which is always an immersion breaker for me.

That said, Vanguard tried to be a little too epic. Even if there were 5000 players logged into on the server (which probably never happened) they’d be spread across such a giant world that you’d have a hard time finding some to socialize with. That’s murder for a game based on such a group-centric formula. There’s a lot of little details that would have been nice if they had the time to develop them, such as public transportation (now replaced with “teleport NPCs”) which just couldn’t get realized. Big tracts of empty-feeling land and half-completed systems seem to be common sight in this game.

Last time I had played Vanguard, it was stable and had good performance – if it was this way at release, it would be a lot more popular today. However, looking down what they’ve done I’m not sure the game has actually gone forward at all since release. Fixing all the broken and the empty bits of the game have kept them busy all this time, with no foreseeable end in sight. Talk about drowning in “epic.”

2. It works 99% of the time.  

The other 1% of the time it’s “working as intended.”

According to the latest previews of the game, they really are trying to out-WoW WoW (again). Sure, this hasn’t worked in the past, but I guess they figure that with a massive enough budget they might actually be able to pull it off. Maybe they will, who knows.

But I agree that these bloated budgets for games are unsustainable. Massive budgets suphocate creativity, and players are not going to pay to play the same game over and over forever (or so I would hope).

You need to hack off some of the box sales and subscriber fees to pay lucasarts for the licensing

(a mass effect mmo wouldn’t have this issue, but has nowhere near the cultural cache)

It all hinges on one question. Can Bioware bring the golden touch they have clearly demonstrated with single player RPGs to the mmo space? If they can, EA is going to give Blizzard a serious challenge. If this is sucessful, and my gut tells me it will be, one can easily see Dragon Age and Mass Effect MMOs coming down the pipe. I can’t see this game going down in epic fail flames like Warhammer did. Bioware has a history of listening to their customers, reading reviews and staying humble while they work conyiously to improve on their games and sequels. There are no meglomaniacs burning heretics here.  [Quote this in reply]

Yeah… but they have saddled themselves withe the antichrist of the MMO world, EA. Anything Bioware can make, no matter how good and how innovative, EA can turn into a turd via meddling, MBA’s making power grabs and similar “business and marketing” practices. EA has never ever launched and maintained a succesful MMO. They have shut down and failed at it more than any other company, and the hits just keep coming. So is your optimism in Bioware greater than your pessimism over EA? Who wins that fight?

From the information that is currently available I do not see anything new other than an a new shiney enviorment with talking NPC’s to do the same thing we all have been doing for 10 years with light sabres instead of swords. WoW with Wookies.

You could cut out the voice crap as it failed and was hated when it was tried(EQ2) to the point it was removed from the game, and to give us a shiney new graphic world with the same quest driven hand holding train track game play that gets even more dumbed down with every new MMO release. If that 150 mill is true they are drastically over spending on what is really nothing new or genre changing by at least 50%.

But hey from 150 million it has a good story line quest….well with the over use of quest n MMO’s 99% of gamers no longer even read them, let alone want to sit around and listen to them.

In strong voice from an out of work actor or more likely intern…Go forth young jedi and kill 10 space rats for the alliance as they are infesting our great city!..Do not forget to use the force within you, however before you can begin you will need to gather up 10 pieces of cheese from in Been There Done That Cheese Shop which is a 5 mintue run from here across the city, the rats are located another 5 minute away from the cheese shop but do not worry because you are a new jedi we have highlighed on your mini map with a dotted line and provided a glowing path so you do not get lost or even have to play attention once this voice dialog is over, return to me when you have lured out and killed all 10 space rats for your reward! CAN NOT WAIT!…

From the information that is currently available I do not see anything new other than an a new shiney enviorment with talking NPC’s to do the same thing we all have been doing for 10 years with light sabres instead of swords.WoW with Wookies.You could cut out the voice crap as it failed and was hated when it was tried(EQ2) to the point it was removed from the game, and to give us a shiney new graphic world with the same quest driven hand holding train track game play that gets even more dumbed down with every new MMO release. If that 150 mill is true they are drastically over spending on what is really nothing new or genre changing by at least 50%.But hey from 150 million it has a good story line quest….well with the over use of quest n MMO’s 99% of gamers no longer even read them, let alone want to sit around and listen to them.In strong voice from an out of work actor or more likely intern…Go forth young jedi and kill 10 space rats for the alliance as they are infesting our great city!..Do not forget to use the force within you, however before you can begin you will need to gather up 10 pieces of cheese from in Been There Done That Cheese Shop which is a 5 mintue run from here across the city, the rats are located another 5 minute away from the cheese shop but do not worry because you are a new jedi we have highlighed on your mini map with a dotted line and provided a glowing path so you do not get lost or even have to play attention once this voice dialog is over, return to me when you have lured out and killed all 10 space rats for your reward!CAN NOT WAIT!…  

You haven’t done a lot of research then.

