i"m playing ffXI and it"s quite successful, well i think. and has tons of players.
Not pretty convinced with the mma analogy since WoW is pretty much based on eq.
Not pretty convinced with the mma analogy since WoW is pretty much based on eq.
Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling
- Thread starter Lord Thanos_foh
- Start date
EQ = the many MMA leagues they had before the UFC or og UFC without Dana White
UFC = WoW
not to hard to follow...
UFC = WoW
not to hard to follow...
Any word on whether or not the 38 Studios panel from ComicCon will be recorded or transcribed? I"d like to see what was said.
You do recognize the logical fallacy in comparing a genre with a platform, don"t you?Rayne said:
Of course you do.
Right?
If you want to believe that mmos are a mainstream market because you see a few commercials for ONE fucking mmo on tv, be my guest. I don"t have to agree.Protest said:
I was more than happy to just agree to disagree with my last post on the subject nearly half a fuckin" day ago. Dumbass.
You seem to be 100% set on your goal of derailing a perfectly good thread.Rayne said:
So I ask for the good of all those who lurk here and enjoy reading actual discussion, please, SHUT THE FUCK UP.
Piss off with the other clown. I hadn"t planned on carrying the subject any further until he dragged the shit back up. So who derailed what? And now who"s trying to derail it further now jackass? By the way, who the fuck died and appointed you admin/mod?Loftish v2 said:
dubass huh, That"s cute.Rayne said:
I was merely pointing out a fallacy in your logic. It can sting, logic. I know. but this is something that takes place in mature discussion.
Name-calling huh?
I can see you are in over your head. Don"t you think you have embarrassed yourself enough?
I already stated this twice in this thread and I"ll do it a third time with a different example because so many exist and not just in the videogame industry.Rayne said:
People make the stupid claim that noone should fantasy because WoW trumped everything. How many WWII fps games came out in the passt decade out doing the prior in terms of millions of sales. I can atleast count 4 different series.
How many racing simulator games came out and out performed sales of previous racing simulators? I can think of 3. How many arcade racers outperformed the milestones of other arcade racers?
WoW is a beast but its position isn"t absolute. GE"s and Coke"s recent screwups in the last 8 years anyone?
Was just forwarded this latest press release:
38 Studios" Design Team Expands
- Travis McGeathy Joins Steve Danuser and Jason Roberts -
Maynard, MA, April 22, 2008 - Continuing to attract top industry talent, 38 Studios (www.38studios.com), a pioneering entertainment company dedicated to delivering a broad spectrum of entertainment products, today announced the expansion of its industry-renowned design team with the appointment of Travis McGeathy as systems design lead. Travis hails from Sony Online Entertainment and joins his former SOE co-workers at 38 Studios, Jason Roberts and Steve Danuser, who have been laying the groundwork in IP and game development in year one at the studio.
"38 Studios already boasts some heavy-hitting, pop-culture names with R. A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane," said Brett Close, CEO and President of 38 Studios. "In addition to these visionaries, 38 Studios is extremely proud of the well-known and highly respected designers, artists, and engineers we"ve attracted. Having Travis, Jason, and Steve as the nucleus of our design team adds further credibility within the industry, strengthening our commitment to deploying a first-rate MMOG, and ensuring fans that we have the skill and experience to deliver an Online Entertainment Experience like no other."
As systems design lead, McGeathy, known as "Rashere" in the online gaming community, will oversee the team responsible for creating the innovative gameplay mechanics that will bring to life the MMOG codenamed "Copernicus." At SOE, he held the position of lead designer on EverQuest and was responsible for the overall creative direction of the product and management of its design team.
Danuser, also known as "Moorgard" in the online world, joined 38 Studios in 2006 as the director of community development and lead content designer. He is establishing the foundation of 38 Studios" community while directing creative development of the company"s upcoming MMOG. At SOE, he was the original community manager for EverQuest II, founding and maintaining one of the strongest and most vibrant communities in the MMOG space. He later moved into the role of designer and contributed to expansion packs and live updates, including the popular Echoes of Faydwer.
Design director Jason Roberts oversees the creative and technical operations of the 38 Studios design department, ensuring that both gameplay systems and creative content meld into a cohesive and entertaining experience. Prior to joining 38 Studios in 2007, he was lead designer of EverQuest II, providing guidance to the development process of three expansions and three adventure packs, including Desert of Flames, Kingdom of Sky and Echoes of Faydwer.
