Ashes of Creation

moonarchia

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
<Bronze Donator>
29,802
57,928
Ortega said:
I had forgotten about Shadowbane. Sheesh after playing Meridian 59, Ultima Online, Everquest, and then World of Warcraft I just thought the future was sooo bright. How the fuck did we end up here?
Click to expand...
WOW. By blowing up as big as they did they made big corpos expect their corposlop to perform just as well. They went all in on the mega huge budgets instead of focusing on making games that were fun. That era of gaming is finally dying out, so it's possible to see smaller groups make smaller games again. A good MMO with a small, solid base, could perform well. The current crop doesn't seem like it will be the one to turn it around. Pantheon and MnM are dead in the water. Adrullan is probably the next candidate that has an actual chance of launching.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users
Neranja

Neranja

<Bronze Donator>
3,102
5,058
Sylas said:
Serious question for you, is your tism impacting your reading comprehension? Because YOU ARE responding to me, and I sure as fuck am talking about grinding mobs for experience ie pve.
Click to expand...
And I surely as fuck talked about EVE the whole time, and and the reasons for territory control to matter it also requiring to have an ulterior purpose. Because ultimately, PvP without a reason for it and bringing no advantage will begin feeling hollow, and the game dies once things settle.

But of course you run away from that part of the argument and cherry-pick the other parts, and then even resort to insults when poked again and again.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user
Neranja

Neranja

<Bronze Donator>
3,102
5,058
moonarchia said:
A good MMO with a small, solid base, could perform well. The current crop doesn't seem like it will be the one to turn it around. Pantheon and MnM are dead in the water.
Click to expand...
The core issue here, and Pantheon being a prime example of it: Making an MMO is a complex task, and you can't let the amateur hour run the show.

Yes, the tools have become simpler, especially the ones shared with single-player and match-based multiplayer games, but the most important part is the database layer, and all the anti-cheat stuff. Because if the players don't have any trust in your product, they sure as hell aren't investing a thousand hours into it.

There are interesting new developments like SpacetimeDB that seemingly make things easier, but they are not proven, and I can see some issues with their approach.
 
  • 2Like
Reactions: 1 users
moonarchia

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
<Bronze Donator>
29,802
57,928
Neranja said:
The core issue here, and Pantheon being a prime example of it: Making an MMO is a complex task, and you can't let the amateur hour run the show.

Yes, the tools have become simpler, especially the ones shared with single-player and match-based multiplayer games, but the most important part is the database layer, and all the anti-cheat stuff. Because if the players don't have any trust in your product, they sure as hell aren't investing a thousand hours into it.

There are interesting new developments like SpacetimeDB that seemingly make things easier, but they are not proven, and I can see some issues with their approach.
Click to expand...
Yeah, the Joppa and Steve types who add a kajillion things 5-13 years into development will never put out a finished product. The 2 guys and a hope like MnM also won't ever get there. You need a tightly focused plan from the start, and enough specialized devs to get all the pieces covered. Get the product finished. If it's good and you get a decent revenue stream you can build on it with xpacs.

Honestly, project management is a super basic thing that they used to teach in college. It's still fairly prevalent in every industry in one form or another. Someone to crack the whip and keep the team focused.
 
Uriel

Uriel

Vyemm Raider
2,288
3,303


1000007982.jpg
 
Mahes

Mahes

Silver Baronet of the Realm
6,801
10,827
There was a longer video that I am guessing got taken down. I had started to watch it and even flagged it, but it is gone.

Ahh here we go. Watch it fast.

 
Last edited:
Tarrant

Tarrant

<Prior Amod>
16,732
10,899
What a ride that video was. As much as Steven is a giant PoS, Jason has no one to blame but himself for 3/4 of his investments.

that said I hope he gets his money back and I hope Steven ends up in prison.
 
Mahes

Mahes

Silver Baronet of the Realm
6,801
10,827
Now that I watched that whole video, I am surprised Steven is still alive. It sounds like Jason was a gullible fool but if the law did not deal with this situation........

It amazes me to this day how our laws do not equate loss of money with actual harm to a person. Of course that is due to the fact that money creates our laws.

and the hits just keep on coming, if this is true...

 
Last edited:
  • 1Worf
Reactions: 1 user
tower

tower

Golden Knight of the Realm
385
161
Damn this turned into the exact shitshow people claimed it always was lmao

I maintain that the core of the game they eventually got around to building had some potential but it legit had like 4 days of total content. Which I guess is what it would look like if you ran a scam so successful it had to become real to keep the scam going
 
Last edited:
Rabbit_Games

Rabbit_Games

Ahn'Qiraj Raider
2,296
5,062
JOESAN21 said:
I think Asheron’s Call did this in their own way pretty well. Combination skill/level based game where decisions had consequences and also rewards. You could spec in blunt, sword, or axe if I remember right—but not all. Your skill counted as much as levels did in combat or being able to use items.

