f13.net

Maybe we need a new forum named 'Undevelopment'.



"Dear Ultima X: Odyssey community members,

As of today, development on Ultima X: Odyssey has ended. We feel that Ultima Online is where we need to focus our online efforts and most of my team will be moving to the UO expansion pack, the UO live team, and an unannounced Ultima Online project. Development on UO will be greatly enhanced as we consolidate our resources behind that franchise.

This isn't an easy decision but it's the right move for the future of all things Ultima, including the community and the team.  We look forward to sharing our plans for the future of Ultima Online very soon.

I would like to thank all of the Ultima X: Odyssey supporters who have been with us from the beginning.  I hope you will continue to support the Ultima franchise and the development team as they transition to new projects.

Thank you,
David "InQWis" Yee
Producer, Ultima X: Odyssey"

Wow. This must be the only game ever to be cancelled twice, no?

So, I know WoW is still in development, and EQ2, and Vanguard...  Are there any other in-dev mmogs that haven't been canceled yet?

The list is rapidly getting shorter.

--
Alkiera

I was wondering how long they could keep developing a game where most of the dev team quit.

Can't say I feel any loss over this one.

Crap!  I'll have to find another Avatar and desktop wallpaper now.

I have to boggle at the logical thinking behind this.

EA: "Hmm, UO's looking kinda dated, maybe we should make a sequal to UO."

Origin Devs: "Cool, okay... here we go... We'll call it Ultima Online 2.. or maybe Ultima Worlds Online... or maybe Ultima: Origin.  Ah, whatever, this'll be friggin' awesome, we haven't written a single line of code without 6 months of development work, we'll have motion captured kung fu moves, a really open ended advancement system with skill trees, we're asking player feedback on stratics about how to really create a "Thief-like" character amongst many other cool things, meer on bikini woman action, not to mention our bitchin' E3 video.   This game's an instant success!"

EA: "Oh, hey, we're canceling the project on account of how it competes with UO by being a sequal."

Origin Devs: "OMFG?! WE DEFICATE ALL OVER YOUR OFFICE AND LEAVE BECAUSE WE HAVE BEEN LAID OFF!"

*** Time passes ***

EA: "Hmm, UO's looking really old -- those silly LTM spinoff sites are starting to call it `The corpse you wheel out into the living room'.    Maybe we should make a sequal to UO."

Origin Devs (what few are left): "Woah! Woah! We did that before but you said it was going to compete with the original Ultima Online so forget it!"

EA: "Heh! Don't worry, we'll not market it as a sequal to UO, we'll market it as the next game in the Ultima series."

Origin Devs: "Oh!  Okay, then we'll get to work on it for you... yes, we're going to put in the virtue system people are always bitching about... skipping trade skills and housing because frankly they're wastes of development time for serious gamers... got a bitchin' plot about how the Avatar and Guardian are fighting through the cosmos and the players are manifested in a world created from their struggle.... This game's an instant success!"

EA: "Oh, hey, we're canceling the project on account of how it competes with UO by being a sequal."

Origin Devs): "OMFG WTF! WHAT FEW OF US ARE LEFT ARE SERIOUSLY CONSIDERING DEFICATING ALL OVER YOUR OFFICES BUT ARE GLAD YOU DID NOT CAN US THIS TIME SO WE'RE GOING TO SAY THAT THIS IS A GREAT MOVE FOR ULTIMA?!"

EA: "Heh, I love screwing with their heads like that."

Potential cancelations as I see it:

MEO:  Vivendi is having slight legal problems (http://www.gamespot.com/news/2004/06/30/news_6101709.html) at the moment, and as it is the game will probably come out too late to capitalize on much of the movies popularity, leaving rabid fans of the books as the primary audience.

Matrix Online:  They seem determined to get this game on the shelf, but they'd almost be better off changing the name from "The Matrix Online", to something like "That Game Based on Those Movies" in a last ditch effort to distance themselves from a sinking franchise.

Dragon Empires:  We all get their newsletters, but nobody reads them.  I almost wish someone had saved them all just so future generations can try to piece together just what the fuck these people have been doing for the past four or so years.

As far as already released games getting shutdown, I'd say Horizons and Sims Online (if only because EA is involved), are both potentials.

Might want to add Earth & Beyond on that list as well. Interesting discussion going on at TerraNova blog where some of the readers are digging into SEC filings, annual reports, etc. to find out how MMORPGs are actually doing.

