What I meant to say is i know he"s playing it close to the chest right now, I"ve been following the thread/the studios nature, which Cadrid thought I wasn"t. I"m not going to argue semantics anymore. I just wanted the setting, sorry if I upset you Internets. I"ll go ahead and bow out for now.Draegan said:
Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
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So then you disagree that your content will take longer to create?Ngruk said:
I"m not even sure how to respond to that. Yes I actually thought they did crtl-c crtl-v and called it a day. But you can"t tell me you didn"t notice how almost every cave in the original WOW game, was 1 of 4? And there is the LDON example above. I felt wow "reused assets" more then most games.
I am just thrilled that they are going for a more artistic vision rather than realistic. I want a fantasy game to look like a fantasy world thats larger than life, brighter, fuller, darker, deeper, and overall more vibrant than reality.
Most fantasy artwork has an ethereal quality to it, an other worldly sense of beauty, a richness, that you don"t find in many of these games. WOW has done a pretty decent job of inserting that in its world and it looks like 38 is trying to do the same thing.
Personally I think its a much better choice to go artistic rather than realistic. Artistic gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of what you can place within your world.
Most fantasy artwork has an ethereal quality to it, an other worldly sense of beauty, a richness, that you don"t find in many of these games. WOW has done a pretty decent job of inserting that in its world and it looks like 38 is trying to do the same thing.
Personally I think its a much better choice to go artistic rather than realistic. Artistic gives you a lot more flexibility in terms of what you can place within your world.
No reason to bow out, I think I get what you were saying better now.Citten said:
No need to argue either.
We are after the very same things many shoot for. When you look at our GAME art, our GAME screen shots, you say "38 Studios" immediately. I didn"t realize how long that would take, but I am pretty sure we"ve arrived after being able to view in game assets.
I guess Our content will take as long as it"s supposed to take, to create I guess I would ask you what you were referring to? What timetable would be considered the industry standard to be compared to?Rythonn said:
Actually that was where I first got miffed, in WoW in those very caves! I didn"t get too far into LDON, I was on my way out of EQ by then.Rythonn said:
I totally agree that it is a problem and something I have spoken very passionately about. Will we reuse assets? Absolutely, but it won"t be for things like dungeons where you just cut and paste architecture, which is what I have seen and to me is totally un-immersive since my first 2 minutes in an area like that I am not even remotely "in" the content but trying to figure out what they "re-used".
Hmm, the Ten Ton article indicates 5 pieces of concept art but I only see 2! Were they only authorized to post 2 due to exclusive rights being given to certain websites? I assume the 2 from Allakhazam"s are others from that 5 picture set. So that leaves 1 remaining... hmmmm.
But I must say that they are absolutely stunning and have a definite unique flavor. My mouth is watering at the prospect of adventuring in those places. An MMO that is so intent on paying close attention to story and world cohesion is a place I definitely want to roam.
James
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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NOT BLIZZARD"S.Ngruk said:
EDIT: By the by, excellent progress on your warrior there. I"d put a +8 or +10 hit rating gem in the gun instead of Crit/Sta, though. With a hit rating gem it basically becomes your best option for a threat-oriented ranged weapon all the way until the end of the game.
2 year expansion cycle is fail.
1 year that Sony"s trying has already hit the "Six months later and done" problem with their new cycle (not so much with EQ1, but EQ2 is definately feeling it).
Just put PVP minigames (create your own content wheee) in I guess, it"s a way to keep people subbed while you have the room full of chimpanzees try to bang out expansion content.
Just make sure you"ve got enough content in each expansion to last a middle-of-the-road player"s main character until the next expansion. The bleeding edge will always wreck an expansion quick, and the super casual will likely never see the end of any expansion until it"s 2-3 expansions old anyhow.
1 year that Sony"s trying has already hit the "Six months later and done" problem with their new cycle (not so much with EQ1, but EQ2 is definately feeling it).
Just put PVP minigames (create your own content wheee) in I guess, it"s a way to keep people subbed while you have the room full of chimpanzees try to bang out expansion content.
