Convo
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I don't either. VG had 250k but that was a long time ago. Are those people even playing games anymore? I'm curious to find out the answer as well, then I want to know the average age playing.
Pan'Theon: Rise' of th'e Fal'Len - #1 Thread in MMO
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hodj
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25 people at 50k a year apiece is 1.25 million a year. But most of these people probably don't live in states where a family of four can survive on a 50k a year wage. And of course no one will stay if the wages are stagnant. They could swing that for the first year, then wages are going to need to increase to keep people on.
I also don't think 25 people can provide CS for 50k players, as well as provide timely new content updates. The team would have to expand if the game had 50k subs.
Even at 100k subs, and therefore 18 million a year before costs in revenue, I think you're going to have this problem where you have to keep scaling up the team to meet demand that will hurt the longevity of the title.
All this is even just taking for granted the idea the game ever releases.
This is the problem with MMO development, and the reason why so many MMOs cost so much, and then fail, in today's market.
popsicledeath
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From that article:
Also:
So, basically they're hoping to do more, with less, with higher relative salaries (if they want decent devs), and take longer doing it? Going to get into a situation like Mortal Online or Darkfall where the key players could siphon off just enough funding to pay their own salaries and drag out production forever. Worse than this game flopping is it might end up in a perpetual state of glacially slow development where Brad gets to live his dream of getting paid to make video games, but not to actually ever make one.
Unless someone is willing to just write a 7 figure check or three! Then I'm sure we'll get an actual game release at some point, for better or worse.
No beta this year, according to the article. Convo's insider status is looking shaky!
Also:
Adjusted for inflation and that good software devs are professionals demanding professional salaries these days, not just dudes in a garage dicking around, isn't it at BAD sign they're going to have a long beta? A long production cycling causes costs to inflate, even if they aren't getting an office, which you KNOW is in the works because that was a main priority for Brad. Even if they're working remotely, their are time-based expenses, and pushing back release only pushes back actual incoming cash flow.
So, basically they're hoping to do more, with less, with higher relative salaries (if they want decent devs), and take longer doing it? Going to get into a situation like Mortal Online or Darkfall where the key players could siphon off just enough funding to pay their own salaries and drag out production forever. Worse than this game flopping is it might end up in a perpetual state of glacially slow development where Brad gets to live his dream of getting paid to make video games, but not to actually ever make one.
Unless someone is willing to just write a 7 figure check or three! Then I'm sure we'll get an actual game release at some point, for better or worse.
hodj
Vox Populi Jihadi
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Its really not. 40 people cannot tend the servers, generate new content, test it, and provide customer service for 100K + players dude.
Its unrealistic.
If you skimp on CS, things like recovering people's accounts when they're hacked, etc. then they're going to unsub.
I kinda don't think you realize how big a proposition keeping a game up and running for 100k regular players actually is.
Then you've got the "Angel investor" whose gonna be taking off the top to make back his investment dollary doos, among many other issues, like Brad and his salary, etc.
Convo
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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hodj
Vox Populi Jihadi
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A lot higher than 4 million.
FF14, for instance, huge gold farming population, lot of account hacking going on, they had probably 150k subs - 250k subs most of the time. That's like 10 plus servers here in the US, huge amounts of gold spam, bug reports, etc.
40 people might be able to handle CS for that amount of players if they're working in 12 hour shifts 7 days a week.
Erronius
Macho Ma'am
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Regime
LOADING, PLEASE WAIT...
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Not cool I already gave you guys props and I want in on that 10% exp group buff you founder boys get.
popsicledeath
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Here:
Unless you're saying their plan is beta by the end of the year, but you don't believe they'll pull it off?
Convo
Ahn'Qiraj Raider
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I was using their fact, it's not set in stone so who knows? I shouldn't have spoken in absolutes. More of an assumption on my part. I'm really not their PR guy lol and have no info in this regard. I'm actually going to back off these kind of predictions, they always blow up in my face anyway lol.
What are the approximate timeframes for Alpha, Beta, and commercial release?
There are many variables involved and developing a massively multiplayer game is not an easy thing to do. Our goal is to be in alpha by the end of 2015, in beta during 2016, and to release the game in 2017. But this is not set in stone, and the above dates are subject to change.
popsicledeath
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Part of the problem, and it's not even isolated to shyster developers, is that the definitions of alpha and beta keep changing. We see closed betas as basically pre-launch previews. Pre-alpha as a made up thing to make gamers feel they're important and have early access that the gamers just use a free preview. Beta becomes less about a test and more about getting free QA during long term development. Alpha is really beta as it's closed and NDAed and people are actually there from the outside to help what used to be primarily an inside job.
It's already so muddled with MMO development that I see Pantheon not having very clear benchmarks in development like alpha and beta. It'll just plod on with slow, incremental development with a lot of community help, whether it's testing, QA or even community helping pitch in on development itself. Eventually they'll allow access to anyone and everyone that pays. Then at some point after that they'll announce a retail launch with all the 'early access' bullshit. The only real benchmark will be when characters get wiped before 'real' access to the game.
It's already so muddled with MMO development that I see Pantheon not having very clear benchmarks in development like alpha and beta. It'll just plod on with slow, incremental development with a lot of community help, whether it's testing, QA or even community helping pitch in on development itself. Eventually they'll allow access to anyone and everyone that pays. Then at some point after that they'll announce a retail launch with all the 'early access' bullshit. The only real benchmark will be when characters get wiped before 'real' access to the game.