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Title: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 04, 2006, 01:56:11 PM
According to this entry at Slashdot.org (http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=06/02/03/1646254), James Cameron (http://www.imdb.com/name/nm0000116/), the Director of such classics as Terminator 2, True Lies, Titanic, Aliens 2, and other-stuff-of-note, announced plans (http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/06_07/b3971073.htm) for an MMOG launch to coincide with his upcoming movie 'Project 880'. Sounds like a sci-fi adventure. The game will predate the movie as a hype exercise.

Should be interesting to say the least. I have neither high nor low hopes.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 04, 2006, 07:11:28 PM
The game will PREDATE the movie? Is the game going to have a concrete ending? Seems like it should be the other way around.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 04, 2006, 07:15:54 PM
It'll never see the light of day.

I may be wrong. But not likely. He has no clue what he just said. Making Titanic with a handycam and an Apple IIE is easier than making an MMOG.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Soln on February 05, 2006, 05:13:51 AM
yeah I saw that and couldn't stomach posting.  Or the more worrisome news in the same article that Ron Howard and his producer sidekick are making an EVE-like MMO coinciding with a reality TV show.  Seriously.

They're going to put a bunch of people in a space ship simulator, train them for the SF game, and have them run missions like in EVE.  I dunno the castoff mechanism, but players will be able to play the MMO and watch the TV cast as just another ship.  AND supposedly the tie-in is that if you catass to something in the game you get to be in the next season's cast.  I am serious, again.

very worrisome

Of course, that spaceship will be smelling of cat pee pretty quickly no matter what happens I bet. 


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Murgos on February 05, 2006, 07:04:26 AM
Everyone is interested in fusing traditional media and computers/video games, obviously whoever does it firstest and bestest will have money hats in all the currencies of the world.  I don't think this will do it.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 05, 2006, 07:36:08 AM
The game will PREDATE the movie? Is the game going to have a concrete ending? Seems like it should be the other way around.
The latter is how I interpreted Cameron's statement: "We'll create a world for people and then later present a narrative in that world". Sounds like a requoting of "build the world and patch in the fun later" to me.

But I'm not the target audience. Everyone else is. Technology has enabled tens of millions of people in the U.S. to play MMOGs, and only a single-digit percentage of them are bothering. The latest big hits merely doubled that number.

WoW and GW were MMOGs that attracted new players with brand but kept them and us through solid gameplay that tossed the rules of convention. Cameron's and Howard's work aren't likely to bother much with the latter. Being personified brands themselves, they attract people to movies. A lot of these people either can play, or already are playing, online games. If they ease the price of entry (web-based maybe, free maybe with a la carte pricing plans within), then their movies and names will attract even more people to MMOGs.

It's all good. Everyone has their first game. This is a notice to veteran developers though to shape up though. No longer does this genre solely rely simply on the ability to get the game done.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: SnakeCharmer on February 05, 2006, 07:38:02 AM
It'll never see the light of day.

I may be wrong. But not likely. He has no clue what he just said. Making Titanic with a handycam and an Apple IIE is easier than making an MMOG.

It's not as if Cameron doesn't have the money to hire the people who DO know what it takes to make an MMO, or more specifically to hire a recruiting firm to find the right people for him.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Murgos on February 05, 2006, 07:41:08 AM

It's not as if Cameron doesn't have the money to hire the people who DO know what it takes to make an MMO, or more specifically to hire a recruiting firm to find the right people for him.

It's a question of cost, remember he is in this to make a profit.  I doubt if he will spend WoW type money on this, his goal with the MMOG is to sell his movie which he also has to pay for.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 05, 2006, 07:59:08 AM
That Ron Howard game will be entertaining.. if they do go the EvE route.  I expect it to be a fully PvE space game,though, rather than PvP.  There'd be far, far too many people offing them on a regular basis otherwise.  The griefing will be bad enough if it's PvE.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Furiously on February 05, 2006, 12:56:07 PM
Arrested developement the MMOG?


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: JoeTF on February 05, 2006, 01:09:03 PM
Sometimes I ponder what would we get if he hired f13 folks.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: SnakeCharmer on February 05, 2006, 05:37:15 PM

It's not as if Cameron doesn't have the money to hire the people who DO know what it takes to make an MMO, or more specifically to hire a recruiting firm to find the right people for him.