"From EA Annual Report 10-K we have the revenues from subscription services ....a decrease in subscription net revenue from The Sims Online, Ultima Online, and Earth & Beyond TM subscription services...”

http://terranova.blogs.com/terra_nova/2004/06/count_em.html#comments

A few more to add:

Darkfall

D&D Online

Tabula Rasa

AC2 and Neocron should be gone by now. What it's take to sustain a game? I'd be surprised if those two had more than 10k subscriptions. Hell, even 5k.

Well, we had a suspicion this was coming.

The first blow came when an early beta didn't materialize.  After what we saw at the UXO event, a beta could have happened within 6 months.  But when it didn't materialize, the team was clearly behind.

The first real nail in the coffin was the closing of Origin studios.  It is not clear to me if they actually intended to cancel UXO at that time... I don't think so.  I think management truly felt that the team could be better managed in Redwood City.  What they didn't expect was over half of the development team, including most of the key players, declining to move.  Instead, they went to other studios or other companies.

The end signs were clear when there was no one talking about UXO at E3.  That meant no Christmas release, which meant they were so far behind schedule what with losing all those people...

I guess they looked at the numbers and decided that it would take too long to put together a new development team.  However, I can't help but think there was more to it, such as underlying technology issues or simply slow development.  Could it possibly be that EA saw UXO was being so badly mismanaged that that's why they closed Origin, knowing the project was irretrievable?  Get who they can to move, and then pull the plug on them again?  Who knows.

Ahh well.  Glad I didn't eBay my UXO stuff yet... it'll be worth a lot more know!  MUHAHAHAHA.

On a more serious note, my heart goes out to all of the original development team who got shafted, not once, but twice, in this fiasco.  And as for EA, fool me once (UO2), shame on you.  Fool me twice (UXO), shame on me.  I will never buy another Ultima title.

Bruce

AC2 has well over 5K.  Neocron was under 5K last I heard (more like 3K).

Bruce

THREE K? That's warbirds or aces high (or Jumpgate?)  figures.  But mabye as a FPS it can work at that level.

There will never be another Ultima game. The franchise is dead, but it still listsed somewhat as AFK.

I though E&B HAS been cancelled?


Prediction: This is the time of the great consoladtion. Games will die. Other games will never grow. Some tall ones will provide too much shade for other smaller games to get tall themselves.

A few years from now the'll be a bushfire, old trees will FIANNAY die and the'll be a researgence. Probaby from the creaters of Baldurs gate, after all, they did it with SINGLE player RPG's on the PC.

Funny, but I thought Fallout was the saviour...  Well, it is for me and a bunch of people who become complete loonies at the mere mention of "Brotherhood of Steel"...

Too bad on UX though.  It would have been another game to add to my slowly growing collection of original boxed Ultima games.  Grew up on the series I did!

Earth and Beyond has been gone for some time now, but the doors haven't closed just yet:



I'd like to see Tabula Rasa make it live and I'm hoping that Saga of Ryzom does, too, if only because I see that the devs over at Nevrax have put a ton of work into their game and at least have a beta process running. Back when I beta tested Black Moon Chronicles, I thought for sure it would release too and it didn't though, so anything's possible I guess.

Nobody has mentioned Wish. I think Wish is the next on the chopping block.

I was about to say Wish. But that might be because I think it should be cancelled based on the first beta.

I'd say Matrix has a good chance of going down the rabbit hole.

E&B has already got a closing date and I think most people moved to Eve.

I think they'll keep AC2 going now that its in Turbine's hands. Turbine seems to have money to burn and it's their flagship franchise.

Not sure if anyone remembers, but the good folks at Origin were about to hire me as a GM when the bomb dropped that they were moving to Cali.  Obviously, EA wasn't about to let them hire me and move me to Cali with them before I even started.  Hence my current shit job.

Anyhow, one of my best friends was actually working as a level designer/artist for UX:O and was not extended an offer to move (ironically, his sister -- a GM -- was...) and has since moved to Boston to work for Turbine on D&D:O.  What I understand from him is that there is going to be a complete and utter graphical overhaul for UO.  I think I remember him saying that the were going to incorporate the Unreal engine.  At the time, it was to be overshadowed by the release of UX:O.  Now it looks like they have realized, "Hey, who the hell is going to buy this garbage?  Let's just make UO more shiney and try to sucker people into that!"

