Its not complicated man. Its common sense. We"re not talking about a "million+" seller here. We"re talking about an "intent" to "directly compete" with Blizzard for market share. So right off the bat, they"ve relegated themselves to 10 million+. 5 million minimum assuming thier majority fanbase comes directly from WoW. THAT is the bottom line here. Like I said, if you wish to believe that whatever they come up with will be able to "directly" compete with WoW, thats your prerogative. I don"t see it happening. Primarily BECAUSE the fantasy sector IS so familiar. What the hell are they going to improve upon? What are they going to make SO MUCH MORE "fun and addictive" by such leaps and bounds with yet ANOTHER fantasy game, that it"ll chew into Blizzard"s market share?Twobit Whore said:
Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
- Thread starter Lord Thanos_foh
- Start date
-
Guest, it's time once again for the massively important and exciting FoH Asshat Tournament!
Go here and give us your nominations!Who's been the biggest Asshat in the last year? Give us your worst ones!
Ya know...thats just silly Rayne.
You don"t start a business and include in your business plans your chase for mediocrity. You shoot for the stars and attempt to do everything right so that even if you don"t hit your target you still do damn well.
You"re damn straight you step out with an intent to compete with WOW. You have to. But that doesn"t mean that your a failure if you don"t beat WOW"s subs. It means that you are walking into the market space with an honest awareness of what is expected of you. You know you have to be as polished as WOW, as fun as WOW, and with unique qualities that will draw a crowd.
Every game that comes out from this point on has to compete with WOW, its unavoidable. Even a scifi game that enters this MMO space has to compete with WOW. To not acknowledge that is the height of stupidity and I for one am not seeing a lot of that from Curt and Co.
You don"t start a business and include in your business plans your chase for mediocrity. You shoot for the stars and attempt to do everything right so that even if you don"t hit your target you still do damn well.
You"re damn straight you step out with an intent to compete with WOW. You have to. But that doesn"t mean that your a failure if you don"t beat WOW"s subs. It means that you are walking into the market space with an honest awareness of what is expected of you. You know you have to be as polished as WOW, as fun as WOW, and with unique qualities that will draw a crowd.
Every game that comes out from this point on has to compete with WOW, its unavoidable. Even a scifi game that enters this MMO space has to compete with WOW. To not acknowledge that is the height of stupidity and I for one am not seeing a lot of that from Curt and Co.
If you have released million selling titles previously, you expect to make more million selling titles...ShroudedMist said:
I said the same thing about 38 Studios concentrating on making a great game in their unproven marketplace; then a brand. Maybe you just felt like saying bullshit?
EDIT: I"m going to just assume you aren"t aware of Blizzard"s sales figures previous to World Of Warcraft and their international acclaim.
I think you"re retarded. LOTRO would of been a great MMO if it had things like meaningful equipment, good combat, different avenues of progression. It caters to the extreme casual. There is no carrot in that game at all. Would you play WOW if you knew you could get BT level gear by farming level 70 mobs in Netherstorm? You would farm your set and then quit.
LOTRO has better dungeon design, better world design, better graphics than WOW. WOW has better combat and game design. In LOTRO gear didn"t do shit for you. There was no point of doing dungeons more than once. The game had no depth, it had nothing to work for. It is the definition of an extreme casual MMO.
If it had better combat and gear that actually meant something it would of been so much better.
Some could argue the classes were worse in LOTRO. I think there was some unique abilities, the classes worked well together, and you could do things without a tank and a healer (guardian and minstrel).
IP had nothing with the doom of LOTRO.
LOTRO has better dungeon design, better world design, better graphics than WOW. WOW has better combat and game design. In LOTRO gear didn"t do shit for you. There was no point of doing dungeons more than once. The game had no depth, it had nothing to work for. It is the definition of an extreme casual MMO.
If it had better combat and gear that actually meant something it would of been so much better.
Some could argue the classes were worse in LOTRO. I think there was some unique abilities, the classes worked well together, and you could do things without a tank and a healer (guardian and minstrel).
IP had nothing with the doom of LOTRO.