It's a question of cost, remember he is in this to make a profit.  I doubt if he will spend WoW type money on this, his goal with the MMOG is to sell his movie which he also has to pay for.

I dont think its a matter of cost for him.  Terminator 3 cost 187.3 million dollars (30 million of which went to Ah-nold) to make 3 years ago.  He very well may not spend WoW type money, however much that was (80-90 million from what I've read, dont know for sure).  Someone with his credentials can probably just about get however much financing he wants to get. 


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 05, 2006, 05:41:35 PM
There is NO way development on WoW cost more than $40M. NO WAY.

You can't count the cost of servers. They add them as necessary.

Pure development was not 80-90. Whoever wrote that is blowing smoke up your ass.

Edit: I'm fairly sure it cost about the same as EQ2 to develop. I have no idea why it cost that much though.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Soln on February 05, 2006, 05:47:22 PM
There is NO way development on WoW cost more than $40M. NO WAY.

You can't count the cost of servers. They add them as necessary.

Pure development was not 80-90. Whoever wrote that is blowing smoke up your ass.

Edit: I'm fairly sure it cost about the same as EQ2 to develop. I have no idea why it cost that much though.

I remember Raph said somewhere in here that WoW was $80M.  Although the search tool eludes me.  /lazy


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: SnakeCharmer on February 05, 2006, 05:53:09 PM
There is NO way development on WoW cost more than $40M. NO WAY.

You can't count the cost of servers. They add them as necessary.

Pure development was not 80-90. Whoever wrote that is blowing smoke up your ass.

Edit: I'm fairly sure it cost about the same as EQ2 to develop. I have no idea why it cost that much though.

Here you go, child. 

http://forums.f13.net/index.php?topic=4485.msg117313#msg117313

Outside of the CFO of Vivendi/Blizzard, I would think that Koster is probably the most credible to offer a guess as anyone.

Have fun gnawing on that one for a while.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 05, 2006, 07:17:53 PM
Common estimates?

Ok, and my uncommon estimate calls bullshit. What's your point?

Edit: After marketing and everything after development I'd believe it though. They marketed the shit out of it, just like they do every Blizzard game.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 05, 2006, 08:01:25 PM
Sometimes I ponder what would we get if he hired f13 folks.

You really don't want to know.

Quote from: Darniaq
It's all good. Everyone has their first game. This is a notice to veteran developers though to shape up though. No longer does this genre solely rely simply on the ability to get the game done.

Since when has this medium relied on people getting the game done?


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Wolf on February 05, 2006, 11:31:20 PM
Brad also said WoW cost $75 mil. In that "instaces=tehsuck" article. I don't like Cameron, so - Meh... whatever :)


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 05, 2006, 11:46:08 PM
I've already said it 3 times. I want to know what WoW cost at the development level. Strip out their campaign level marketing and tell me what the actual game cost to make.

I refuse to believe it cost more than EQ2 for reasons that should be extremely obvious.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Margalis on February 06, 2006, 12:15:31 AM
FFXI apparently took $12 million to create, where FFX took $40 million. (Lesson - CGI is expensive!)

WoW costing 6 times as much does seem a bit odd given that FFXI has more detailed models, more detailed areas and more detailed animations. I'm not sure if I can compare landmass size that well but if WoW is bigger (and I'm not sure it is) FFXI is way more detailed.

I'm actually very surprised that FFXI only cost 12 million, I've read that in a few different places.

I'm not going to say that WoW didn't cost 80 million, but there is no reason why it should have. 100 people a year for 4 years at an average of 100k per employee is 40 million, and while a peak of 100 or more is reasonable 100 for the entire 4 year life is not.

I have to agree with Schild in that I don't see how it would cost 2x what EQ2 cost. What did the double in money get? The models aren't more detailed. There aren't a lot more game systems. Etc etc...


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 06, 2006, 12:26:45 AM
And one of the most expensive things, voice acting, is damn near nonexistant in WoW.