IMHO, this is a dead horse they just need to stop beating.  What they need to do with UO is just make it a NWN type deal with player-run servers.

I think Wish will probably disappear, also, and a lot of the others that people have mentioned here.  I'm not so sure about AC2, however.  Evidently they've whipped up an entire new crafting system that is rather complex and not unlike that of Horizons.  They've also hired a new Art Director and are looking for staff.  

I hope Ryzom does ok, too.  They really seem to be a nice bunch of people and very responsive to their supporters.  I was in beta early on but, unfortunately, was never able to wrap my head around that game.  I also had some connectivity issues that no one seemed to be able to solve, though they really, really tried.

I wonder about some of the other, less funded, games that are being developed.  Dark and Light, Darkfall, D&D online, Mourning...  will it all end in tears?

It's a pity, really.  I was looking forward to the mass of new games to be released over the next year or so.  I'm dreadfully tired of the ones we already have.  It looks like I'll have to be content to fiddle with WoW and EQ2 and, to be honest, neither one is exactly my cup of tea.  I doubt either will last very long with me.  Of course, I'm terribly fickle anyway.

It seems like this is an easy vow, what with the odds being against another Ultima title ever coming out.

I would be amazed and awed if anyone at this site was really surprised by this.  Especially after the E3 noshow.  But the confirmation is still newsworthy of course.  I can't say which is next, there are too many candidates to choose from.

Some in my old SWG guild are drooling over dark and light.  I keep telling them that the game will never come out.  They think I am insane.  "Of COURSE it will come out!  Look how much work they put into it!".  I just nod my head and smile.  Sure it MIGHT come out.  But odds are it won't.

You know, I've actually tried to play UO fairly recently, they've so utterly and completely ruined it, it's not even worth wasting time trying to learn.

I loved UO and I find it basically unplayable, and I was in the mood to sit and play UO! Good luck with that dead horse.

EA: Destroying development, one project at a time. Enjoy Madden 2005!

Games with potential for closing within a year:

AC2 (although like others have said, Turbine can keep pumping in money and it has gotten better)
Ryzom (still a chance to make it fun)
SB (low pops, but still making changes and UBI's best shot atm)
TR (started late with the press, but has Richard Garriot et all - perhaps using the COH approach)
D&DO (slow start, but seems Turbine has the money now - rabid fans)
Wish (2005 release date with point and click- will live content deliver?)
Horizons (everyone is watching this train wreck)
Eve (seems stuck)
MEO (Vivendi issues and a no show at E3)
Matrix Online (too many visions/management reduces the fun)
DE (nothing new)
Vanguard (the odds of lightning striking twice, add MS cancelling all other MMO's)
Imperator (bad concept, low interest)


Games closed:

UXO (EA as it's usual self)
Mythica (a great game and heartbroken at seeing MS beancounters make this decision)
True Fantasy Live Online (MS again)
Warhammer Online (to many hoops to jump - was going nowhere fast)
Earth & Beyond (more EA)

I forgot about Imperator.  Boy are the tumbleweeds and cobwebs kicking some ass over there.

The latest news from Imperator Vault:



woo!

From the Imperator site "Knowledgebase":



Frequent?  Well lets see...the latest news item is a letter from Mark Jacobs dated...April 30.  It promises that



This May?  Cause its..ya know...July now.

Kinda sad to watch fans make desktops out of circa 2002 concept art. (http://cgi.camelotvault.ign.com/display/display.cgi?http://camelotvault.ign.com/imperator/wallpaper/neph4.jpg)

Without Garriot Ultima X was guaranteed to be canceled.

Color me unsurprised.

It's fucking EA Online. They could have a game in development that has been focus-group tested to cause instantaneous orgasm followed by multi-account addiction, and they'd still fuck it up.

EDIT:

That's good, because there will never BE another Ultima title, unless you are talking about expansions. I don't think they count, since that's just putting more pancake makeup on the rotted corpse and trotting her out for her 17th wake.

Magic: The Gathering Online? Up to Date, pretty, FUN, and none of that fat geek cheetoh and mountain dew smell from tournaments.





My ass still hurts.

For some reason this song just popped into my mind.

I put my hand upon her toe
ya ho, ya ho
I put my hand upon her toe
ya ho, ya ho
I put my hand upon her toe,
she said hey Iggy you're way to low.

