Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Grond68_foh · Aug 2, 2009

This what yer refering to Flight?

Originally Posted by Moorgard Mobhunter View Post
And sorry, we don"t intend to show "the walk" until it"s in our best interests to do so. Winning over skeptics on a message board is not our primary objective. The results of our work will be the only thing that can do so, and that isn"t something we"ll reveal this year.

We do continue to talk about our studio and philosophies, so if that kind of thing irritates you then I suggest you put this thread on ignore until 2010

Flight · Aug 2, 2009

Grond68 said:
This what yer refering to Flight?

Originally Posted by Moorgard Mobhunter View Post
And sorry, we don"t intend to show "the walk" until it"s in our best interests to do so. Winning over skeptics on a message board is not our primary objective. The results of our work will be the only thing that can do so, and that isn"t something we"ll reveal this year.

We do continue to talk about our studio and philosophies, so if that kind of thing irritates you then I suggest you put this thread on ignore until 2010

No mate, but it"s a good shot and worth +1

This statement you have quoted from Moorgard very much ties in with what Brett Close had to say a few months back about GMG "going dark" (not his words) for 12 months.

Expect to not hear a single thing until the end Q1/beginning Q2 2010, then prepare to be assaulted on every front by a six-eight month PR campaign the likes of which have not been seen in this industry, brought to you by (something along the lines of) - Copernicus, brought to you by amongst the worlds best author, comic artist/writer/toy designer/producer, sports star.

Six months of comic books, toys, novels and growing PR culminating in the crescendo - the launch of the PC game. They are going to establish, grow and nurture their IP via every conceivable form of media and entertainment.

Why ? Because that"s how I"d do it and I understand them

But I"m warning them again, take note of the other high profile products coming out middle to end 2010. This isn"t going to be a stage in the industries evolution when you can just take care of your own product and launch date and ignore the competition. Aim to be ready ahead of your projected launch date and prepare to be flexible.

Dymus_foh · Aug 3, 2009

Flight said:
But I"m warning them again, take note of the other high profile products coming out middle to end 2010. This isn"t going to be a stage in the industries evolution when you can just take care of your own product and launch date and ignore the competition. Aim to be ready ahead of your projected launch date and prepare to be flexible.

I wouldn"t assume anything about the timeline other than the lifting of the "dark" curtain on the project. Speculating about anything after that is premature. But the advice, especially the last sentence above is well taken.

Flight · Aug 3, 2009

Dymus said:
I wouldn"t assume anything about the timeline other than the lifting of the "dark" curtain on the project. Speculating about anything after that is premature. But the advice, especially the last sentence above is well taken.

Speculation / planning /contingency planning can never be premature Certainly not for me, it pervades my being in an OCD like manner.

I know you perceive one of your strengths as "Industry Prediction", so I believe we share the opinion that 2010 is the optimum time for Copernicus to launch (financial realities also build into that). Now, I"ve held that view for quite a while, but it"s only very recently I"ve seen that espoused by anyone from 38S. I can promise you faithfully, . No quotes, though, so that may well have been a mischievous reporter.

However, on doing a little research to reply to your post, I found this comment from Mary (Kirchoff) :

"We've built our schedule around a December, 2010 launch." Mary replied, "That has not changed."

And, yes, for the ignorant, that picture at the top is, indeed, Dymus. I know you value your anonymity, to the extent that you aren"t even listed on the 38S web site, so (tongue in cheek) apologies for your "unveiling".

My purpose in posting about that date, btw, was to try promote some debate (as a lot of my posts are) about what people would like to see from Copernicus, in the run up to launch. More on that in the follow up post. Sometimes my approach works and sometimes it doesn"t, but, hey, three of your eight posts on here have been in reply to me. If I can get your interest piqued and get you out of your cave to post then I"m doing something right. - massive shame that Danuser or Shnyder didn"t have the bottle to follow it up /fishing

I just wish you would post more, I"d love to get into how agile is working out at 38S, for example, but that just doesn"t seem likely here.

Oh, and, still, no-one has picked up on the throw away comment from a 38S member.....

ToeMissile · Aug 3, 2009

Flight said:
My purpose in posting about that date, btw, was to try promote some debate (as a lot of my posts are) about what people would like to see from Copernicus, in the run up to launch.

I first wanted to point out the following excerpt from the article Flight linked

?Bob(Salvatore) will be writing a prequel book for the launch of the game.? Mary revealed,

Now I imagine it"s been posted before, but I"m definitely not in the mood to search for needles... anyhow I knew there were books planned but didn"t know there"s be a prequel. Hopefully it will be released a month or two before launch. It seems like a great way to build anticipation, give people insight into the world, and to make the gaming experience that much more engaging. Assuming the prequel is well written, and the game is well designed/crafted, it is going to be ridiculously awesome to visit all the locals and see/take part in/be affected by things you"ve read in the book.