Maybe they had to license some of the dances.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Tale on February 06, 2006, 01:00:35 AM
Outside of the CFO of Vivendi/Blizzard, I would think that Koster is probably the most credible to offer a guess as anyone.
No he's not. Sure, Raph Koster is a good and honest guy, but as Chief Creative Officer of SOE, Raph is about the least credible authority on WoW you could possibly ask, other than Smed.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 06, 2006, 01:04:18 AM
In some cases I'd say so, but Blizzard and SOE are in no way competitors.

No one is a competitor with Blizzard. I don't even care if you're in the same market. I simply disagree with Raph's numbers.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Trippy on February 06, 2006, 01:40:27 AM
I can easily believe WoW cost more than EQ2 to make. I don't know the exact development timelines of WoW and EQ2 but WoW came out of alpha earlier than EQ2 and was much further along in their beta cycle at the same points in time (EQ2 clearly had to be rushed to meet its release date) which would imply that WoW was under serious development for a longer period of time. WoW also had a lot more spit and polish and TLC applied to it compared to EQ2 (again part of that is because EQ2 rushed its release) and that sort of lavish attention to detail costs money. I don't believe, however, that WoW cost $80 million for the reasons Margalis pointed out -- the numbers just don't add up.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 06, 2006, 04:11:14 AM
Personally, I believe that everyone else in the MMO market wants to believe that WOW cost 40mil. It gives them an excuse for releasing unfinished, unpolished products and getting the subscribers to beta test it. 

Unless, of course, they're counting-in normal business-related things like rent, benifits, software, etc. But that'd be an unfair comparison to do it for one game and not another.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 06, 2006, 04:21:02 AM
I think one of my big problems is, given the art and animation in WoW, I just can't buy the numbers that are tossed around. Hell, even the mechanics within the game are plain-jane MMOG and it's been done a thousand times. All the streamlining Blizzard did was tweaking exp gains off the normal scale and writing pretty generic quests (for the most part, there are some gems - just like every game)  and raid content to be milled through. If CoH had 1/2 the grind it has, they probably could have had double the subscriptions they had shortly after launch. I know I would have recommended it to everyone and their dog. Point being, the only way I'd believe WoW cost more than ~40M is if it was in development for the better part of a decade and at some point they scrapped the entire design and had to start over. Waterworld style... but with less sinking sets.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Murgos on February 06, 2006, 06:00:11 AM

I'm not going to say that WoW didn't cost 80 million, but there is no reason why it should have. 100 people a year for 4 years at an average of 100k per employee is 40 million, and while a peak of 100 or more is reasonable 100 for the entire 4 year life is not.


I just recently read an article on Oblivion stating about the same number for thier production.  In production since 2002, currently 100 people working on the team, + 50 some odd hours of voice acting, they are probably closing in on the $30 - 40 million mark.

I don't find it hard to believe that WoW's production requirements could exceed the numbers you stated, even double that.  Has anyone actually counted the size of the team in the WoW credits?


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 06, 2006, 08:41:36 AM
I can believe WoW cost $80 million to make. Why?

Blizzard is SLOW AS FUCK with development. Time = money. They take longer to develop anything than anyone else. Also, look at the number of quests, the amount of content that they had on release. From level 1-60 was itemized, full of quest content, etc. No one else has had that. They had bigger betas than anyone else, I think, including the 500,000 stress tests near the end. They just did everything bigger, and more expensive than anyone else.

We've always said that content creation is the most expensive part, and they had more content than anyone else. Plus, I think they developed for longer than EQ2.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 06, 2006, 09:29:28 AM
Quote from: Haemish
Since when has this medium relied on people getting the game done?
Since players were willing to put up with just about anything that arrived on store shelf. Every year has been an incremental improvement, but you've been around since the days of EQ1's launch, AO's unplayability, DAoC's incompleteness, SB's SB.exe, SWG's train wreck and so on. People put up with this shit because they bought the hype and loved the genre for what it was. But all of these alienated people who had been long receiving better quality experiences in other genres.

Now they can get that in MMOGs. GW and WoW were what I'd consider as flawless-as-possible launches (though WoW's first January was rough). It matters less that these two titles appealed to veterans than that they drew in so many new people in droves. We know why that happened. We also know those people are still here because the games worked, were fun, and all that stuff.

