Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Frax said:

I think he is assuming you are hiring the same people that gave us games like SWG, EQ2 (before the massive changes), Shadowbane and countless other steaming piles of crap over the last 6 or 7 years. I have no idea either way, but I *think* that is what he was hinting at.

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Bingo. There are some big names in the game industry that, while well-known, have either recently been screwing up bigtime, or are highly overrated. Sometimes game developers that don"t hold "celeb" status are more valuable and talented than the Wrights and Carmacks.

Also, I think he meant "meteors", not comets, since meteors are very quick occurances until they"re burned up, while, as Curt said, meteors are around for millions (even billions) of years.

Ngruk said:

Ok I will bite, what the hell does this mean??

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I mean that often we see new dev studios that are just driven by the same names. Nothing new, nothing different. Just a recycle of the same stuff.

Blizzard made a great game, they could have screwed it up because under that analogy Blizzard had that long story, which I think you meant good story, but under that analogy SWG and LoTR are impossible to screw up. SWG had 30 years of great story behind it, LoTR a centuries worth.
Story and a good history are nice, but that doesn"t mean you can"t screw them up.

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Nope, I don"t mean the story of the setting on which the game is based. I mean the story behind the dev studio. Blizzard is around from a LONG time. It"s not a dev studio put together in a couple of weeks and that suddenly started making great games.

It takes time. Gathering big names just isn"t enough.

"Garriott assembled what he calls a ?Dream Team" of MMO developers; senior staff recruited from Ultima Online and the Wing Commander series were joined by key members of NCsoft"s Korean studios, including Lineage creator Jake Song.

Almost immediately, cracks began to appear in the Dream Team dynamic. Nearly everyone working on Tabula Rasa was at the top of their field, meaning that nearly everyone was over-qualified for the work they were doing. Supremely confident, the team looked to innovate on every front, making an already ambitious design even more challenging. True to the adage of ?too many cooks in the kitchen,? a clash of egos slowed the development process.

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This before half the team left and TWO major reorganizations and redesigns.

Say "hello" to big names.

I"ve played with Dale Murphy, Cal Ripken, been to the World Series with John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez, Matt Williams, Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz.

I"ve been around bigger names than this industry will ever throw at me for 20 years, won"t be a problem.

Winning World Series, achieving a team goal with huge ego"s involved is what I"ve lived for two decades, there"s an art to it, a way for it to work, a way for it to happen, but it takes leadership.

I"m pretty comfortable that the names and faces we are assembling already understand the "check your ego at the door" mentality with which this company is being formed, and will operate.

Ngruk said:

I am not sure I will ever get this. I can buy the "I don"t like his style" argument, that happens. What I don"t get is the browbeating of someone who"s got more talent in his craft than you, me, and anyone else on this board by an amount none of us could measure.

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If I didn"t like his style, I would have said so. I don"t like David Bowie"s style, but I think he"s a talented person. From the books I mentioned above and which were raved about by fans, I consider him to be not very good. It read them as a fanfic about someone"s munchkin character. Maybe he"s improved since then, I don"t know. If I read the stuff for your game and think it"s great, am I still going to "browbeat" him? Of course not. In fact, if I do play your game and enjoy the lore, I would love for him to write novels about the game so I could read those as well, as I do with WoW (yes, I"m a nerd.)

Second, this guy has sold over 15 million books in the U.S. alone, so someone thinks he"s good, alot of someones.

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Do I really need to throw out the McDonald"s/Brittany Spears/Spice Girls/Uwe Bolle analogies here?

You heard he was an ass from whom? There isn"t a person on this board that knows Todd personally. What you know of Todd is what you read and what you see, period. I know from growing up in public that that"s the absolute worst way to form opinions of people, but I also understand that without anything else out there, it"s all you have.

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It was pretty common to hear it here and there when I was still reading his work. Again, keep in mind this was, oh... 12 years ago? Again, it was what I hadheardabout him; I didn"t take it as gospel... and I still bought his comics.

When all is said and done I think there will be a few people rethinking their opinions as they get to know these guys, and you will get to know them beyond what you know now.

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Good. I look forward to it... though I already like 50% of them now.

And I"m serious about the tradeskill thing. As much I enjoy WoW, the tradeskills are very bland. There is totally room for a game with an in-depth, well thought out tradeskill system. I want an MMO where a crafter can do just that; create and distribute his wares. I want a system where people know that if they want the best X, they go to me. Create a synergy between the Crafters, Raiders, and PvP"rs. You want the best Ore in the game? You talk to the raiders. You want to set up shot in a hot area? You talk to the PvP"rs to keep out the enemy faction. I could go on and on (and on,) but you get the point.

Ngruk said:

In this business, imo, the only thing that matters on your resume is "TITLES SHIPPED" and correspondingly your jobs/responsibilities on those titles. If you don"t have titles shipped your resume gets pushed far to the back by others that do.

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And this is bringing in new blood how? Problem is that "talent and passion" are really hard to judge.

The point is that there"s a difference between saying "we want to make the greatest game ever" and "we want to make the greatest game ever, this is HOW."

Many people go with the first, a few actually dare to say how. Because that would mean say SOMETHING.