I also fully approve of the "media blackout"/practically-zero-info-until-it"s-"ready" method.

Flight · Aug 3, 2009

So, "Industry Prediction".

Firstly, thisisn"ta post I"m ready to make. It"s something I"ve been chewing over for quite a while and was going to present as a separate post, sometime in the future. Much like a "developing vision". But I can"t resist bouncing off Dymus and, hopefully, getting his input.

The "Next Generation" of MMORPGs is coming.Did I hear a "*cough* bullshit *cough* at the back ? Let me explain. Next gen won"t be technical. It"s not going to be virtual reality or 3D graphics. It is games that have learned the very basic lessons that the short history of the industry have to offer.

Foundationally :

1. Don"t suck

2. You only get one shot at launch

Plus two, added by me :

3. You only get one shot at what you doprelaunch

4. More fun hooks

We"ll see this next phase in MMO history begin to appear over the next 12 months, in two phases :

i) The games that were already in development, but held off launch trying to absorb the lessons of the industry;

ii) The games that were early enough in their development cycle to have those lessons fully permeate every part of the company and its choice of staff and, thereby, the game. A "quality" mentality at every level, producing a revolution in the online gaming industry akin to Demings re-invention of the Japanese Manufacturing Industry.

The last 12 months have seen a hiatus in MMO releases, leading into this "next gen", while various companies have assessed what we are discussing. Some have delayed, multiple times, while others have cancelled. There"s almost a sub-category of games that have learned the "don"t suck" lesson, but are either total rip offs or have extremely low originality (see Runes of Magic, Aion) so are able to come in early in the period we are discussing. I suggest the longevity of these games is questionable once games come out that run as well, with as few problems, but offer more originality and fun.

From mid 2010 we are going to see truly fun, quality MMO"s appearing on the market. For the first time, WoW is going to see serious competition.

I would expect that a large part of the evolutionary process that we have gone through has been due to the development of the key people in game development companies. Here I see three company "types" :

i) the company that is founded on quality, will accept nothing but quality and has recruited / will continue to recruit the best industry talent (38S, Blizzard, Square Enix);

ii) the company that wants to achieve quality, doesn"t quite know how and will "part company" with senior staff when they don"t know how to deliver (Funcom);

iii) the company that is incapable of change or quality because it"s most senior staff aren"t thus minded and incapable of it themselves (*** - feel free to fill in the blanks).

The "type" of the company is driven from the very top and depends on the senior staffs commitment to quality and openness to change.

(more to come, but I"ll break from this line of thought to apply this to Copernicus in the next post...)

Gnome Eater_foh · Aug 4, 2009

Flight said:
So, "Industry Prediction".

Firstly, thisisn"ta post I"m ready to make. It"s something I"ve been chewing over for quite a while and was going to present as a separate post, sometime in the future. Much like a "developing vision". But I can"t resist bouncing off Dymus and, hopefully, getting his input.

The "Next Generation" of MMORPGs is coming.Did I hear a "*cough* bullshit *cough* at the back ? Let me explain. Next gen won"t be technical. It"s not going to be virtual reality or 3D graphics. It is games that have learned the very basic lessons that the short history of the industry have to offer.

Foundationally :

1. Don"t suck

2. You only get one shot at launch

Plus two, added by me :

3. You only get one shot at what you doprelaunch

4. More fun hooks

We"ll see this next phase in MMO history begin to appear over the next 12 months, in two phases :

i) The games that were already in development, but held off launch trying to absorb the lessons of the industry;

ii) The games that were early enough in their development cycle to have those lessons fully permeate every part of the company and its choice of staff and, thereby, the game. A "quality" mentality at every level, producing a revolution in the online gaming industry akin to Demings re-invention of the Japanese Manufacturing Industry.

The last 12 months have seen a hiatus in MMO releases, leading into this "next gen", while various companies have assessed what we are discussing. Some have delayed, multiple times, while others have cancelled. There"s almost a sub-category of games that have learned the "don"t suck" lesson, but are either total rip offs or have extremely low originality (see Runes of Magic, Aion) so are able to come in early in the period we are discussing. I suggest the longevity of these games is questionable once games come out that run as well, with as few problems, but offer more originality and fun.

From mid 2010 we are going to see truly fun, quality MMO"s appearing on the market. For the first time, WoW is going to see serious competition.

