Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

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redjunkopera_foh

shitlord
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We are looking at a game right now that could potentially have a 50+ million dollar pre-launch budget
$50M in capital from 3 rabid MMO fans who want to make an awesome game, or $50M from misc investors who want the biggest return on their buck and don"t understand that thatdoesmean making an awesome game... regardless of deadlines? It seems deadlines bite a lot of people in the ass... they need to please the investors, and end up making a crappy game.

we do want to add things to the MMO space that we know for a fact don"t exist, or we believe were done poorly.
So you are going to make a Star Wars MMO? =)

The worst thing you could do is to make another EQ2/Vanguard clone.
ummm... isn"t that the type of game that Curt typically plays?
 

Neric_foh

shitlord
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redjunkopera said:
ummm... isn"t that the type of game that Curt typically plays?
Let"s put it this way, the decision to make your own game ("I can do better than that!") usually doesn"t come while playing the greatest game on earth.
 

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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Neric said:
Curt, I give you a hint and it"s absolutely free: If you want to be successful, don"t follow the mainstream opinion that"s based on Koster"s Theory of Fun. The worst thing you could do is to make another EQ2/Vanguard clone.

P.S.: If you need an outstanding artist for your character models, sign Sceleris from this very thread.
I cannot quote this enough.

Above all, make sure you learn what happens when you rush a launch date. Look at games like AO, EQ2, etc. Look what happened to them. The biggest thing to learn for you, unless you already know, is you have a minimal window to gain a shitload of players. If you botch the launch, you"re done for and will never recover. Take your time and release the game when it is ready, and never use subscription revenue to finish half the design concept. Ala: SWG.

I think what is good about this is you have been an avid gamer for a while. You have dealt with the frustrations of shitty launches, too much hype for a game, terrible mechanics, etc. Hire good animators, good artists, and create a fun game to play and you are set. Do not sugar coat anything in the press, give real answers to questions and do not fluff PR Style. You will find people are going to be much more in tune with you and your game if you are straight forward and do not play the PR card every time you post.

Although I haven"t liked an RA Salavatore book for a long time now, get him to create something fresh, new, and have him work on it - not just stamp his name on it or create a rough storyline to follow. Have him knee deep in the design process.

Above all, be honest and upfront about what is or is not going to make launch. You"ll find gamers a lot more forgiving if you just come out and say what is going to be in the game. Make a web page when you get closer to launch detailing a list of what will not make it until future patches or expansions. Don"t hide anything, ala the Froglok quest in EQ2, or Jedi"s in SWG, PoM card quests in Velious... Etc. These will absolutely kill your credibility for a very long time, and once you have lost that - forget it. You"re a bigger target for ridicule more than a hanging curve ball left up.
 

Caocao_foh

shitlord
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Neric said:
Don"t know that game, so I cannot judge him. Still I"ll lay the odds that Sceleris is at least just as good and probably much better. Anyways, I hope they licensed this engine to start with:http://www.projectoffset.com/
Spawn is a comic book, and ya that projectoffset I remember reading about a pretty long time ago. Their web site is kinda meh, but when I watched those videos man...

When an FPS is that Epic, I don"t even know if I"ll bother w/ mmo"s.
 

Dynalisia_foh

shitlord
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Looks like Curt has the potential to be the prodigal child of the jaded masses, a scary position to be in to say the least. Good luck with your game.
 

redjunkopera_foh

shitlord
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Well that"s really where my "who"s $50M dollars" question comes into play.

If he"s following the same model as everyone else It"ll be like "Yeah, ok you and 50 other companies who are doing the exact same thing"...

If they"ve got a pool of cash and the investors are willing to trust that good game WILL bring in the cash and they are willing to back off and let the dev team do what they need to do, then maybe there will be some reason for optimism.

I think Sigil is trying to make their game free from the business side constraints, and regardless of whether or not it"s the type of game most of the crowd here will want to play, I think for the type of game they are developing it will probably be awesome.

We don"t know what kind of game GMG is making either... could be 3 years down the line we have 18 GMG threads on front page with some neo-Ut tearing Curt a new one in 2000 word mini-essays over how they have designed their game.

The optimism is there because nothing has been put out there yet... If they can keep that optimism going as they release info remains to be seen.
 

tyen

EQ in a browser wait time: ____
<Banned>
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Ngruk said:
We are looking at a game right now that could potentially have a 50+ million dollar pre-launch budget, and understanding that if we achieve the vision we have set forth, we will change the landscape of this industry game wise, and company wise, forever.
Trying to achieve above and beyond what is already set forth is something that the gaming industry needs.Passionand having a vision of what you are doing reigns supreme.
 

Bizanich_foh

shitlord
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Neric said:
Curt, I give you a hint and it"s absolutely free: If you want to be successful, don"t follow the mainstream opinion that"s based on Koster"s Theory of Fun. The worst thing you could do is to make another EQ2/Vanguard clone.

P.S.: If you need an outstanding artist for your character models, sign Sceleris from this very thread.
I"m torn. Koster also made UO, and I <3 UO longtime and its spiritual successor, Eve Online. So, I still don"t think Koster"s all bad, despite the Star Wars mess.

My main curiousity is if Ngruk (get something pronounceable k thx) is leaning towards PvP or PvE, sandbox or linear style games
 

Rythonn_foh

shitlord
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Koster knows tradeskills like no other. Both UO and SWG had amazing tradeskills that actually meant something in game. Just don"t let him touch anything else.
 