Just make sure you"ve got enough content in each expansion to last a middle-of-the-road player"s main character until the next expansion. The bleeding edge will always wreck an expansion quick, and the super casual will likely never see the end of any expansion until it"s 2-3 expansions old anyhow.
I think if you took a poll, the people here would say around 12-18 months. Blizzards current rate of every 2+ years is WAY too long. But with 10 million subs I don"t think they care. Everquest is on the other end of the spectrum and can pop them out once a year, twice on leap year, and still get in adventure packs. But the quality isn"t there.Ngruk said:
I think once you get 10 million subs you pretty much reset the "standard" to whatever you want. ;-)Rythonn said:
When you hit 10 million subs you should be making enough money to pump out quality content faster.
Once a year really seems like a nice time table for an expansion with it coming out around Xmas time. I know in past guilds when summer time hits play time for a lot of people really goes down and raiding etc takes a huge hit. November / December is a good time as it is cold in a lot of different areas so people are inside more and it helps out the company push the profits for the "shopping season"
Now just because you get a new expansion every year doesn"t mean it has to be the size of Kunark or raise the level cap every time, just throw a bone to people for some new content / time sinks / new classes or races etc.
Oh and while we are on the subject of content and expansions bigger is not always better. I would rather have a smaller area with tons of content then a large open world like Vanguard. Sure it looks realistic and what not but riding a horse forever to get to the next grinding spot is no good
Now just because you get a new expansion every year doesn"t mean it has to be the size of Kunark or raise the level cap every time, just throw a bone to people for some new content / time sinks / new classes or races etc.
Oh and while we are on the subject of content and expansions bigger is not always better. I would rather have a smaller area with tons of content then a large open world like Vanguard. Sure it looks realistic and what not but riding a horse forever to get to the next grinding spot is no good
So since you seem to be a business expert, just how much NET do you think Blizz is actually making per month lets say?Kuro said:
Bet it is way less then you think with overhead and other business expenses. Also since you are so experienced in writing MMORPG"s just how much does it cost to make an expansion?
No clue?? Well I"ll be damned, never would have guessed.
Pasteton
Blackwing Lair Raider
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I"m exactly the same way. I remember when I zoned over to bonemire in everquest2 in the expansion, and started seeing exact copy/pastes of overworld architecture from lavastorm (but in a purple hue). It was a small thing, but it hinted to me that the dev team had long since phoned it in.Ngruk said:
Grinding, period, is no good.Quince said:
I don"t know if it can be solved, but I hope folks at 38S have a way to soften/hide the blow.
They probably have a building full of a gold like Scrooge Mcduck, and spend their lunch hour swimming in it.gnomad said:
They have reported financials (public company after all) previously and it was around $500 million a year in profit in 2007.gnomad said:
~5 million US/EU subs x $15 = $75m/mo or $900m a year, they have another $40-50m in box sales, plus some revenue from Asia, so easily topping $1 billion a year in revenue. 50% net margins on that sounds about right.
Add that up over the years WoW has been in business (ramped up, since they didn"t start with 5m subs) and its easy to see why everyone says WoW is the most profitable game in history.
btw activision/blizzard reports earnings for latest quarter tomorrow afaik, first time as a combined company.
Actually, if the lastest EQ2 exp. taught anyone anything is that some people actually prefer to have grinding as an option to questing for leveling. EQ2"s only valid means of progression in the latest expansion was questing and after a while is became it"s own form of grind. Some potentially great zones like KC, a dungeon, were empty because there were only 5 quest in there and the exp per kill was useless.nu_11 said:
Sometimes logging in and just mindlessly wacking the crap out of things is not a bad thing.
Exactly. Just because it is a quest, it doesn"t mean that going here for this or killing this many mobs is overall better.
What I would like is a healthy mix of them all. Sure you can do runner quests for exp, do a really long drawn out quest for more exp and a better item, or just pop yourself in Tim Deep and quad kite the hell out of the raptors with your "Click Stick" and BoF
Good god I really aged myself with that comment
What I would like is a healthy mix of them all. Sure you can do runner quests for exp, do a really long drawn out quest for more exp and a better item, or just pop yourself in Tim Deep and quad kite the hell out of the raptors with your "Click Stick" and BoF
Good god I really aged myself with that comment