I would expect that a large part of the evolutionary process that we have gone through has been due to the development of the key people in game development companies. Here I see three company "types" :

i) the company that is founded on quality, will accept nothing but quality and has recruited / will continue to recruit the best industry talent (38S, Blizzard, Square Enix);

ii) the company that wants to achieve quality, doesn"t quite know how and will "part company" with senior staff when they don"t know how to deliver (Funcom);

iii) the company that is incapable of change or quality because it"s most senior staff aren"t thus minded and incapable of it themselves (*** - feel free to fill in the blanks).

The "type" of the company is driven from the very top and depends on the senior staffs commitment to quality and openness to change.

(more to come, but I"ll break from this line of thought to apply this to Copernicus in the next post...)

Not trying to be overly critical or anything, but that just seems a lot of marketing talk for... absolutely nothing?

I mean I don"t really disagree with anything that you said but this seems to be basic insight that anyone who has played MMORPGs for a significant amount of time already has.

- Don"t make a shitty game
- Graphics are not the end all/be all
- Game has to not suck from the start, release early/patch later does not work
- Corporate culture is as important as the talent you have

Is this something revolutionary?

A few things about "going dark". That"s a sensible thing that GMG is doing, but it seems rather obvious seeing how the louder you talk pre-beta, the harder you fall. Let your beta speak for itself. When WoW beta came out it absolutely killed EQ and everyone heard of how absolutely amazing it was. A great beta phase is all the PR you need, you absolutely don"t need anything else viral or what not - just make a beta with no NDA only when you feel the game is ready, and stick to a really strict friend and family alpha until then.

Woefully Inept · Aug 4, 2009

Considering some of the mmo"s that have released the past few years that did the pretty much the opposite of that list and there"s only one or two (actually just one) I can think of that some what followed that list leads some of us to think it is a revolutionary step.
Is it rather sad that some of us consider that revolutionary? Hell yes it is. It shouldn"t have taken 10 odd years to figure this shit out.

Flight · Aug 4, 2009

2010. Let"s be honest. Off the record. It"s pretty much going to happen. Beyond that I don"t have much to say that hasn"t already been said. But I"m going to underline it.

We can never ignore the opposition.

A number of them are going to be niche, but will attract a lot of players. One that stands out to have the potential to be a surprise hit is,"The Secret World".
All told, with a little flexibility and timing with regards to release dates, I don"t forse any of this batch of games being a serious challenger to Copernicus market share.

The bad news is that there are two other products highly likely (in my estimate) to ship in the second half of 2010 that could do massive damage to Copernicus numbers. I"m going to play these two games. Over 90% of the people on this forum are going to play these games. And enjoy them.

Diablo III and Final Fantasy XIV.

That"s right, Copernicus is launching alongside D3 and FFXIV. This is why the pre launch needs to be ramped up on the Copernicus IP, why so much ground work will need doing and why you need to be ready ahead of time and show flexibility with regards to release dates.

We know that end of year/Christmas is the banker for release of new, high profile titles. Very few games have the reputation, the following and the customer base required to launch mid year. Diablo is one of the few games that bucked the trend and, indeed, D2 launched mid year. We"re guessing - I can only say I believe D3 will release either mid or end 2010.

Square Enix are just as unpredictable, as seen bythe release dates of their product history.What I do want to do is underline, yet again, just how strong I believe Final Fantasy XIV (or whatever their next MMO will release as) will be. Ignore anyone with anything negative to say about this game. Don"t base any opinion whatsoever on FFXI, which was developed for PS2.

FFXIV is going to approach WoW numbers and threatens the work, livelihood and investment of every member of the 38S family.I truly believe that.

Thankfully, you can fully counter that threat. You do this by the growth of your IP pre release and by making sure you have some flexibility in your launch dates. You cannot afford to launch in a blaze of glory with a sudden massive media blitz. You must build awareness and anticipation over the six month period which follows your "dark" 12 months.

Flight · Aug 4, 2009

Gnome Eater said:
Not trying to be overly critical or anything, but that just seems a lot of marketing talk for... absolutely nothing?

I mean I don"t really disagree with anything that you said but this seems to be basic insight that anyone who has played MMORPGs for a significant amount of time already has.

- Don"t make a shitty game
- Graphics are not the end all/be all
- Game has to not suck from the start, release early/patch later does not work
- Corporate culture is as important as the talent you have

Is this something revolutionary?

Good post. I"ll reply by giving you something to think about. What is it about Aion that is getting it the overwhelmingly positive feedback in its thread and leading to its pre-release sale numbers ?

