Green Monster Games - Curt Schilling

Utnayan said:

Actually I would consider Shadows of Yserbius and AOL NWN the earliest cave man incarnation of MMORPG"s. With a much steeper barrier to entry with cost. And those were in 91. 18 years ago.

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It was impossible to do anything as a new character solo in Shadows of Yserbius. It was more hardcore than EQ.

Utnayan said:

My point regarding the possibility of moving into the industry was just that. I have a portfolio, I have mods made, I have levels made, I have scripts of encounters, and all that bru-haha.

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If you have all that and are qualified then simply disregard my post. The point I was making is that simply having passion for something doesn"t mean you are qualified to create a product. At the very least it doesn"t mean you can create a product that is worth a shit. Having passion for something is a very important part don"t get me wrong. Loving what you do always translates into your work. If you have the things listed above then excellent. That makes you about 100x more qualified then 90% of the folks on here who think "I kill fucking dragons online yo!" is all they need to make the next big thing.

I love talking game design as much as the next guy. Just some folks around here need a serious reality check. Most of us if given the chance at designing a real MMO would fail, and badly. A "vision" is a start, but game design is a business. If you can"t deal with that part of it (as most can"t) then you don"t have shit. If you can.. then best of luck!

Utnayan said:

Lone Ranger I will also say this, since you brought it up.

Ebert hires Spielberg, then when Spielberg, who knows what the hell he is doing because he has been doing it for so long, tells Ebert he needs to let him change some things or the entire movie is going to get fucked, Ebert fires his ass and hires Dakota Fanning to head up everything.

Now replace that with Curt Schilling and Close.

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Heh, Ut I am not defending Curt here. I can see a train wreck coming easily enough. I was just referring to you personally when it came to the industry. I have little interest in what game curt and co are making. I come to this thread for the drama.

Utnayan said:

Edit by the way: EQ1 1.5 years. DAOC 2 years. WoW 2.5 years. AO 1.5 years. New Star Wars 2.5 years. SWG: 2 years (And that was with redevelopment 16 months before launch)

The only game that took more than 3 years was Vanguard. And we all saw why didn"t we.

Enter Copurnicus Nukem Forever (Tm) 3-4 years.

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I"m going to call you on this one Ut.

Ultima Online: Announced Early 1995 - Released Sept. 1997
EverQuest: Announced Mar. 1996 - Released Mar. 1999
EverQuest 2: Announced Mar. 2001 - Released Nov. 2004
Star Wars Galaxies: Announced Mar. 2000 - Released June 2003
World of Warcraft: Announced Sept. 2001 - Released Nov. 2004
Age of Conan: Announced Mar. 2005 - Released Mar. 2008
Warhammer Online: Announced May 2005 - Released Sept. 2008

You can assume that anywhere from a year to two years of concept, prototype, and pre-production went on for most of those titles prior to their "official" announcements.

It takes a long time to make an MMO, if you"re part of a starting team working on one you better be prepared for a 7 year commitment at minimum. 4-5 years for the development and 2 years after release (when the work really starts). I"m continually surprised how many people don"t realize the timescales involved with projects of that magnitude.

Lost Ranger said:

If you have all that and are qualified then simply disregard my post. The point I was making is that simply having passion for something doesn"t mean you are qualified to create a product. At the very least it doesn"t mean you can create a product that is worth a shit. Having passion for something is a very important part don"t get me wrong. Loving what you do always translates into your work. If you have the things listed above then excellent. That makes you about 100x more qualified then 90% of the folks on here who think "I kill fucking dragons online yo!" is all they need to make the next big thing.

I love talking game design as much as the next guy. Just some folks around here need a serious reality check. Most of us if given the chance at designing a real MMO would fail, and badly. A "vision" is a start, but game design is a business. If you can"t deal with that part of it (as most can"t) then you don"t have shit. If you can.. then best of luck!

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See, but that is the other side of the "just because you drive a car means you are around the auto industry?" argument. Sure if any of us tried to design a major MMO we would fail. Does that mean we don"t know shit when we smell it?

I personally don"t give a fuck, I"m looking forward to D3, Bioshock 2 and FFXIV and I know at least one will turn out well. Other than that I have no hopes or expectations. I"d love a good SW MMO but I"m not getting worked up about it before release this time around. Still, I can also see how maybe it seems like this thread is starting to stink. I am getting a bit of a McQuaid VG vibe from the official posts at this point, but with a different sort of ego and maybe a shorter fuse. Its just posts on a message board though, maybe its too easy to read into them.