Oh and one more thing, the reason why WOW is doing so well is because they spent a ton of money on marketing, and did it well. And guess what happens when people fall to marketing and try the game out? They found an MMO that played well, didn"t crash, worked, and didn"t have any bugs in it. It brought a ton of video game fans, and new players from all over.
The game worked. The game was fun.
The game worked. The game was fun.
And get blasted for it ala Brad McQuaid if it all goes south right? By your own statement, he did everything by the book, right? He fucked up hugely in the "managing expectations" department right from the start. Its worse when you consider that those expectations were his own.Gaereth said:
Look, its simple economics. You set yourself up to be a direct competitor to a behemoth like Blizzard, you BETTER have not only the necessary bucks (likely in the multiple hundreds of millions, if not a cool bil by the time it gets off the ground) to pull it off, but a clear and concise plan of action, as well as a presentable overview of how you intend to perform such a monstrous task using "real world" examples of what you want your potential fans to expect.
How many times do I have to say that I have no doubt they can do well in the general market? But priming people up with wild expectations of delivering "direct WoW competition" is going way over the top when it comes to "managing expectations". Especially from a yet unknown and unproven IP.
This is what i"m talking about. When it comes to the fantasy sector, you can claim similar things about EVERY major game out there. You can argue until doomsday that one game did something better than another, and then pick something from that game that was done better than it was in yet another game. And then another thing from yet another game that was done better in the first.Draegan said:
But, what really CAN"T be argued, is that Blizzard did a metric fuckton of the things people hated about mmos better, AND in a SINGLE game. Certainly not all, but most. Definitely MORE than any other single game. Of course theres always room for improvement, but improving on the multitude of things that Blizzard did better, AS WELL AS the things it didn"t, is no simple task by any means. By no means can you satisfy EVERY mmo gamer out there. BUT, as Blizzard has proven beyond any doubt, is that you CAN satisfy a grand majority of them. And ANY "direct competition" will HAVE to repeat that feat.
In the fantasy sector? Doubtful. HIGHLY doubtful.
Exactly. And a direct competitor will HAVE to make it work better, as well as make it MORE fun. And without a whole lot left to utilise in that task, I don"t see it happening.
That really isn"t a fair comparison, since you are comparing a basically pvp (with pve option) game to a basically pve game. LOTRO, simply went niche. I said it before, people wanted to play Sauron"s minions vs. rohan"s horsemen. They didn"t get that. Gameplay will always be the most decisive element.Rayne said:
Brad and Vangard did practically everything wrong.
They did not even acknowledge wow...Brad bashed it as nothing until even the most diehard fan was calling him an idiot.
He had huge expectations in his head but he did not put that into his product. Hell, he did not even have a clue what made his first product a success.
You miss sooo much Rayne.
To have an intent to compete with WOW means it must be as polished as WOW. VG wasn"t even close.
To compete with WOW means it must be as fun as WOW. VG wasn"t even close.
To compete with WOW means that the very process of building the game is a work of art and you polish and polish and use what is fun to drive you work. VG wasn"t even close.
Brad had 30mill+ in money and literally pissed it away by not having a detailed plan other than expectations in the sky. To compete you actually have to step up and produce something that is in the same ballpark. VG wasn"t even close.
There are systems, methods, and outlooks that will drive your intent. VG was an example of what happens when you fly by the seat of your pants. You can"t do that.
I think its damn obvious what the difference is....but you seem to miss it Rayne.
They did not even acknowledge wow...Brad bashed it as nothing until even the most diehard fan was calling him an idiot.
He had huge expectations in his head but he did not put that into his product. Hell, he did not even have a clue what made his first product a success.
You miss sooo much Rayne.
To have an intent to compete with WOW means it must be as polished as WOW. VG wasn"t even close.
To compete with WOW means it must be as fun as WOW. VG wasn"t even close.
To compete with WOW means that the very process of building the game is a work of art and you polish and polish and use what is fun to drive you work. VG wasn"t even close.