That's the bar. Back when everyone thought DAoC would save the world, people used things like "stability" and "playability" as part of the reasons they were all hot for the game (they also gave Mythic the typical new-arrival-nod, basically implying anything not done by a veteran developer had to be better than what currently existed). Nowadays, the way to grow the genre is to assume stability and playability. People want their games to work. They aren't going to accept shit launches and massive content holes because they don't have to in other genres.

This is why I, like you, can believe WoW cost so much. They had the money, and the wherewithall to spend it on getting the game done right for launch. And they followed with a crapload more stuff. Meanwhile, veteran developer/publishers have periodically redesigned their games because they are continuing to learn what it means to actually target players not already in the genre.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 06, 2006, 09:37:40 AM
Meanwhile, veteran developer/publishers have periodically redesigned their games because they are continuing to learn what it means to actually target players not already in the genre.

Quick tangent here, you're already seeing this ripple to affect games in development.  Last night on a whim I went browsing Vanguard's boards and found this thread (http://www.vanguardsaga.com/forums/showthread.php?threadid=38308) that linked to this article (http://vanguard.tentonhammer.com/index.php?module=ContentExpress&func=display&ceid=174) over at Ten Ton Hammer.  Brad's definition of "Core Gamer" now sure sounds a bit different than it did about 9 months ago.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Yegolev on February 06, 2006, 10:18:31 AM
Brad's definition of "Core Gamer" now sure sounds a bit different than it did about 9 months ago.

The VC guys woke up and read the newspaper, telling McQuaid "lrn 2 LCD, n00b"


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Murgos on February 06, 2006, 12:01:09 PM
Brad's definition of "Core Gamer" now sure sounds a bit different than it did about 9 months ago.

The VC guys woke up and read the newspaper, telling McQuaid "lrn 2 LCD, n00b"

From the article

Quote
While many assume or feel that those rowdy and raucous gamers are taking over and making a nice home in your favorite MMO, the reality according to their research is that they only make up less than 10% of the gaming population. I wish you could have seen the looks of disbelief that masked those in the room. Both Brad and Jeff reiterated that it was true and in fact they asked for a show of hands. There was no denying it at that point. Most of the room claimed to fit in their definition of "core gamer".

Who can point out the flaw in this demonstration?

I think it's safe to say that anyone and EVERYONE that attends 'Fanguard' is a hard-core gamer.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 06, 2006, 12:38:09 PM
Probably.

But I find their definition of Core Gamer to be sound. It fits neatly between Hardcore and Diversional.

Whether they actually hit Core Gamer with Vanguard though remains to be seen. I personally link "casualness" with the ability to choose when and if to group. From what I've read of Vanguard, soloability is not something they're trying to sell.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Yegolev on February 06, 2006, 12:53:55 PM
Who can point out the flaw in this demonstration?

I think it's safe to say that anyone and EVERYONE that attends 'Fanguard' is a hard-core gamer.

Well, I suppose the problem is the same one that always hounds McQuaid: being surrounded by brown-nosing yes-men keeps him in the dark.  I don't know that he is going to actually change anything, but it sounds better on paper and that's important to the money men.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 06, 2006, 01:23:07 PM
Whether they actually hit Core Gamer with Vanguard though remains to be seen. I personally link "casualness" with the ability to choose when and if to group. From what I've read of Vanguard, soloability is not something they're trying to sell.

You are correct in that.  However, they're going about it differently than they did in EQ. They say grouping will give "bonuses" that make it the more attractive choice, rather than soloing penalizing you.  No idea how that'll work out in the mechanics.  These were the guys who acted like 'creating xp' was problematic when it's an imaginary construct with a make-up number and not a finite resource anyway.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Lum on February 06, 2006, 01:33:57 PM
I've already said it 3 times. I want to know what WoW cost at the development level. Strip out their campaign level marketing and tell me what the actual game cost to make.

I refuse to believe it cost more than EQ2 for reasons that should be extremely obvious.

The Wall Street Journal estimated $30 million for WoW back in January. Given how many developers worked on it for as long as they did, that's easily believable (and I've heard estimates as high as $45-70 million but that may also include infrastructure/localization costs/marketing).