Zehn - Vhex said:

I used to run Open Raids in EQ as well. You have no fucking idea how grateful people were who had 70 hour work weeks and kids that got to see content they never would have otherwise because they couldn"t join a power guild. We had 700 unique players attend our raids over a 6 month period. -700- different people who otherwise would have never seen a PoP god if it hadn"t been for us. That"s fucking insane.

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As a matter of fact, I would. Because the player you describe, is exactly the player I was. If you were running those on Veeshan, its quite likely that I may have attended a few of them. And I was grateful for every one. I got into the raiding guild scene very late, a few months prior to Dark Fury merging into FoH. I remember very well telling Bashiae that I wasn"t real sure i"d have the participation level they might want/require. DF was a lot more relaxed, which really fit the bill for me. Just as the merger took place, I left EQ for AO full time.

But I think i"m missing the connection you"re trying to make. My point was, that in an unofficial venue like this, an "average gamer" would be much more likely to discuss his gripes with a given game much more openly than in say, the WoW, AoC, EQ2, or (insert game here) official forums. Here, he has the ability to retort against opposing opinion, without getting drummed off by 10,000 fanboys screaming "L2P n00b!" I wasn"t inferring that "casual Joe" wasn"t the "average gamer". If anything, i"d venture a guess that a majority of the regged members here could be considered exactly that.

Utnayan said:

Thanks for proving my point. 2 years Max from announcement to "This is what we"ve got"

We are not talking announcement to release.

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And thank you for proving mine...

March 5, 2008 ? 38 Studios today announced the company has entered into an agreement with Epic Games to license Unreal Engine 3 to power its upcoming massively multiplayer online game (MMOG).

So by your 2 year estimate that seems about on schedule to me.

Do not mistake company and IP development with game development. One usually precedes the other if you"re doing things right.

You can continue to be insulting if you like, but you"ll still be wrong.

Utnayan said:

Ebert hires Spielberg, then when Spielberg, who knows what the hell he is doing because he has been doing it for so long, tells Ebert he needs to let him change some things or the entire movie is going to get fucked, Ebert fires his ass and hires Dakota Fanning to head up everything.

Now replace that with Curt Schilling and Close.

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Worst analogy ever. This sums up the intelligence behind your argument quite nicely.

Predicting an MMO is going to fail is like predicting the sun will rise in the East. Congratu-fucking-lations, you"re a regular Nostradamus. Your prediction for this game has so much logic behind it it"s impossible to refute. I mean you know so much about the state of the game and the reasons behind the CEO change how could you come to any other conclusion? Since Curt isn"t allowed to talk about the game, you should go ahead and fill us in. Oh wait, you don"t know shit about it... my bad.

Can we all just stop quoting Ut? If you feel the urge to reply to his insane, angst-ridden, rage-fueled diatribes, just send him a PM. As far as this thread is concerned, I would rather have softball Q&As and Curt promoting his game rather than Ut"s deep-seated hatred of everything that isn"t him.

Seriously. Stop feeding the goddamn troll. If he ends up being right, great, we"ll all move on. If he"s wrong, great, we"ll all move on. We"re all adults here, we can all make the decision for ourselves whether Copernicus ends up a good MMO or not. Please, stop shitting up the thread with unsubstantiated, jaded, useless, pointless horseshit.

Knock it the fuck off!

Ngruk said:

One of the hidden sciences, and one I don"t fully grasp, is time between reveal and launch for an MMO. Only 1 of the major players in the NA market has had that timeline come in under 3 years.

You"ll be hearing about the IP, and some other stuff, "pretty soon".

Pretty soon being later than next weekend but before the next ML All Star game.

[...]

Here"s something to chew on.

Before anything, assumptions, opinions, anything, I am, and have been for longer than probably 90% of you, a gamer.

...

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Fair enough.
I"m not calling you out, far from my intention, I"m genuinely interested in the game and I truly hope you can deliver something "fresh" so to say.

Due to the turn this genre has taken over the years, I"m confident I won"t like at least 50% of the features of your game, but I also don"t like 50% of WoW at that, so it"s not a big deal as it may seem

I"m older than your average gamer and I still have the old school mentality, but I refuse to swallow the retarded mechanics of the old days like exp penalty and similar stuff. I"m more interested in a game with good combat, challenging content and a good background alongside a good art direction.
I hope Copernicus will have something I like in its features (P.S.: a note to Ut, "its" is the neutral possessive, not "it"s", learn it goddamnit, it"s your mother language. That or change spellchecker).