Brad had 30mill+ in money and literally pissed it away by not having a detailed plan other than expectations in the sky. To compete you actually have to step up and produce something that is in the same ballpark. VG wasn"t even close.
There are systems, methods, and outlooks that will drive your intent. VG was an example of what happens when you fly by the seat of your pants. You can"t do that.
I think its damn obvious what the difference is....but you seem to miss it Rayne.
I"m retarded because I have an idea of how a history of being a successful company in a particular industry gets new people to try out your newest product release. Thanks Draeg.Draegan said:
You obviously didn"t read anything I read. I said specifically, that Blizzard is a great COMAPNY IP builder. Lord of the Rings as a "gaming IP", not an overall IP, has no legs, no history, etc. If it was a successful MMO it would only pull in people who already play MMO"s thus not making it a brand.
Blizzard bring in people who do not ordinarily play games. A lot of their customers are first time MMo"ers because of their former IP"s success and relentless marketing. Period. Gameplay HAD NOTHING TO DO WITH THAT.
Wtf is wrong with you? This stuff is simple. You cannot base your personal preference over business. Or you end up with a flawed game design (LOTRO) with an ok "gaming IP" Lord of the Rings, with no international cross over, and BLAM, ok subscriber base.
Well, that wasn"t exactly the point either. The point was that even a high profile IP like Lord of the Rings couldn"t topple Blizzard. But you bring up an interesting question:Maxxius said:
if you COULD play Sauron"s minions against Rohan"s horsemen AFTER the fact, would you? I have no doubts that many most certainly would. But its pretty much a given that if you screw your fans out of what they really wanted, or perhaps even expected in the beginning, you blew it big time. Do you really think this genre will be any more forgiving of a completely new IP? Thats the thing. They get ONE shot at living up to the expectations of potential players. And ONLY one.
I didn"t miss anything. And heres why using your own words:Gaereth said:
LOL..... i"m not the one claiming that this is some simple task, when in reality, its multiple orders of magnitude harder to achieve than is being suggested. So which is it? Is 38 Studios "directly competing" on the level of Blizzard or not? If they aren"t, then this entire argument is moot. But, if they are, and heres the important part so pay attention..... I WILL NOT be the only person expecting a game that makes me say "fuck WoW man! I"m gonna play THIS game now".Gaereth said:
Let"s see:
NPD releases the US chart for best-selling PC games during the month of March. So, here"s what US PC gamers are into these days:
1. The Sims 2 Free Time Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
2. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War - Soulstorm Expansion Pack - THQ
3. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Vivendi
5. Sins Of A Solar Empire - Stardock
6. Command & Conquer 3: Kane"s Wrath Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
7. Tom Clancy"s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter JC - Ubisoft
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Vivendi
9. World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
10. Frontlines: Fuel of War - THQ
11. The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
12. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi
13. Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe - Microsoft
14. Crysis - Electronic Arts
15. The Orange Box - Electronic Arts
16. Age Of Empires III - Microsoft
17. Sim City 4 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
18. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
19. The Sims 2 University Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
20. Diablo Battle Chest - Vivendi
Nah, no IP"s with history in here. All fresh new original games with hot gameplay! - *I guess I have to type sarcasm here*
NPD releases the US chart for best-selling PC games during the month of March. So, here"s what US PC gamers are into these days:
1. The Sims 2 Free Time Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
2. Warhammer 40,000: Dawn Of War - Soulstorm Expansion Pack - THQ
3. Call Of Duty 4: Modern Warfare - Activision
4. World Of Warcraft: Battle Chest - Vivendi
5. Sins Of A Solar Empire - Stardock
6. Command & Conquer 3: Kane"s Wrath Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
7. Tom Clancy"s Ghost Recon: Advanced Warfighter JC - Ubisoft
8. World Of Warcraft: Burning Crusade Expansion Pack - Vivendi
9. World Of Warcraft - Vivendi
10. Frontlines: Fuel of War - THQ
11. The Sims 2 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
12. Warcraft III Battle Chest - Vivendi
13. Microsoft Flight Simulator X Deluxe - Microsoft
14. Crysis - Electronic Arts
15. The Orange Box - Electronic Arts
16. Age Of Empires III - Microsoft
17. Sim City 4 Deluxe - Electronic Arts
18. The Sims 2 Bon Voyage Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
19. The Sims 2 University Expansion Pack - Electronic Arts
20. Diablo Battle Chest - Vivendi
Nah, no IP"s with history in here. All fresh new original games with hot gameplay! - *I guess I have to type sarcasm here*
Should I have typed sarcasm ftw?Tyen said:
I"m sure you just clicked last page and not the argument before.