That being said, the logic "It shouldn't cost that much, because I didn't like it" probably isn't the best metric. I mean, by that basis, Path of Neo should have cost $3.50!

Now to really frighten you (from a coworker's blog):

Quote
Connect the dots, flee in terror:

    John Romero:

    “I started looking at what I was going to do next, so I looked around on the net and I saw there was an opportunity for an MMO, there was a person starting an MMO so I contacted him. We talked for hours on the phone, we had a lot of common interests and ideas about this title and so basically this guy was really excited, brought me on as a co-founder of the company and I’ve been here for almost four months now. I can’t really say too much… this is [a] complete secret, stealth company”, he said, adding cryptically that “This is not a typical games company and we’re not making typical games”.

    Jim Cameron:

    “My next project — which I’m currently writing the shooting draft for — is going to be this completely crazy balls-out sci-fi flick. The plan is to develop an MMOG that takes place in the same universe and release it a little while before the theatrical release. That way people can start playing around and learning about this new world. Then we present a narrative in it with the movie.”


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 06, 2006, 02:07:50 PM
If my estimate puts me in league with the Wall Street Journal. Well, I'll take that.

But like I said, after marketing, it very much could have cost $45-70M. That would not shock me at all. Many Hollywood movie budgets nearly double once they start marketing. And I'm sure EA and VUGames do it often with games. Even ones that don't need it. Like Blizzard titles.

Edit: I don't know if I buy into the tinfoil hat theory of Cameron and Romero. They may have talked. But Romero can't throw together an entire engine that fast unless he uses a modified UT engine or BigWorld. But that's less than likely knowing ID.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 06, 2006, 02:11:37 PM
Quote from: Merusk
However, they're going about it differently than they did in EQ. They say grouping will give "bonuses" that make it the more attractive choice, rather than soloing penalizing you.
Ah, ok, so a bit CoH/EQ2-ish maybe. Soloable, but better in a group. If that works, and they make it easy to gather a group (CoH Call Friend ftw!), then maybe it's time I start paying attention to Vanguard again.

Quote from: Lum
That being said, the logic "It shouldn't cost that much, because I didn't like it" probably isn't the best metric
I don't think schild was talking about enjoyment as much as production values. EQ2 just looks like it cost more to make, from the graphics to the sounds.

My own take is that whatever WoW cost mostly involved making it content complete from 1 to 60. That's pretty much a first in this genre (with GW being the second), probably because of the pockets Blizzard could tap that few others can.

Quote
Now to really frighten you (from a coworker's blog):
Hmm. I could see that actually... not sure what'd come out, but certainly would be, err, different.



Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Lum on February 06, 2006, 02:18:10 PM
I don't know if I buy into the tinfoil hat theory of Cameron and Romero. They may have talked. But Romero can't throw together an entire engine that fast unless he uses a modified UT engine or BigWorld. But that's less than likely knowing ID.

What makes you think he's throwing together an engine? Or working with iD?


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 06, 2006, 02:23:34 PM
What would make me think otherwise? Two crazy people coming out around the same time saying they were making an MMOG? That's not enough for me.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Margalis on February 06, 2006, 04:11:56 PM
You are correct in that.  However, they're going about it differently than they did in EQ. They say grouping will give "bonuses" that make it the more attractive choice, rather than soloing penalizing you. 

Too bad those are functionally equivalent. Bonuses to grouping is exactly the same as punishment for non-grouping.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 06, 2006, 04:51:47 PM
It comes down to pace. If the pacing for soloing is "fine" (according to players, and using WoW as a metric), then the bonus to grouping will make leveling faster, or the same pace but with better access to better gear. Typical stuff.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Hoax on February 06, 2006, 05:20:33 PM
You are correct in that.  However, they're going about it differently than they did in EQ. They say grouping will give "bonuses" that make it the more attractive choice, rather than soloing penalizing you. 

Too bad those are functionally equivalent. Bonuses to grouping is exactly the same as punishment for non-grouping.

While I know what you are saying Margalis but I'm not sure I agree in this case.