Call me "damn curious" if you want

Dymus said:

You can assume that anywhere from a year to two years of concept, prototype, and pre-production went on for most of those titles prior to their "official" announcements.

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The only game than went below 3 years was Dark Age of Camelot, and that was because Mythic reused heavily their existing designs and tech from previous games. (of course, when they launched, most dungeons were empty, with mob dropping only cash, not a single item).

With the experience of Darkness Fall (the game, not the dungeon that cropped up later), their mage multiplayer game, and the like, they cobbled DAoC together in about 18 months.

Ngruk said:

One of the hidden sciences, and one I don"t fully grasp, is time between reveal and launch for an MMO. Only 1 of the major players in the NA market has had that timeline come in under 3 years.

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Why do MMOs have to differ from all other genres when it comes to their announcement date? Many high profile games in other genres will announce maybe a year before their expected ship date and it doesn"t negatively impact them in the least. Also, MMO public betas generally don"t last over a year so why should a studio feel obligated to announce the game"s existence prior to opening said beta to the public?

Will be very intrigued the day that a high-profile studio announces, "Hey, we"ve been working on this MMO for 2-3 years and this is what it"s all about. Make sure to sign up for our closed beta, which starts in less than a month!" And I hope no one bothers to try telling me that it"s not doable; a project"s design requires nothing from the community until the community is able to get their hands on it.

CylusSoulreaver said:

Will be very intrigued the day that a high-profile studio announces, "Hey, we"ve been working on this MMO for 2-3 years and this is what it"s all about. Make sure to sign up for our closed beta, which starts in less than a month!" And I hope no one bothers to try telling me that it"s not doable; a project"s design requires nothing from the community until the community is able to get their hands on it.

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aren"t you denying yourself a lot of free "hype" that way?

I imagine it has something to do with MMO"s having the perception, real or otherwise, that you need to take subs away from other games. You don"t have that with most other genre"s. Half-Life 2 being a good game didn"t stop me from playing CoD4.

On the other hand let"s assume Aion is anything but a mediocre game wrapped in a yellow fever shell and that it"s actually good. Being good doesn"t fucking matter because I"m already paying for a good game, one that 40+ of my internet friends are also playing and have put nearly 5 years of our lives into.

The earlier you get that hype machine going, probably the better.

You can be a mediocre game and still turn a profit. How the fuck else is NCsoft still in business with it"s otherwise pile of horseshit. But that"s like marrying the first chick who"ll blow you. At least try to put out a good product. But I suppose you can always just hope the "waiting for vanguard!" retards will get you enough box sales and then forget to unsub when they stop playing so you can at least recoup your expenses and get a couple hookers and gas up your Ferrari.

Zehn - Vhex said:

You can be a mediocre game and still turn a profit. How the fuck else is NCsoft still in business with it"s otherwise pile of horseshit. But that"s like marrying the first chick who"ll blow you. At least try to put out a good product. But I suppose you can always just hope the "waiting for vanguard!" retards will get you enough box sales and then forget to unsub when they stop playing so you can at least recoup your expenses and get a couple hookers and gas up your Ferrari.

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I have to make a correction here for the sake of facts. Brad recovered all of his personal investment in Vanguard from SOE when they bought out Sigil. He was very fortunate. Smedley let him gas up the Ferrari again for a cruise around the strip with the ol" boss.

Gnome Eater said:

aren"t you denying yourself a lot of free "hype" that way?

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Keeping in mind that this forum represents well less than 1% of MMO players, has the "hype" of Copernicus been "free" so far in this thread? Has Mr. Schilling recruited potential customers without scaring others off? Point being, nothing is "free."

Zehn, do you play CoD4 and HL2 on the same platform and, if not, do you believe that each platform requires stealing subs from the other to be competitive? Don"t get me wrong, I see where you"re coming from.

Won"t argue against the fact that, if I have 40 friends that I"m playing with, I don"t want to leave them (we all would have quit EQ years prior to when we did). On the other hand, people like you and me are the only people that pay attention to the annoucenements of MMOs years before they hit open beta. We"re already cynics and we"re already going to be bastards on threads like this. There"s absolutely no reason that a studio needs to market to us, the minority.