Neric_foh

shitlord
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McQuaid also made EQ at one stage of his career. Obviously it doesn"t matter what you have done in the past, if it doesn"t translate into the future. Seems to me that the best times for both of these guys are far behind them and they didn"t learn anything from it, at least their games seem to get worse and worse over the years.
 

Utnayan

F16 patrolling Rajaah until he plays DS3
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Bizanich said:
I"m torn. Koster also made UO, and I <3 UO longtime and its spiritual successor, Eve Online. So, I still don"t think Koster"s all bad, despite the Star Wars mess.

My main curiousity is if Ngruk (get something pronounceable k thx) is leaning towards PvP or PvE, sandbox or linear style games
Koster is to MMORPG"s now as Molyneux is to video games. However, I do not think Koster really ever did anything that stood out in my mind as something worth talking about.
 

Neric_foh

shitlord
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redjunkopera said:
What game has he released since then?
His "professional" bio says: "After Verant"s acquisition by Sony Online Entertainment, Brad McQuaid served there as Vice President of Premium Games responsible for EverQuest, EverQuest 2, EverQuest Online Adventures, PlanetSide, and Star Wars: Galaxies. In addition, McQuaid was the company"s Chief Creative Officer."

He obviously created Everquest, but once confronted with those other games, he usually inists on not having had any part of it. They either paid him for nothing or he did something, but doesn"t want to get reminded of it.
 

jooka

marco esquandolas
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Neric said:
His "professional" bio says: "After Verant"s acquisition by Sony Online Entertainment, Brad McQuaid served there as Vice President of Premium Games responsible for EverQuest, EverQuest 2, EverQuest Online Adventures, PlanetSide, and Star Wars: Galaxies. In addition, McQuaid was the company"s Chief Creative Officer."

He obviously created Everquest, but once confronted with those other games, he usually inists on not having had any part of it. They either paid him for nothing or he did something, but doesn"t want to get reminded of it.
I really can not understand you and UT"s stalker like attitude towards brad or anything he does in the futurte. I can only laugh and personally know everything the both of you post is complete bullshit. Once the NDA goes down you will both look like the complete dumbass stalker/pathetic people you are. Enjoy.
 

moontayle

Golden Squire
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Jooka said:
I really can not understand you and UT"s stalker like attitude towards brad or anything he does in the futurte. I can only laugh and personally know everything the both of you post is complete bullshit. Once the NDA goes down you will both look like the complete dumbass stalker/pathetic people you are. Enjoy.
Your comment has overtones of, "But it"s only Beta!" How many times has that argument been shit on and dragged through the mutilated corpses of a thousand crippled and broken MMO dreams?
 

Neric_foh

shitlord
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I don"t fear the NDA going down. Besides that I don"t really know if I should laugh or cry about the fact that Brad, his people and their multi million dollar budget won"t be enough to prevent this disaster in the making. When I want to laugh, I go and read the Beta boards.

Maybe this example should make the guys from Green Monster Games think twice about the importance of their basic core decisions. If you get those wrong, it"s very tough to get things back on track because one bad decision usually leads to the other.

Just take the decision to introduce a huge variety of armor as an example. If you want to do that you need a big chunk of RAM for all of those textures, because whenever a character shows up, you need to be able to display his unique armor instantly. Since you don"t want to triple or quadruple the amount of memory needed by making something unique for every race you are all of a sudden forced to introduce extremely dubious concepts like unibodies...

If things go really bad and you screw up your memory management completely, you may not even have enough memory left for your "seamless" virtual 3D world, so you are forced to make it as simple as possible by re-using modular stuff (hello LDoN) all over the place. What could be worse?

As you can see, one mistake leads to another....and it all started with something innocent like armor textures. Just one small decision, but it may be big enough to sink the whole ship.
 

Neric_foh

shitlord
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Funny, but Curt"s relation to baseball reminds me of something what describes Sigil best. It all started with a walk, then came a throwing error by the second baseman trying to turn the double play followed by a bunt single, because the pitcher fumbled the ball. Now you got bases loaded with nobody out and the big guys are coming up to bat.

I have seen pitchers escape from that and I am sure Curt did it more than once in his career (so maybe Brad can get out of the jam also), but it"s highly unlikely and as a manager you certainly don"t want to see it in game 7 of the NLCS with everything on the line.

With this I want to remind every fan of baseball to check out the MLB website and download a few classic games. Cubs-Padres "84 would be a nice one....guess what, the Sigil studios are even located in San Diego! It"s really weird that Brad looks a bit like Rick Sutcliffe, isn"t it?
 

Ngruk_foh

shitlord
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I don"t know Brad well, beyond I think an initial meeting years ago. I can"t comment much on the VG beta as I haven"t been able to get too far into it due to the time needed elsewhere.

What I do know is that Brad is one of the more instrumental and pivotal people the MMO space has ever seen.

I don"t know how much or how little he had to do with EQ or EQ2, my guess is alot more than most think, and probably less than the haters want to believe. But, when you look at where we are today, there can be no doubt that Brad has had a major influence in the MMO world.

Personally EQ sold me on the genre in about 10 minutes. Much to my wife"s chagrin it held me for a few years and then I moved to EQ2. I"ve played just about every MMO I can think of. None got me like EQ did, or EQ2.

That being said I can see some enormous gaps in content and gameplay that were there at the beginning, and are still there now.

Say what you want about Brad, or Smed, or any of them, but the fact remains that when you want to lay the cards on the table they are the only ones with hands to play. They"ve been there, and done that, from start to finish, which I don"t think any other person on these boards can claim. That in and of itself deserves something in the way of respect, to me anyway.