Grouping still requires more downtime due to /afk's, finding the group, and trying to replace your goddamn healer when he leaves, those downtimes do not exist in solo'ing unless you are bad at it.  Therefore if you make some assumptions about their group content from EQ/EQ2 the bonus' would have to be major to produce a "need" to group if you wanted to stay on the exp train.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 06, 2006, 07:07:40 PM
Yeah, basicly grouping may increase your XP gain to the point it's required (Which is their intent, I believe.) BUT, 'required' grouping doesn't mean the mobs have to kick your ass to the point you can't kill a 'green' mob at the level cap  i.e. Warriors in EQ "Kunark Era" which is the level of 'challenge' they said they were aiming for.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Murgos on February 07, 2006, 05:33:45 AM
Warriors in EQ "Kunark Era" which is the level of 'challenge' they said they were aiming for.

Hi, I was the first level 51 warrior on my server when Kunark came out.  Due to my experience with warriors in Kunark all I have to say is I will never ever touch a game that claims to reproduce this experience.

Kill a Mob 15 levels below you solo and wait 45 minutes - 1 hour until you can take on the next one?  Having to rely on other classes to travel more than 1 zone from a safe area?  Etc, etc...  Warriors in Kunark were teh suck, don't let fuzzy nostalgia convince you otherwise.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Merusk on February 07, 2006, 06:41:31 AM
Err yeah that's what I was trying to say.  Obviously I did it poorly. I wasn't 50, but I was a warrior and right there with you on the "fuck I should have rolled a pally/ sk/ necro" train.

Encouraging grouping doesn't mean you have to go that route, which penalizes the soloer (or only specific classes) which is the suck.

I'm no Vanguard Fanboi.  Do a search for my previous thoughts about the game if you dobut that.  If they hit on a better scheme I'll give many Kudos. However, I have long expected just another rehash of EQ with all it's suck and inability to do anything as a solo character.  This is the FIRST glimmer of anything outside of that paradigm they've given.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Strazos on February 07, 2006, 06:58:47 AM
Just for reference, I think rogues were in the same boat, if not worse.

It took very specific gear for a rogue to truely be able to solo (or just way over-powered gear), and some luck.

Soloing as a rogue made me cry.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Yegolev on February 07, 2006, 08:09:39 AM
Edit: I don't know if I buy into the tinfoil hat theory of Cameron and Romero. They may have talked. But Romero can't throw together an entire engine that fast unless he uses a modified UT engine or BigWorld. But that's less than likely knowing ID.

I understand that the Wish codebase is whoring around.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 07, 2006, 08:50:41 AM
Whether they actually hit Core Gamer with Vanguard though remains to be seen. I personally link "casualness" with the ability to choose when and if to group. From what I've read of Vanguard, soloability is not something they're trying to sell.

You are correct in that.  However, they're going about it differently than they did in EQ. They say grouping will give "bonuses" that make it the more attractive choice, rather than soloing penalizing you.  No idea how that'll work out in the mechanics.  These were the guys who acted like 'creating xp' was problematic when it's an imaginary construct with a make-up number and not a finite resource anyway.

That IS the way EQ did it. And in MMOG's, if something is a bonus to someone else, the person not doing what that other person is doing is getting a penalty. That's just the way MMOG players look at it. Rewarding someone else for doing the same activity a different way is a penalty.

Yes, that's stupid. MMOG whining fucks a lot of things up, mostly when developer jackholes like McQuaid believe it.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Miasma on February 24, 2006, 12:02:55 PM
I guess this is Cameron's plan. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060224/tc_nm/videogame_dc)  I'm also guessing he lost a lot of money during the dot com bubble by believing companies who promised to do everything for a fraction of the cost and produce a superior product.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: HaemishM on February 24, 2006, 12:08:45 PM
When this is on your MMOG platform's front page:

Quote
Make a complete Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) or virtual world for less money and in less time than you could have dreamed possible.
Participate in the game industry's most exciting frontier.
Build the features that make your game unique, leveraging the expertise of the networking and infrastructure experts who helped build the web.
Deliver your vision to a built-in market of players--without having to ask a publisher's permission or give up your intellectual property.
Get filthy rich! *

I start seeing visions of Dawn, with companies being at steak or something!11!


