Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
- Thread starter Lord Thanos_foh
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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!
Anyone here from Seattle? If so 38 Studios will be making it"s first "public" appearance at the OGDC on the 10th and 11th. President, CEO Brett Close will be making our first foray into the gaming scene.
The first thing I would do as a company study would be to analyze why Vanguard failed. For this I wouldn"t rely on McQuaid"s own analysis (marketing, hardware), because it is designed to make their performance look better than it was.
Darkfall is an interesting project and it seems that Vanguard was trying to emulate just that. If you look at the similarities in content, it"s very obvious. Now the fact that Vanguard wasn"t successful with it doesn"t mean much, it failed because of the piss-poor implementation of these features. The concept itsself is very powerful and it sounds very promising.I"m Rich Bitch said:
I"m in Seattle, but I don"t know what OGDC is.Ngruk said:
I"m not in the games industry either, though, so I suppose that isn"t surprising.
Here"s the link for the Online Game Development Conference 2007:
ogdc 2007 - home
I think it would be definately worth attending. Looks like some interesting panel discussions and speakers. Also, it would be a good chance to meet and network with MMO devs currently in the industry. I"d go just to be able to hear the orginal EQ spell guru Geoffrey Zatkin speak. It"s being held during the week on Thursday and Friday May 10-11.
ogdc 2007 - home
I think it would be definately worth attending. Looks like some interesting panel discussions and speakers. Also, it would be a good chance to meet and network with MMO devs currently in the industry. I"d go just to be able to hear the orginal EQ spell guru Geoffrey Zatkin speak. It"s being held during the week on Thursday and Friday May 10-11.
Jait
Molten Core Raider
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Schilling has been hanging out too long on these forums. Here"s some pwnage on a_Barry_Bonds00.
Had to be posted.
SI.com - MLB - Schilling: Bonds cheated on wife, taxes,?game - Tuesday May 8, 2007 6:58PM
Well said sir! No one likes exploiters. A Game is only a Game if it"s a level playing field.
Had to be posted.
SI.com - MLB - Schilling: Bonds cheated on wife, taxes,?game - Tuesday May 8, 2007 6:58PM
Well said sir! No one likes exploiters. A Game is only a Game if it"s a level playing field.
Curt,
I recall you commenting earlier in the thread on having an idea as to how Vanguard"s subscriptions would turn out. Now that Sigil has been broken up, Vanguard is floundering, and the interviews ofBradanda former Sigil employeehave exposed the poor management, would you say your predictions were accurate?
Also, has the failure of Vanguard altered your initial plan of development and management for 38 Studios? (according to the articles, the decision making at Sigil came down to 3 or 4 individuals that disregarded all input from the public and the team) Did you learn anything from Brad"s and Jeff"s mistakes?
Lastly, does anyone else on the Red Sox play games/MMOs? C"mon, I know Okajima whips you into submission on StarCraft, or Pappy rocks you at Halo.
EDIT: Oh, and any word on the Monsterography contest?
I recall you commenting earlier in the thread on having an idea as to how Vanguard"s subscriptions would turn out. Now that Sigil has been broken up, Vanguard is floundering, and the interviews ofBradanda former Sigil employeehave exposed the poor management, would you say your predictions were accurate?
Also, has the failure of Vanguard altered your initial plan of development and management for 38 Studios? (according to the articles, the decision making at Sigil came down to 3 or 4 individuals that disregarded all input from the public and the team) Did you learn anything from Brad"s and Jeff"s mistakes?
Lastly, does anyone else on the Red Sox play games/MMOs? C"mon, I know Okajima whips you into submission on StarCraft, or Pappy rocks you at Halo.
EDIT: Oh, and any word on the Monsterography contest?
I think we were pretty dang close on the initial numbers.Cadrid said:
VG and what"s happened to it, pre launch, and post launch, hasn"t changed anything with regards to our project and our thoughts about making a game. Just reaffirmed things we believed and most people knew.
No one that I know of...yet....
That"s refreshing to hear.Ngruk said:
VG/Sigil"s "cautionary tale" seems to have soured a lot of would-be developers" tastes for the MMORPG market, and has caused a good many people in adjacent industries (film, television, VC, etc.) unfairly to believe that the MMORPG world is destined to be ruled by the "big dogs" (Sony, Blizzard, etc) from here to eternity.
Personally speaking, I think the MMORPG industry has been -- and, hopefully always will be -- all about "disruptive" influences. At any given moment, an exciting new underdog could become king. Or at least that"s what I"d like to continue believing. I think it"s certainly possible for an upstart company to dethrone Sony/Blizzard/etc. in this landscape with a groundbreaking new product, and I applaud the pre-Sony Sigil folks for trying. I just hope more aspiring studios aren"t closing shop for fear of repeating some of the VG mistakes.
If we all, collectively, have learned anything from past attempts to launch MMORPGs, it"s that fan support and feedback really do count. As MMORPGs become more commonly grounded in our culture, and as gamers grow accustomed to them, gamers start to develop very specific tastes for what they like and do not like in the genre. And if you listen carefully enough, you"ll hear what they"re saying.