A couple of years ago I was one of the few criticizing Vanguard because behind all the hype there wasNOTHING. The descriptions were so vapid that everyone could imagine the game as they liked, and got an idea of it completely wrong.

It"s easy to hide behind slogans or big names. It"s harder to back up proclaims with solid ideas, without fears of being recognized and discovered.

Ngruk said:

I"ve played with Dale Murphy, Cal Ripken, been to the World Series with John Kruk, Lenny Dykstra, Randy Johnson, Luis Gonzalez, Matt Williams, Manny Ramirez, Pedro Martinez, David Ortiz.

I"ve been around bigger names than this industry will ever throw at me for 20 years, won"t be a problem.

Winning World Series, achieving a team goal with huge ego"s involved is what I"ve lived for two decades, there"s an art to it, a way for it to work, a way for it to happen, but it takes leadership.

I"m pretty comfortable that the names and faces we are assembling already understand the "check your ego at the door" mentality with which this company is being formed, and will operate.

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I understand what it feels like to succeed in one industry and then enter another industry, thinking that the same drive and ambition (and success) you"ve already achieved will carry over in some rapport, with your backing and energetic attitude for your new venture (see: Paul Allen and pharmaceuticals, genetic-research, nanotechnology). I have also seen the backlash and reprecussions of not fully understanding the industry you are entering with your newfound zeal (for me, music production > finance), and the seriously awkward head-hanging that you must endure if you are not 110% successful by all accounts.

Your language and verbose are pretty amazing. I"ll admit, I"m not a fan of baseball (sin?), but I do understand your love of MMO"s. When you get something on the plate (pun?), then perhaps it will be easier to digest what you just stated above.

Well, what you"re saying certainly sounds interesting. I agree with a lot of what you"ve said, like the hype control, and such. I don"t have experience with company management and all the personel interactions, but what you"re saying sure sounds good.

But, for the love of all that is holy, IF you decide to have pvp in your game, DON"T just throw it in at the last minute because your fans want it. Design the classes and skill systems to reflect that and balance around that, whichever way you go. I"d say throwing it in at the last minute creates more work for you than it"s worth. But, that"s easier said than done, because there"s a lot more to balancing

On tradeskills, there"s a pretty simple rule that WoW totally missed. If whatever you make is not destroyed or consumed in normal usage, then it will ultimately become useless due to market saturation. In-game economies don"t have the luxury of a constant birth-rate, like the real world. If you want to look at a working game economy, look at EVE Online. From what i"ve heard in TBC, it sounds like blizzard is figuring this out and including more consumable items in all of the tradeskills.


That"s all I"m gunna throw out there for now, not sure if this is the sort of thing you"re looking for. If it is, say so and i"ll ramble on more stuff.

If you hire Raph Koster, then I"ve lost all hope. I"m sorry but he"s the #1 reason SWG ended up being a huge honking steaming pile and I feel ashamed that I believed in his bullshit for so long.

This is the strangest thread ever. People arguing gaming with an ace pitcher with his name on a record or two (20 K"s and um.. hey I"m no stat geek, I just watch the game) just seems surreal, like discussing BSG with John Smoltz or something. Especially since I grew up on the Richmond Braves - many of whom made up the stars of the 90"s in Atlanta - and thus I hated your ass every time Atlanta played Philly and Arizona. And the whole world wanted Boston to win that series but, I must say, every time I"ve had an unfriendly confrontation at a sporting event, a Boston fan was involved. Boston College at Virginia Tech? Fuckhead tried to throw a beer on me, completely unprovoked. Boston at Atlanta? Fucker mouthed off to my GRANDMA. I woulden"t piss on a Boston fan if he was on fire. But hey, at least it wasn"t the Yankees. And it"s always cool to see a good player finally get his due on a winning team late in his career. The guy survived Philly, give props.

Uh, back on point. Who knows what Salvatore can do when he"s not constrained by someone elses IP? We know he"s a MMO fan. Sure, he"s not George Martin, but I"d rather George keep busy on more novels anyway. (god I love that series)

Frankly though, I"d rather see a good studio putting out single player RPG"s on the PC. Only the very best MMO"s are worth playing, but there are shit for single player games out there. I"m sick of the morrowinds and other first person hack and slash RPG crap, bring us back to tactical combat and I"d thank you for it. I"d even forgive you all of those shutouts.

Too weird for a baseball fan.

I think he is assuming you are hiring the same people that gave us games like SWG, EQ2 (before the massive changes), Shadowbane and countless other steaming piles of crap over the last 6 or 7 years. I have no idea either way, but I *think* that is what he was hinting at.

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The problem is that MMO design is a niche field and the talent pool is small.

I"m in biotech and we have similar issues. You need someone with experience running a biotech ship, but the field is so small you either hire the people other people didn"t want, hire inexperienced and train them, or lay out a ton of cash to bring in the best... and when your funds are limited the third choice usually isn"t much of an option.

The solution imo is to simplify the MMO creation process. Instead of creating an engine from the ground up like every other company out there, lease one from an existing company and modify it to suit your needs.

Build tools for content generation.