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: schild on February 24, 2006, 12:11:58 PM
Movies are easy compared to MMOGs. It's like goddamn playmobile and mindstorms.

Edit: Actually, that's not even a good comparison. But my point still stands.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Yegolev on February 24, 2006, 12:44:57 PM
I could have a MMO for just $10k?  I think Baldwin Online just found a new home.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Murgos on February 24, 2006, 12:49:21 PM
According to their website you can have an MMO for free.  If you never charge anyone to play it anyway.  The question is, of course, how much does it cost in modification to the Multiverse platform to make a competitive MMO?  Don't forget Multiverse is going to keep half your income (or more) so multiply that number by two or three.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Yegolev on February 24, 2006, 12:57:45 PM
The question is, of course, how much does it cost in modification to the Multiverse platform to make a competitive MMO?

Just the cost of photoshopping the Baldwins' faces onto base 3D models.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: El Gallo on February 24, 2006, 02:17:51 PM
It comes down to pace. If the pacing for soloing is "fine" (according to players, and using WoW as a metric), then the bonus to grouping will make leveling faster, or the same pace but with better access to better gear. Typical stuff.

Well, VGs current plan gives every group member full xp per kill.  With 6 man groups, you get 6x the xp over time in a group than a soloist does.  That's assuming there's zero class synergy.  But there will be class synergies, which allow groups to kill more of the same mobs, or the same number of more rewarding mobs.  So you're talking 1/10th or so the xp/hr solo vs being in a group.  Compare with EQ, where a fair number of classes (and, later in the game, pretty much every class except warriors and rogues, maybe clerics too) could get solo XP ranging from at least half the group rate to well over the group rate.

Now, you're right that pacing is the key issue.  Maybe they'll set it up so soloists get acceptable content consumption rates while groups burn through it 10x faster.  But I think it's a lot more likely that the rates will be tuned for groups with soloists being 10x slower.  This is in addition to the fact that Sigil's conception of "acceptable content consumption rates" and your or my conception of such rates is the same, which it probably isn't.

Then again, the game is (from what I hear, I'm not in the beta) a ways away from completion, so we'll see.


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Trippy on February 24, 2006, 04:27:47 PM
When this is on your MMOG platform's front page:
Quote
Make a complete Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) or virtual world for less money and in less time than you could have dreamed possible.
Participate in the game industry's most exciting frontier.
Build the features that make your game unique, leveraging the expertise of the networking and infrastructure experts who helped build the web.
Deliver your vision to a built-in market of players--without having to ask a publisher's permission or give up your intellectual property.
Get filthy rich! *
I start seeing visions of Dawn, with companies being at steak or something!11!
I like how all the top people are ex-Netscape people working on backend server stuff while there and have absolutely zero, zilch, zippo, video game development experience (the Lead Engineer does have 3D graphics experience though).


Title: Re: James Cameron designing an MMO
Post by: Venkman on February 25, 2006, 04:51:07 AM
Thread rez ftw!

Quote from: El Gallo
Well, VGs current plan gives every group member full xp per kill.
Good. This was one of the things I liked about SB. That VG is a PvE game makes this even more important. After that though, everything you said sounds pretty standard. It advancement rate is less important than the penalty for solo or group. VGs system has no penalty per se, but rather a positive-reinforcement model in the benefits for grouping. This is a better way to approach it.

That it means soloers may progress 1/10 as fast as a group is important, but still less important than the pain of grouping. Are there level restrictions? Is major travel time involved?

Quote from: The Yahoo News article
Multiverse, a startup that makes a massively multiplayer online (MMO) video game possible for a tiny fraction of what they typically cost.
I love how "startup" and past-tense "makes" are used in the same sentence. News alert: they haven't made anything!

It sounds like Multiverse just wants to be the business folks. For $10k, they'll advise you on what to purchase and create. Then they'll happily enter into a contract with you to handle all billing and account management services for a period of time.

That's not a $10k MMO though. That's just a $10k consulting fee. Cameron et al still need to buy servers, people, code, assets, etc, with the budget of a cheap movie that doesn't go to Multiverse.