Plus I loved having to prepare for dungeons. Never seen that replicated to this degree.

It’s odd that we have great examples of systems out there from Eve, UO, DAoC …. But no one seems to be able to re create the spark
Click to expand...

A friend and I made so much fucking money selling the Hoary something robes on Ebay. It covered your whole body so you only had to cast buffs on one piece of armor.
 
Mahes

Mahes

Silver Baronet of the Realm
6,801
10,827
Rabbit_Games said:
A friend and I made so much fucking money selling the Hoary something robes on Ebay. It covered your whole body so you only had to cast buffs on one piece of armor.
Click to expand...

I remember those. They stopped making the robes so anybody who had one had a nice advantage. I sold mine for $500.00 to some guy who worked at Microsoft. Best price I ever got for something in a game. If you had many, I bet you made some $$.
 
Neranja

Neranja

<Bronze Donator>
3,102
5,058
moonarchia said:
Yeah, the Joppa and Steve types who add a kajillion things 5-13 years into development will never put out a finished product. The 2 guys and a hope like MnM also won't ever get there. You need a tightly focused plan from the start, and enough specialized devs to get all the pieces covered. Get the product finished. If it's good and you get a decent revenue stream you can build on it with xpacs.

Honestly, project management is a super basic thing that they used to teach in college. It's still fairly prevalent in every industry in one form or another. Someone to crack the whip and keep the team focused.
Click to expand...
I'd like to chime on a bit on the topic of project management: As long as I remember project management In the games industry has been a total shitshow and nothing like project management in any other industry. And this is precisely because what amounts to rebuilding and improving an airplane ... while it is in the air.

Also the metric for "senior developer" in the games industry is basically "has been part of a team that succesfully shipped the game". This is regardless if the game flopped hard (like Concord), or if the person in question just made some models, textures or backgrounds for a week ... or cleaned the toilets.

Also, in regards to build small an add features in xpacs: That has been brought up a lot, but the elephant in the room is WoW, and if you want big investor bucks you have to promise them to compete in the big league. And that boils down to competing with WoW in its current state and feature set.
 
moonarchia

moonarchia

The Scientific Shitlord
<Bronze Donator>
29,802
57,928
Neranja said:
I'd like to chime on a bit on the topic of project management: As long as I remember project management In the games industry has been a total shitshow and nothing like project management in any other industry. And this is precisely because what amounts to rebuilding and improving an airplane ... while it is in the air.

Also the metric for "senior developer" in the games industry is basically "has been part of a team that succesfully shipped the game". This is regardless if the game flopped hard (like Concord), or if the person in question just made some models, textures or backgrounds for a week ... or cleaned the toilets.

Also, in regards to build small an add features in xpacs: That has been brought up a lot, but the elephant in the room is WoW, and if you want big investor bucks you have to promise them to compete in the big league. And that boils down to competing with WoW in its current state and feature set.
Click to expand...
The idea is to stop looking for big investor bucks. Have a solid and finalized game plan before you start coding. Get just as many people as needed. Have a leader that can keep people on task and just focus on grinding it out.

If the game is good, and brings enough money in, you can expand on it from there with xpacs.
 
Neranja

Neranja

<Bronze Donator>
3,102
5,058
moonarchia said:
The idea is to stop looking for big investor bucks.
Click to expand...
I agree, but sadly the complexity of an MMO is probably just a bit beyond what an indie can realistically finance. And having a pitch deck "we build small core and grow from there" is contrary to the last decade of startup and investment culture, with all the "go big or go home." This is probably why Ashes of Creation worked as long as it did: Steven basically promised almost everything to everyone, almost like lightning in a bottle.

My hope is that with all the low budget indie to AA successes in recent times, and all the AAA failures at the same time, that there is a major shift in investor behavior.
 
  • 1Like
Reactions: 1 user
Xevy

Xevy

Log Wizard
9,367
4,508
The ideal way to make games now around big corpa investment is unfortunately a two-game process. A cash cow, often a mobile gacha bullshit whale netter, to make all your money. Then following its success and continued profit stream you make the game for gamers which is going to be less profitable and take considerable time and money to make, but as long as you're milking Game A the whole time and staying within reasonable dev scope you'd be alright.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.