About 38 Studios
38 Studios, a media and entertainment company founded in 2006 by Curt Schilling, is in pre-production on an original fantasy IP driven by the creative and artistic visions of pop-culture icons R. A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane. Entertainment products will include a massively immersive Online Entertainment Experience (TM) that transcends the traditional MMOG genre, novels, comics, toys, movies, TV, and more. For more information, visit38 Studios | World Domination Through Gaming.
PR Contacts:
Andrea Schneider/Karen Blondell
917.769.6060/310.922.5838
[email protected]
[email protected]
38 Studios" Design Team Expands
- Travis McGeathy Joins Steve Danuser and Jason Roberts -
Maynard, MA, April 22, 2008 - Continuing to attract top industry talent, 38 Studios (www.38studios.com), a pioneering entertainment company dedicated to delivering a broad spectrum of entertainment products, today announced the expansion of its industry-renowned design team with the appointment of Travis McGeathy as systems design lead. Travis hails from Sony Online Entertainment and joins his former SOE co-workers at 38 Studios, Jason Roberts and Steve Danuser, who have been laying the groundwork in IP and game development in year one at the studio.
"38 Studios already boasts some heavy-hitting, pop-culture names with R. A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane," said Brett Close, CEO and President of 38 Studios. "In addition to these visionaries, 38 Studios is extremely proud of the well-known and highly respected designers, artists, and engineers we"ve attracted. Having Travis, Jason, and Steve as the nucleus of our design team adds further credibility within the industry, strengthening our commitment to deploying a first-rate MMOG, and ensuring fans that we have the skill and experience to deliver an Online Entertainment Experience like no other."
As systems design lead, McGeathy, known as "Rashere" in the online gaming community, will oversee the team responsible for creating the innovative gameplay mechanics that will bring to life the MMOG codenamed "Copernicus." At SOE, he held the position of lead designer on EverQuest and was responsible for the overall creative direction of the product and management of its design team.
Danuser, also known as "Moorgard" in the online world, joined 38 Studios in 2006 as the director of community development and lead content designer. He is establishing the foundation of 38 Studios" community while directing creative development of the company"s upcoming MMOG. At SOE, he was the original community manager for EverQuest II, founding and maintaining one of the strongest and most vibrant communities in the MMOG space. He later moved into the role of designer and contributed to expansion packs and live updates, including the popular Echoes of Faydwer.
Design director Jason Roberts oversees the creative and technical operations of the 38 Studios design department, ensuring that both gameplay systems and creative content meld into a cohesive and entertaining experience. Prior to joining 38 Studios in 2007, he was lead designer of EverQuest II, providing guidance to the development process of three expansions and three adventure packs, including Desert of Flames, Kingdom of Sky and Echoes of Faydwer.
About 38 Studios
38 Studios, a media and entertainment company founded in 2006 by Curt Schilling, is in pre-production on an original fantasy IP driven by the creative and artistic visions of pop-culture icons R. A. Salvatore and Todd McFarlane. Entertainment products will include a massively immersive Online Entertainment Experience (TM) that transcends the traditional MMOG genre, novels, comics, toys, movies, TV, and more. For more information, visit38 Studios | World Domination Through Gaming.
PR Contacts:
Andrea Schneider/Karen Blondell
917.769.6060/310.922.5838
[email protected]
[email protected]
Ok Mr. Spock, put on your dunce cap and simpleton suit, because i"d hate for you to think this actually "requires" any intelligence to understand:Protest said:
Your claim is that its a "logical fallacy" to compare the mainstream validity of twoseparateaspects thesamegeneral genre. Gee, I wonder what general genre that could be? hmm..... Wait for it..........
Video gaming.
So yeah, you"re a dumbass who tried to make him self "look" smart, but failed. Miserably. Its known as "calling a spade a spade".
Class dismissed.
Moving on:
This is where you lost touch with the point i"m making. I"m not saying that I think that no one should make a fantasy mmo because "WoW trumped everything". I"m saying its foolish to try so directly, because Blizzard will continue striving to make thier game even greater. They"ve got one helluva head start. I think that an as of yet unheard of IP would stand a greater chance of success by providing a different type of game that is as polished and well executed as WoW. Do I think its impossible to develop a fantasy game of that calibre? No. But I think that with the subject matter being what it is and the various ways its already been used, its just "less likely". I think that using a different subject matter (other than fantasy), would allow a more "forgiving" chance of success by providing a different experience of equal calibre from a different perspective. Especially for an unfamiliar IP.mutantmagnet said:
With what Curt and his team have riding on this, I hope i"m mistaken. Because if I am, it means another huge title for the mmo genre. But if i"m right, its another example for investors to use as an excuse to avoid funding high quality mmos.