In my mind, there"s nothing in the game play to deserve it. It simply "doesn"t suck". And that, in itself, is unusual in an MMO pre-release. But then go on to note that these points are purely foundational - they are not the game, but the base which the game is built on. The foundations of your house, which you never see but take for granted. The sad fact is that the foundations which we should take for granted have never been there, in this industry. Rather, we have come to expect to be disappointed at launch.

I could go on to point out point 4, which is my mantra when it comes to what games need to stand out.

Gnome Eater said:
A few things about "going dark". That"s a sensible thing that GMG is doing, but it seems rather obvious seeing how the louder you talk pre-beta, the harder you fall. Let your beta speak for itself. When WoW beta came out it absolutely killed EQ and everyone heard of how absolutely amazing it was. A great beta phase is all the PR you need, you absolutely don"t need anything else viral or what not - just make a beta with no NDA only when you feel the game is ready, and stick to a really strict friend and family alpha until then.

Again, very good point.

What we are considering, though, is not doing a fanfare on the game or it"s contents, but a multi-media strategic developmentof the IP, rather than the game and how it plays.

And let"s white board how we achieve that. Get Todd releasing toys and comic books, Bob doing more than one novel and Curt on Letterman talking about what he"s been up to. Get some incentives going - have phases of toy releases and intentionally make them limited so they won"t meet demand. Random free "spend a day at with 38S and meet Todd" inserts.

Again, it"s not releasing information about the game, it"s all about awareness of the IP.

Gnome Eater_foh · Aug 4, 2009

I think the whole IP thing is extremely over-rated, and what you dubbed the fundamentals are what drives the entire enterprise.

Take the D&D IP. The IP is as good as it gets, but within that IP, you have some spectacular games (Baldur"s Gate, Planescape: Torment, possibly the greatest game ever) and some absolutely fucking horrendous ones like the DDO MMO.

Basically, beta creates all the hype you need, even with an NDA in play. Hype creates the initial box sales. Your game not sucking creates retention.

This feels like a lot of theorycrafting about things that to a moderately analytical audience are obvious. The one thing that most impressed me so far about GMG is that their chosen art style is very similar to WoW - or cartonish and soft fantasy, instead of focusing on realistic graphics, and the initial concept art looked very good. I will absolutely stay on the lookout for the game, but I completely dismiss all talk of philosophy and of toys/novels. Once the beta comes out and I have my own key or friends have keys, I"ll get their own feedback and make up my own mind about the game IF by that point I am bored of WoW.

I don"t pretend to be an average customer but those marketing schemes are a bit transparent by now. Am I the only person reads interviews with developers and just scrolls down past all the fluff to look for actual information?

Flight · Aug 4, 2009

Gnome Eater said:
Take the D&D IP. The IP is as good as it gets, but within that IP, you have some spectacular games (Baldur"s Gate, Planescape: Torment, possibly the greatest game ever) and some absolutely fucking horrendous ones like the DDO MMO.

I wonder if RA agrees about Baldur"s Gate after how they treated Drizzt. I was absolutely gutted that I could either kick his ass or flat out pick pocket his weapons off him. Seriously, I loved BG and agree about Planescape : Torment. My all time favorite game.

edit : I couldn"t disagree more with large parts of the rest of your post, but I"ll leave it and see if anyone else picks it up.

Azrayne · Aug 4, 2009

Flight said:
I wonder if RA agrees about Baldur"s Gate after how they treated Drizzt. I was absolutely gutted that I could either kick his ass or flat out pick pocket his weapons off him. Seriously, I loved BG and agree about Planescape : Torment. My all time favorite game.

edit : I couldn"t disagree more with large parts of the rest of your post, but I"ll leave it and see if anyone else picks it up.

How does the nature of Drizzt"s (very minor) cameo in the game at all detract from what an amazing RPG it is?

If he somehow holds a grudge over the fact that Drizzt didn"t have godmode activated, well, he"d be a bit of a douche.

Gnome Eater_foh · Aug 4, 2009

Drizzt weapons also sucked in that game given how ridiculous some items were.

I also want to emphasize how all the talk you hear about corporate culture, design philosophy etc is just that, talk. I have absolutely no reason to suppose they are lying, and more than anything,they owe me absolutely nothing in the way of explanation.

Let"s wait to see when there is something out there we can judge, until then this thread serves so people bored at walk can just randomly talk or discuss whatever.

Utnayan · Aug 4, 2009

Here are a couple tips to anyone who may be reading:

1> Viral marketing doesn"t work in MMORPG"s. The market has been completely burned for it to be effective.

2> We all saw what happened to awesome games without hype. (Psychonauts, Beyond Good and Evil)

3> Market the game normally, and don"t fuck the pooch on release, and wow, look at that, you won"t have to deal with internet cynics.