I think one of the central challenges facing new MMORPGs in the future will be adapting to established consumer tastes (whereas even a couple of years ago, these tastes had not yet been cemented), while simultaneously offering a more revolutionary experience than what"s currently available. Push too far in either direction -- the familiar or the revolutionary -- and you"re going to bore or alienate your audience.
It"s all about finding the right mix of innovation and tradition. The first company to figure out which traditional elements are necessary, and which can be innovated upon, will have the upper hand in the next MMORPG generation.
And there"s the rub. The industry is one big evolutionary process. What may be fun today, will be boring tomorrow. Not to harp on VG as an example, but I always viewed it as an attempt at making a better horse buggey. And since the development process for a MMO can be years, you can literally wind up being made obsolete by the time you launch.Millie said:
It is beyond dispute that WOW has set the high mark for these games. It did so largely by looking at what was disliked by current games and acting accordingly AS WELL as having an existing following off PC titles. This is not going to be easy to match by a total startup company. Hiring RA actually was a good thing since it did give you a quality author to write a quality story which is always important for MMOs. But I really do think you should produce regular PC titles first to build up a following before jumping into the MMO business. Build the following first I think. VG never had a shot at competing with WOW because of that despite all the grandiose plans. It simply had no history to build off of, aside from a loose connection off EQ.
So unless you come out with some kind of revolutionary game, which is in all honesty difficult to imagine at this stage, you really might want to consider the PC title approach first to build that following. Just my free 2 cents ;p
How did the event turn out? I"m from seattle but I just caught this thread too late I guess. Would have been nice to see you guys.
Ever since the one developer from EQ2 who really seemed to have a clue (after talking to many) () joined you guys, I"ve been pretty excited. Hopefully I wont miss the next event!
Snarks
70 Swashbuckler
Dissolution
Ever since the one developer from EQ2 who really seemed to have a clue (after talking to many) () joined you guys, I"ve been pretty excited. Hopefully I wont miss the next event!
Snarks
70 Swashbuckler
Dissolution
Cybsled
Naxxramas 1.0 Raider
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That really isn"t required. At the retail level, if you"re an unknown, your publisher will have more sway with the gaming public then your actual dev house. Case and point: Battlefield 1942. I can"t count how many times I heard "Dude, it"s like Medal of Honor, cept you can drive tanks and fly planes!". They saw that publisher label and made that connection to another product.
Furthermore, what if the regular PC title "fails"? MMOs are huge investments. Publishers and investors might look at the performance of your regular title and go "Well, they sold X and X amount of titles...I"m not sure a large investment in a MMO at this point would be prudent". Furthermore, having some meat already on your plate is no guarantee as VG already pointed out. VG, at least for MMO gamers, was sort of the first "celebrity" MMO. Obviously Schilling and McFarlane are 100x more bankable then McQuaid or Butler, since those names are famous from different markets. But a high pedigree or celebrity is no guarantee of lasting sales. It might affect the initial buyers, but once reviews start rolling in, it doesn"t matter if Leonardo DiVinci himself traveled through time and designed the MMO...people will judge the game, not the names behind it.
While VG"s failure might scare away potential investors, I think it"s important to bear in mind some of the main reasons it failed. A MMO as your first title isn"t a bad idea, but you need to make sure you learn from the failures of others in order to strengthen your product. Avoid excessive hype + ego (Didn"t people learn this from Battlecruiser 3000AD and Daikatana?), avoid bland Dungeon and Dragon/LOTR clones (And if you are going to do the sword n" Sorcery thing, at least give it a really catching twist...like Super Steampunk, the game takes place in a Planescape-type/evil setting, the game takes place in a Thundar the Barbarian-type setting), avoid focusing on gfx and "The Vision" over gameplay and enjoyability, and avoid the trolls
Valderen
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I"m not sure Vanguard will truly scare potential investor from investing in the MMO genre. It will be actually be very hard to get any solid data from Vanguard...the game was in a terrible state, it was a beta product at the very best.
It makes it hard to judge why it truly failed...was it because it was buggy unfinished game, was it because of extremely poor performance, was it because of the core design philosophy, or because of the bad implementation of those designs.
Investors will be more careful, they will hopefully realize that they need to make sure that developpers need someone over them to manage the project...can"t let dreamers loose on something like that.
Hopefully 38 Studios will learn that management is as important as the vision. Vanguard isn"t a lesson on vision and game design...it"s a lesson in management.
It makes it hard to judge why it truly failed...was it because it was buggy unfinished game, was it because of extremely poor performance, was it because of the core design philosophy, or because of the bad implementation of those designs.
Investors will be more careful, they will hopefully realize that they need to make sure that developpers need someone over them to manage the project...can"t let dreamers loose on something like that.
Hopefully 38 Studios will learn that management is as important as the vision. Vanguard isn"t a lesson on vision and game design...it"s a lesson in management.