Chorus

I put my hand upon her knee
ya ho, ya ho
I put my hand upon her knee
ya ho, ya ho
I put my hand upon her knee,
she said hey Iggy you're kiddin' me

Chorus

I put my hand upon her thigh
ya ho, ya ho
I put my hand upon her thigh
ya ho, ya ho
I put my hand upon her thigh,
she said hey Iggy you're way to shy

Chorus

I put my hand upon her tit
ya ho ya
I put my hand upon her tit
ya ho ya
I put my hand upon her tit
she said, "hey Iggy, you're getting it"

Chorus

I put my hand upon her twat
ya ho, ya ho
I put my hand upon her twat
ya ho, ya ho
I put my hand upon her twat,
she said hey Iggy you hit the spot

Chorus

I put my dick into her mouth
yo ho, yo ho,
I put my dick into her mouth
yo ho, yo ho,
I put my dick into her mouth,
She said mmm, mhmh, mhmhm...

Chorus

I put her in a wooden box
ya ho, ya ho
I put her in a wooden box
ya ho, ya ho
I put her in a wooden box,
from havin' too many cocks

Chorus

I dig her up every now and then
ya ho, ya ho
I dig her up every now and then
ya ho, ya ho
I dig her up every now and then,
she did me before she'll do me again

Did Dark 'n Light get cancelled? I don't see any mention of that one in the thread.

Not yet, and neither has Darkfall.

That guarantee seems kind of silly since UXO was green-lighted long after RG left OSI. He left just after they cancelled UWOO, and Calandryll didn't start work on his "secret project" for quite some time afterward.

If the release of a new Ultima title was wholly dependent on RG's involvement, UXO never would have been green-lighted in the first place.

Bring the noise.
Cheers............

DnL hasn't been cancelled... yet.  We are just being our usual pessimistic selves here at f13.  I suppose because there are some here that have pretty solid knowledge of the business side (NOT ME!), they can guess the outcome... sometimes with uncanny accuracy.  

There does seem to be a bit of a trend, doesn't there?  I'm sure it has a little to do with what looks like a glut of MMOGs being developed.  The communities for  these games without huge financial backing, seem rather small.  Rubies of Eventide had a small community and once it was released, it seemed to get even smaller.  

The anticipation for a lot of these games is wearying.  I still get the newsletters, like everyone else, for DE and a couple of others.  It's just about the only way I know that they're still working on them.  The forums have small bits of info, but it mostly seems to be aimless wibble... even from the staff.  No one wants to commit to a date for beta... they don't even indicate the month or the quarter.  Some sites still have incredibly old information... such as DnL, which states the beta will start in Sept., 2003.  Well, it didn't... did it?  I've found old, useless information on a lot of sites.  It's not especially reassuring.

I'm pretty sure he was inferring an Ultima game without Garriott at the wheel is kinda like Playboy without Hugh Hefner. Sure, people can try, but it's never going to really cut the mustard.

Given the changes to UO after RG's departure, I'd be inclined to agree with that. Although I don't see the execs at EA discarding the franchise completely....they'll find other ways to whore it out for profit one way or another.

Bring the noise.
Cheers...........

Out of curiosity, I played during beta, and found the game very pretty, but rather uninvolving. (especialy compared to all the shit you could do in the first one)

I must ask, though: Did they finally patch in buildings you can actually ENTER?  The whole idea of there being all these buildings all over the place, and not a single one having an interior just killed it for me.

I can't answer your question, but I will say the charge that there were NO buildings you could enter is an exagerration.  There were a few, but they were rare and for the most part in remote areas.  There wasn't anything particularly interesting to see in them anyway.

Bruce

Now, now... the people who post here, for the most part, are already jaded, opinionated and cranky.  Let's not add pedantic to the list, Bruce!

Add There to that list. They stopped updating the code at the end of May. The game is basically on life support now.

AC2:
- They have added more enterable buildings with NPCs in them. But that's really a minor point.
- On June 30th, they added a totally revamped crafting system:
http://forums.ac2.turbinegames.com/showthread.php?s=&threadid=5280
- People are reaching lvl 70... they have added tons of content (although some might argue that is still not enough).