I know I"m a lone wolf on this hunt, but I believe algorythms for content generation are the way to go. Land, creatures, gear, quests... whatever. You can create equations that are erratic enough that they don"t feel artificial (e.g. speedtree) but still provide balanced content.

So instead of having a team of developers trying to create interesting content from their gut and then balance it, have an equation or series of equations create balanced content and then make it interesting with a couple of devs instead.

Make it so you don"t have to dig through the limited pool of people with know-how to find the creative... make tools available so that you can easily just find people who are creative and then teach them the tools.

The problem is right now is that whenever someone has a semi-interesting idea it takes 5 years to test it out, and first you have to convince someone to risk the capital to try it out. Build a game like I"m saying and you will have a system to build and test out ideas quickly and efficiently... the more ideas you try the more successes you will find... just like any other development project.

Kreugen said:

Too weird for a baseball fan.

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Why is it too wierd? As I stated previously in this thread, he already has another game company, called Multi Man Publishing.

Just that you generally don"t have this sort of interaction with any sort of sports celebrity, and also the fact that in the baseball world, Curt is a star - but here he"s a stranger to a lot of folks who could care less about the sport.

Kreugen said:

Frankly though, I"d rather see a good studio putting out single player RPG"s on the PC. Only the very best MMO"s are worth playing, but there are shit for single player games out there.

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QFT. I don"t have enough time to dedicate to more MMO"s..but I love chipping away at a single player RPG in my free time. I"ve pretty much ran out of decent ones.

Kreugen said:

Just that you generally don"t have this sort of interaction with any sort of sports celebrity, and also the fact that in the baseball world, Curt is a star - but here he"s a stranger to a lot of folks who could care less about the sport.

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I see your point. Off topic but I guess as a former member of mailing list that Curt occasionally particpated in I didn"t see this as much of a stretch for him, especially after all of the EQ related stuff that his name has popped up with over the years.

I think its good to have some new blood in the industry with more of a gamer"s perspective than a software dev perspective to be quite honest.

While I agree that we"ve been heavily lacking Single Player RPGS lately, I think the problem has to do with more of a formulated MMO approach.

To me, most of the blame (and faults) from current MMOs has been through the business side of any ventures. Because of the amount of money required to even attempt to make a high-quality MMO, contractually production companies are playing it very, very safe and only going with what they know - Everquest.

I think just what the industry needs is a company willing (and financially able) to take a chance with new styles of gameplay and design. I"ve seen enough direct Everquest clones to tide myself over for a long time - i"m still waiting for something akin to UO. I wont say in any way that pulling off something new and exciting in the MMO genre is easy; there are very big risks involved (hello Horizons). I really do hope that within the next few years a company can not only break the "mold" persay, but also prove that rehashing previous success is not the only way to go.

Frax said:

Why is it too wierd? As I stated previously in this thread, he already has another game company, called Multi Man Publishing.

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First, a huge baseball fan (Yankees fan since immigrating to NYC in "84 during Mattingly, Winfield, Randolph, and Henderson days) like me would love to dig around his brain for baseball related stuff but instead we are discussing an entirely differently yet equally loved hobby here. Weird for me too.

Second, ninjas. Or something like it. That"s all I"m saying, GMG.

redjunkopera said:

The problem is that MMO design is a niche field and the talent pool is small.

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Without a culture of MMO game design OF COURSE the talent pool is small. Because the pool has NO streams.

That"s why there"s the need for new blood. If you keep requiring 10+ shipped, crap titles, of course the pool dries up. It"s a vicious circle.

Abalieno said:

Without a culture of MMO game design OF COURSE the talent pool is small. Because the pool has NO streams.

That"s why there"s the need for new blood. If you keep requiring 10+ shipped, crap titles, of course the pool dries up. It"s a vicious circle.

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Well, the three men at the top are new blood, players/fanatics turned designers. It"ll be interesting to see what they put out (that isnt to say I"m not disappointed its going to be high fantasy, if only because I"d like to see what Salvatore and McFarlane could have put out in a futuristic/cyberpunk/shadowrun-esque genre).

And as I say I wish we were seeing a new genre out of a group of people who seem to be fired up to be making a game, I am going to say please, please, please dont be afraid to steal/borrow what already works to make a game less tedius on its players. Take that as far as you want to, but I"m looking at you no LFG system in WoW (or two years late as it looks to be).

Following new games is fun. Following new games where the people at the top arent afraid to interact with its target playerbase directly is something special, hope it keeps up, even if it is just theory talk/discussion and nothing specific about the game for a while.

Just out of curiosity, does anyone know where Kendrick ended up when he left Sigil?

Complete speculation, but maybe he"s some of the talent Curt is referring to.

Well, the three men at the top are new blood, players/fanatics turned designers.

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Well they better get a 4th who"s done it before or they are going to be spinning their wheels just figuring out the basic crap for the first few years.

Or at least hire a big name as a consultant at least to hold your hand while assembling the skeleton of your organization.

Any start-up that doesn"t hire experience at the get go is wasting time. If I knew 5 years ago what I do today, just from an organizational and process control stand-point I"d be 3 years ahead in my work from where I am now...