That worked with classic games. That doesn"t work with subscription-based online games because, quite frankly, a part a small fringe of a couple hundred thousand hard-core gamers, no one is going to pay two subscriptions at the same time.Twobit Whore said:
Making a good game that is accessible, fun, and addictive isn"t enough. It has to be a lot more accessible, more fun, and more addictive than WoW, or people aren"t going to switch "en masse". Or it has to tap a market that is dissatisfied with WoWandpotentially large.
Actually, no. Not in the sense "I have to compete for the same segment of gamers than WoW". A sci-fi game draws a different crowd of gamers. You don"t have to persuade people to play your game instead of WoW, you just have to persuade people to play your game - period. You"ve got two markets: MMO players playing WoW and potential MMO players not interested in WoW. Instead of a single one.
True. But if you want to become the champ, every bit helps. Every single bit is a brick that you build your future castle on. Having a good, known IP is one. Not having a good IP is a hole you have to find something else to plug.
By being an unknown company, with zero games, and no known IP, you do raise everything else"s bar in your game. And the higher the bar is, the lower your chance of success.
And that"s also a problem, because, with fantasy, it has been done. The bar is already set extremely high.
Actually, IP had everything to do with LOTRO"s moderate success. If you had an exact copy of LOTRO, with all LOTR references ripped, it would have been a sub-50k game or worse.Draegan said:
^^
What this guy said. LotRO took good ideas, copied them poorly and somehow managed to remove the incentive for doing... anything, beyond story progression that we already know for the most part. The combat in LotRO is atrocious, I"m not sure who thought it would be good to put strange delays on every attack, but it"s herky-jerky as all get out. The IP is great, don"t get me wrong, but it wasn"t put to where it should have been for better mass market appeal.
The game the IP is attached to isn"t "good" at all, it"s very mediocre with a bunch of badly implemented concepts and no sensible progression. Not to mention that there"s so few classes/races to play that everyone really does look the same.
What this guy said. LotRO took good ideas, copied them poorly and somehow managed to remove the incentive for doing... anything, beyond story progression that we already know for the most part. The combat in LotRO is atrocious, I"m not sure who thought it would be good to put strange delays on every attack, but it"s herky-jerky as all get out. The IP is great, don"t get me wrong, but it wasn"t put to where it should have been for better mass market appeal.
The game the IP is attached to isn"t "good" at all, it"s very mediocre with a bunch of badly implemented concepts and no sensible progression. Not to mention that there"s so few classes/races to play that everyone really does look the same.
What strange delays? You mean, the fact that, unlike WoW, you can press an action before the global countdown expires, and the action gets queued, instead of requiring you to spam your keyboard not to miss the end of global cooldown?Rezz said:
There"s nothing exotic about LOTRO"s combat system. You have cooldown on actions, and a global cooldown that"s about 2s (vs 1.5 in WoW). The atrocious part is that you do in fact can anticipate your global cooldown, something WoW never did, and that the visual feedback on the global cooldown is badly executed (it requires you to pull out the hourglass to figure out if you"re in the global cooldown or not).
I played a guardian to 26, and the delays between abilities being triggered and going off makes combat very... non-fluid. I press a button in wow, things happen. I press a button in lotro, and it happens later. I"m talking non-queued abilities here. At 40ish ping, there"s something wrong when there"s a delay between what I"m trying to do and what"s happening in game. I"m not calling it exotic, I"m saying it"s just crappy. It might be regulated to just guardians, but it did completely kill my interest in it"s combat system.