Fucking rocket science apparantely.

WoW didn"t have an NDA.

Amazing everyone tries to copy the mechanics, but don"t have the balls to have open development during beta 1+.

Pyros_foh · Aug 4, 2009

Wasn"t wow closed beta early phases on NDA? I don"t think when I started playing in phase2, the game was already off NDA. They removed it before open beta for sure though, and that"s what you want to aim at, keeping NDA right until a 1week open beta/release is just terrible business in the mmo world.

Also about the hype/IP, I think it"s mostly not a good idea to hype a mmo based on the IP. It seems to fail pretty often with mmos, last in date being AoC and WAR which both have insane IPs and were promoted with that in mind, yet most people cared more about the game than the actual background story stuff. It"s nice if you get a good IP, but the game should be self sufficient and the IP is just pure bonus. WAR had terrible examples of overhyping based on the IP.

Azrayne · Aug 4, 2009

Wasn"t wow closed beta early phases on NDA?

No, from memory the only NDA was for the private Friends/Family/Employees alpha. The moment they started allowing the public at large to play the game, they removed it.

Ngruk_foh · Aug 4, 2009

Our IP is at the core of everything, which means the story is as well. It stands to reason that everything we do has to be pushing the envelope in ways to tell and present story to you.

We"d be stupid thinking just because RA and this great design team created the story, players are going to suddenly stop and read the text in a quest text box, that"s not going to happen.

If that"s not going to happen, and story is a focal point of what we are doing, we have to give it to you in ways you will want to see it, learn it, and play it.

We also need to, and are, creating methods, ways and vehicles to deliver that story to you even when you aren"t in the game.

There are some obvious ways and methods to do that, and others that are neither, that we are pushing and pulling on to figure out just how we can have this incredibly deep and rich story, full of heroes, villains, treachery, deceit, murder, intrigue, all of that, and you can see it, learn it and care about it but most importantly play a part and impact it along the way.

That has to be available to all players, all the time.

Gnome Eater_foh · Aug 4, 2009

Mmm, this is an entirely different topic, but I have a feeling that MMO"s are a terrible vehicle to "tell a story" because an MMO world is by definition vastly unchanging, or changing very slowly.

In Baldur"s gate you saw the world change as a result of your actions, in WoW they tried doing the same with the argent dawn tournament/questline, but it kinda falls flat. Basically, you can feel as though you move along the storyline, but you never feel as though you are the prime mover and the one hero of the world.

I am not sure how you could make every single person feel special and in charge in a world that is shared among several thouands of players. For example, when you slay Onyxia, you become the hero of stormwind... and then next week someone else slays her and becomes the hero too. Events that change the world in irreversible ways are wonderful if you are in the uppercrust of powergamers, but waking the sleeper is something that only a super tiny fraction of players ever experience, and I doubt any other MMO will have events of that type.

Lore in a game is fantastic when it servers as an elegant backdrop or when you notice a few really clever references, but no MMO will ever approach the plot of Planescape Torment, Knights of the Old Republic, Baldur"s Gate, etc... I actually think this is something that"s broad enough that perhaps you could talk about your plans here without giving away any designs or clever technologies you came up with?

As an aside, giving my completely unwanted opinion, I don"t want a revolutionary MMO. I want a really well done MMO with a shitload of beatifully handcrafted content for PvP, a skill intensive combat system for PvP and PvE, and ideally meaningful PvP. I don"t need to hear buzzwords about next gen or whatever, just give me a super well done old school MMO and I am a happy camper.

Zehnpai · Aug 4, 2009

Most players realize they"re in two differnet timelines. There"s the game they"re playing where they are and can be the hero that slays the dragon and rescues the princess.

But at the same time they"re playing in a world where it wasn"t them, it was the hero of the book that slayed the dragon and got to fingerbang the princess.

EQ did this, WoW does this. Fuck, even Baldur"s Gate did this. I"m pretty fucking certain I killed Xev in BG1 yet sure as shit he still shows up in BG2. In Starcraft there"s no mention of me in any of the in game cinematics yet I was the one who commanded the assault on the overmind.

I read the Curse of the Azure Bonds and Pools of Radiance books and played the gold box TSR games. Which one is cannon? The adventures of Alias and Dragonbait or the adventures of Rasputin the Ranger?

The story is going to punch along without you. You just get to occasionally pretend you matter even though you really don"t.

Oh, and you really shouldn"t complain about marketing buzzwords and then go right along ahead and use marketing buzzwords like "old school mmo" and "meaningful pvp"

<3

Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

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