DickTrickle
Definitely NOT Furor Planedefiler
- 12,924
- 14,827
Fuck, Rashere is awesome. That has me excited! I remember helping out with some of his raid tests on the Test Server back in the day.
Wow, Rashere on board is really nice to see. He was one of few devs that would actually listen to and act on player concerns on EQ Test. He even went as far as spending several hours a day sitting in an FoHboard related serverwide channel.
Yeah, the Rashere thing is old, but still great news.
Moorgard posted a comment on his blog that Ten Ton Hammer recorded the panel they did at Comic Con. I"m hoping they post it up soon.
Moorgard posted a comment on his blog that Ten Ton Hammer recorded the panel they did at Comic Con. I"m hoping they post it up soon.
Not that this has any reasoning behind it, to what we are doing, but let me ask you an "investment" question since it appears you are part of, or understand very well, the VC and investment community.Rayne said:
What would be riskier to you?
1) Investing in a company creating it"s very own IP, with two recognized (world wide) artists who"ve proven they can build IPs from scratch successfully, globally, in a genre that has about, let"s say, 100 million known gamers with the largest titles sporting between 10 and 20 million users(total guesswork number but let"s play along) with a Development team led by people who have done nothing but succeed and prove time and again they can build and ship games, from team concept, to gold master...
Or
2) Investing in a company creating it"s very own IP, in a genre such a sci-fi, wild west, from scratch with the largest known sub base of any types of this game being in the 2-500k realm? Same team, less the artistic folks who"ve already done it?
1 is about 10 million times less risky and I PROMISE someone here is going to argue 2 is the potential bigger home run, but I disagree. Someone "going outside the box" and creating this new cool wild west MMO is not going to suddenly bring 10 million new MMO players to the market is it? The biggest selling movies, novels, toys and other stuff of all time sits pretty squarely in fantasy no? 2 might be a bigger hit from an investment/return standpoint but that would only be if you did it on the cheap, and DID bring millions of new gamers to the space to pay 14-20 bucks a month to play. You still have to monetize the far east, which is way harder then people can imagine.
Fantasy is what it is because it"s ingrained in all of us to some degree. It starts when we"re young, think Dr Seuss to Mother Goose, it"s all about the fantasy and imagination, and it goes from there. Sci-fi, Wild west are all "alternate realities" more than Fantasy imo.
I don"t get what you mean by "try so directly" when speaking of competing against Blizz/WoW. If you are making a fantasy MMO you can"t help but compete, but there is zero reason the companies cannot co-exist, and get along simple because the more players we ALL bring into the space the better off the genre and games are. The folks at Blizzard are top notch, I"ve told them that, and will continue to do so, and the lessons they"ve helped us learn have been invaluable and money saving, but that"s what industry leaders do, they set bars and then you watch the pack and see what happens. Most fall by the wayside, just hoping to cross the finish line, others see the pace, and reset their bars.
One of the main problems I foresaw coming here when I did was just how far out we were from doing or saying anything about what we are making. If we can"t talk in depth about the industry then players are going to think we are hyping ourselves to make ourselves look great it could turn bad fast. I am VERY proud of our team, it"s pretty damn incredible the talent we"ve assembled here, but as a team we"ve done nothing. I get that and you as players do as well.
My problem, as Moorgard will tell you, is that I wear my heart on my sleeve in pretty much all facets of my life and I am all about NOT keeping things under wraps. This industry frowns on that and I am working on it, but in a few places we will be different I can assure you. We WILL be up front and visible to our customers, even more so when we screw up, which we will, but above all else we will be accountable, internally and externally.
I came to these forums because, flames aside, there is some decent discussions that happen here and I am keenly aware of the fact that while there are 100 million or more MMO"ers, about 1 half of 1 percent of you are actively posting on forums. That being said I believe if you DON"T take the publics temperature and listen now and then, you miss TONS of potential valuable insight and feedback.
Long rant over....
Total aside, but I respect the rhyming of Dr. Seuss and Mother Goose.
And yeah, Fantasy is where it"s at.
And yeah, Fantasy is where it"s at.
That"s a lesson you get from WoW. Transparency helps. The ones who lose by being transparent are the ones who have already lost - in this 21st century"s industry, if you have to sweep your problems under a rug, you will fail.Ngruk said:
There"s a lot of lessons the industry has to swallow, and it"s hard. Outsiders, like you, get it a bit better - I hope. But, at the same time,
That"s where we"re disagreeing.
There"s no cool wild west MMO. None, nada, zilch. The potential of a cool wild west MMO is completely unknown. It might bring 50k new players to MMO, it might bring 10 millions, no one knows.