AC2 is slowly recovering. They even launched an ad campaign (visible on mmorpg.com as far as I know).

d

More about MEO & D&DOnline to be said at Turbine Nation 2004 event.

http://www.turbinegames.com/index.php?page_id=81

d

It reads like they imported a variant of Horizon's crafting system. Personally, I think requiring "forges", ie. having to go to location X to craft, gimps the crafting professions. I vastly prefer the SWG/Ryzom system of carrying the tools around and putting ingredients into "slots".

If I go for a fantasy MMOG now it will probhably be Ryzom (because it looks like SWG without the suck), except CoH's simplicity has spoiled me: I whimper at the amounts of information the game wants to throw in my face. Oh, and there are still lots of bugs, like missions not terminating properly.

Yikes!

How many games are going to be LEFT to talk about next year?

Guarenteed:

WoW
SWG
CoH
AC
AO
EQ2
EQ
DAoC
L2
Guild Wars
Auto Assult

I bet they won't be in America. I see Auto Assault being NCSofts mistake. While the MMO 'for women' being they're surprise hit. Even if I don't know anything about it.

And L2? I'm tempted to ban the mentioning of it forever. It's the worst type of crap imaginable. It's much like the game version of HE WHO SHALL NOT BE NAMED.

Incidentally, Ryzom is having it's 'first open weekend', at the moment, for those wishing to have a go.  They've added a new civilisation and some other stuff.

http://atys.ryzom.com/?page=news

I'm still in beta although I've never really been  able to play due to a technical issue.  I might give it another try just to have something to do in the middle of the night while I worry about moving house next week.  Hopefully, I can stay connected for more than 5 minutes this time.  I'd like to check out their crafting.  I may also look at AC2, briefly, for the same reason.

I don't really know much about this game, it's kind of kept under my radar.

Is it any fun? or do you know more about it you could share?

I disagree, at least with Auto Assault.  I think NCsoft has found the key to MMO's in the states with games like COH and Auto Assault.  You log in with a powerful character from the beginning, have fun immediately, great individual character creation, and it doesn't require staying logged in for hours.  Mythica had this combination as well, it's too bad the ones who canceled Mythica at MS didn't see it.  I think Mythica / COH / Auto Assault type games are the future of MMO's.  Instancing and solo play help with this formula.  Lots who would be willing to pay monthly fees, have other responsibilities and need a game they feel powerful from the start, have fun, and can log out when those outside responsibilities call.

As for L2, the initial US sales were good, the boards are still very active and supportive.  The game isn't for everyone, but not every game is.  

As for the "women's game", I want to see more than a vague trailer, but I will say that if games from NCsoft continue to use the Mythica/COH/Auto Assault key to making games, I think you will get lots more women playing MMO's.  Most who are willing to pay the monthly fees, have a job and quite a few have families and an outside life.  Games like these support those people who have other responsibilities and who would love to have 3+ hours to blow on an EQ group/quest, but just don't normally have the time.

My impressions after a few hours are genreally positive. Saga of Ryzom borrows a bit from SW:G (looks - though less bland - and crafting at least), but with combat that doesn't suck. Armor seems to be crafted only, though, at least only basic clothing is sold by the NPC vendors in the starting areas. Still a few bugs, as well, but nothing game-breaking for me at least.
If I ever felt the desire to pay for and play a fantasy MMOG again, this would definitely be it, I think - not having seen WoW or EQ2 of course.

With the way NCSoft seems to be picking winners so far, I can't see TR being cancelled. CoH has almost hit 200k subscribers, and as someone mentioned here a while ago in the other NCSoft thread, NCSoft doesn't seem to be positioning itself for huge population games so much as for a bunch of smaller, profitable games covering a range of themes. Unless it gets flagged by someone high up as a total stinker I'd guess we'll see it released.

Imperator is a wierd one. While it's not in demand, going by slow news from Jacobs may not mean a lot. After all, most of his promised release times for DAoC stuff were similarly optimistic. Remember the huge cash investment he got last year for Mythic. I doubt that's all being spent on DAoC. Unless he's just having trouble coming up with a fun game from the initial concept, I'd expect Imperator to eventually release, just not soon.

I guess the main question is, is the market saturated yet for MMOG's? From the number of complete newbies to the genre that CoH has brought in, I'd guess it's still not, though of course the super hero thing obviously had the potential to pull in fans previously untempted. There's no similar fan base of people for the "let's supposed the roman empire didnt' fall, what would it's future have been like?" genre so Imperator is going to have to stand on gameplay alone. Same with Tabula Rosa. Guild Wars seems to have the finally tired of Diablo 2 crowd interested, after Sacred dropped the ball so badly so it will probably do ok.