Bioware is attempting to add the so called “4th pillar”, bringing more immerse story telling to MMO’s. Part of that is voice acting, but it is a step above what EQ did, as even the player character will be voiced. In addition the player character will have NPCs to bring with him. If you have played any of Bioware’s games it is not hard to believe those NPC’s will have stories, concerns, and quests of their own. If Bioware succeeds this game could easily be the best blend of single player RPG and MMO that we’ve ever seen.

I liked Dragon Age a lot, but I am not sure how you are going to take something like that and turn it into a MMO. I still see this “4th pillar” is mostly a novelity that will wear off rather quick as it did in EQ2 whether or not my character talks also, or I can take npcs with me aka Guild War Hero’s. When playing a MMO I am looking to take my friends, guild mates, you know people who I game with not NPC’s, it has been hard enough these days with the entire level process designed to be a mostly a solo experience and you are actually penalized for grouping or even a duo. If I wanted to take NPC’s or solo I play excellent games like Dragon Age, when I go to play a MMO I want to play with actual people.I am also not looking to play a hybriad single player game with some multiplayer instance options for $14.99 or more a month. It will be a success at launch no doubt about that but sustained million or more for over a year that is what I doubt. I think you are putting to much on stories, as I said most gamers do not care to read them, skip video cut aways, no matter how well the story is most gamers do pay attention to begin with. If that is the 4th pillar they are putting a lot on people completely changing how they game in a MMO as it pertains to quest and stories and is that really worth $150 million? I guess we will find out sometime next year   [Quote this in reply]

Well no MMO, not even the vaunted WoW, is for everyone. But I also doubt Bioware would spend so much development time and PR time on a mere novelty. It’s just not their style.

Yeah… but they have saddled themselves withe the antichrist of the MMO world, EA. Anything Bioware can make, no matter how good and how innovative, EA can turn into a turd via meddling, MBA’s making power grabs and similar “business and marketing” practices. EA has never ever launched and maintained a succesful MMO. They have shut down and failed at it more than any other company, and the hits just keep coming. So is your optimism in Bioware greater than your pessimism over EA? Who wins that fight?  [Quote this in reply]

I’m not here to proclaim EA’s virtues, but Bioware has been and always will be different from most companies. Now they are a subsidiary of EA of course, but not even EA is stupid enough to mess with the golden child.

I’m not too worried about Bioware making the transition from single player game to massively multiplayer. Look at Origin’s Ultima Online – one of the longest running fossils MMORPGs in existence. Look at Look at Squaresoft’s Final Fantasy XI – one of the few MMORPGs based on EverQuest to have a similarly good retention curve (possibly even better). Look at Blizzard’s World of Warcraft.

It seems that history has plenty of examples that this whole idea that you need a whole separate skill set to make a good MMORPG is a load of crap. True, there’s the net code and managing a community. However, compared to the skills involved in creating a quality, cutting-edge game, these are comparatively small hurdles.

Granted, there are a few counterexamples. The Sims Online, made by Maxis, which sort of shot itself in the foot by ripping out the AI that made the Sims interesting and replacing it with real players. Earth and Beyond, made by Westwood, which somehow was a bit too mediocre… out of support for my point, I’ll point out that their lead designers don’t have a whole lot of single player game experience. Does Tabula Rasa count? That’s tricky – the kinds of experiences Garriott had experience in producing before were almost nothing like Tabula Rasa, and the lead designer was a guy whose first design position was an Ultima Online expansion.

Still, I think that the point that people who know how to make good single player experiences have the skills they need to make good massively multiplayer experiences is solid enough. This is because you’ll find many, many more examples of bad MMORPGs made by people who never had experience making good single player experiences before than otherwise.

To these ends, I’d like to see the kind of MMORPG Miyamoto would make – Legend of Zelda Online? (Then again, judging by the way he’s been leaning lately, he’d probably target the casuals.) Warren Spector or Ken Levine, then.