The fantasy market? There"s a huge behemoth there. There"s been a dozen fantasy MMO since the beginning of the century. That"s the difference: if people want a quality fantasy MMO now, they have one. Most people who would be interested in a fantasy MMO now are probably playing it. The market is large, but it"s also well defined - the chances of there being 10 million potential fantasy MMO players that aren"t playing today are slim. If i"m not playing a fantasy MMO today, that"s because I"m not interested in MMOs (which means I"m hard to convince to play MMOs) or I"m not interested in fantasy. Certainly not because there"s no good games to play.
So, you have to make a game that"s extremely different from WoW - even if it"s fantasy.
And, showing your first studio production as the animation of a green-skinned orc on a horse (which I remember from a couple months ago)... is probably not a very convincing mark of originality.
(what? am I so transparent in trying to get some more assets shown? damn)
Well, I understand your points, and I don"t entirely disagree. But indulge me if you will:Ngruk said:
While a reknowned artist will certainly lend to the appeal of any type of game, i"d put artists like Paul, Giger, Ackerman, Clark, or Bradbury right up there on a pedastel alongside any fantasy artist. But this isn"t about artistic capability.
In both options 1 and 2, i"d argue that the risk is equal for either, until you factor in IP recognition and subject matter. Which is basicly what I said with my last post. Anyone claiming that the WarCraft IP had very little or nothing to do with Blizzards monumental success, is ignorant to its effect on the mmo genre in the US and EU markets alone. No previous mmo ever came even remotely close to 1.5 million+ subs in the US. EVER. If EQ did 500k at its peak, then were talking a potential 300% growth factor in the US alone post WoW, even if EVERY sub dropped EQ for WoW. It clearly caused noticable growth in the genre.
The subject matter is another story. Personally, I think that regardless of what it is, the risk is pretty equal, until you consider fantasy for all the reasons i"ve presented in previous posts. Its "little more than more of the same", with different mechanics, twists, and plotlines. When you consider that Blizzard has inarguably wrapped those things in the neatest, most enjoyable package ever, and with such presence and force that it grew the genre by 300%, that saddling up alongside them will be an extremely painstaking task.
Its my opinion (and as stated, with everything you guys will have riding on this, I HOPE i"m mistaken), that using the same subject matter to attempt such a task will amplify that effect. A lot of the reasoning in that opinion, is that Blizzard will continue expanding and improving thier game. They will undoubtedly place a StarCraft mmo in the market space. And theres some indication that a Diablo mmo may very well be in its earliest conception stages as well. Now, i"m not saying that i"m certain Blizzard will grow the genre by such an enormous percentage as they did with WoW, because it remains to be seen. But i"d say the likelihood is pretty apparent.
Using an alternative subject matter will still require building a WoW calibre game, but it allows more breathing room because of the inherent "oooh... this is new and different" reaction, rather than the "bleh, more dwarfs, orcs, elves, and dragons" seen so often lately. Its especially common among the Warhammer mmo followers. "meh, its a lot like WoW" is fast becoming a typical response not only by those on the outside looking in, but by many of its internal beta testers. To me, building a WoW calibre game on a relatively fresh IP, in the fantasy sector, is about as direct an attack as you can make. Certainly not the type Blizzard will not contend with brute force.
I don"t think that two companies cannot co-exist in the fantasy sector. But I certainly think its going to be a lot tougher for a brand new IP, than it would be for something established.
Perhaps i"m looking at this from the wrong aspect. 10 years can make a huge difference "IF" thats what we"re talking about here. As will the methodical order used to build the IP prior to starting production of an mmo. I see the basics of your plan, and it seems like that would be the sensible timeframe. Something like comics/novels > console game > tv show > movie production > mmorpg. That order makes a lot of sense, and minimizes risk exponentially. The comics/novel/movie would take a good 5 years alone. Putting a realistic timeframe for an mmo at around 10+ years from now. Which would change my point of view greatly.
Exactly. Its fast becoming the "trendy" way of looking at mmos in general, because theres soooo many of one type, and nothing "WoW calibre" of anything else.Ukerric said:
That was not a "show" but rather something we didn"t ask them to omit when we found out it was in there.Ukerric said:
Trust me, if it were up to me we"d be creating assets on a cintiq in a public forum The stuff these people are doing is staggering. Again I am bragging but being so close to it all and seeing how this idea in my head has become a living breathing thing is pretty staggering.
At some point we will put together a movie and I will write a book on how this all happened. I would argue that then, and only then, will comments I"ve made become obvious to more than just me
You might actually be able to go back and put a film to my posts here date and time wise.
Anyway, it"s cool, it"s scary, it"s challenging, but so was the 2001 Yankee lineup.......