Regarding Tabula Rasa, I guess I am still a bit gun shy when it comes to bean counters who don't game making decisions about gaming (ie Mythica).  However NCsoft seems to have people with a passion for gaming at the top, so who knows.

I thought Tabula Rasa was fun when I played it at E3, I liked the option of voice communication, instancing, lore, language, music, and the graphics.  One selling point is that they want you in game quickly, and in doing this, they miss out on one really great aspect in COH, character individuality from the start.  This may turn off quite a few otherwise players.  

I have been watching this game since hearing Garriott speak about the language of Tabula Rasa during E3 2003, and closely since right before this year's E3.  At less than a year from expected release (dates given for release are 11/04 or this winter) I would have expected more.  I worry that the lack of name recognition of the game and the still relatively low community activity will adversely impact it.  The only thing I can see is that NCsoft has determined that perhaps a strong community backing before the game is released isn't that important (somewhat like CoH).  Out of all the games I think have a possiblility of being cancelled in the next year, this is the only one I am really have a desire to play.  Maybe just more jaded/realistic after seeing Mythica get cancelled.  

With Imperator, I just don't get the concept, and don't see that anyone else really does either.  The few innovative things they were to have seems to have already shown up in other games, like the fast train/subway system COH has.  I think with the attention DAoC has been given lately (puppies et all), seems Mythic Entertainment has rightly decided to not put all their eggs in the Imperator basket after all.

I think the games that we are seeing fall in mid-development are the ones that imagined themselves as EQ rivals.  Games with very general themes (Fantasy, sci-fi) directed at "those guys who like to pay sub fees."

I think that more targeted games like Auto Assault bear a good chance, as long as the marketing, budgeting, and development processes understand the financial implications of that approach.  In other words, shut up and be happy (i.e. profitable) with your 50,000 subs.   Micro-massive?

Perhaps the problem with games like Mythica, Warhammer, etc. was that their budgets demanded 200k+ in order to get into the black anytime soon.

I don't know how fun it is now, sorry.  I didn't do much in beta because of my connectivity problems.  The game is very pretty and I hear the crafting is decent.  I have read quite a lot about the game the last few days and I think the strange turn this beta test has taken is an indication of severe bugginess and instability.  They've cut off most beta testers, from what I understand, and have a 'focus beta' group, now.  During 'special event weekends' up to 1000 punters can log in and play.  Other times, only the focus group tests.  Some people seem to think they've done this due to severe bugginess and instability and in an effort to save their street cred.  I have no idea if that's true.

I have a feeling that these specail event weekends are nothing more than a stress test with the pretense of an event.  I don't know what the events entail but maybe, with only 1k at a time, it won't be a total lag fest.  No clue.  I do know, for all it's prettiness, it's not the sort of game I'm interested in right now.  I'm probably still chained to some useless NDA, so I shouldn't go into specifics. I don't have an especially good feeling about this game.  

Disclaimer:  Since I'm experiencing a stressy period of time (moving house!) my information might be inaccurate, due to extreme confusion.  I may have even made some of it up.  I don't know.  I'm a mess.  

I should probably shut up now.

The MMOG genre is not saturated. The FANTASY MMOG EQ CLONE type genre is over-saturated, and that is a big part of the reason Mythica, Warhammer Online and now UXO were cancelled. They were all expensive projects, I gather, with no real guarantee they would succeed in such a crowded subgenre. They probably all would have been fun in their own way, because they each had something different about them that I think might have made them stand out. But Microsoft has already thrown out a bit of coin on AC1 and AC2 and been disappointed, GW didn't want to spend $30 million, and EA couldn't find a good game concept to fully fund with a treasure map, a compass and six hands.

I think part of the reason you are seeing such success in CoH is that it's a new subgenre (superheroes) that has not been well-served by PC games AND it was released so stable AND it is good goddamn fun even for jaded MMOG vets. On the strength of that theory, Auto Assault has a chance, so long as it doesn't suck and release is stable. Tabula Rasa could do well provided it can position itself as unique. Voice chat will help, as will Garriot's name, and the sci-fi/fantasy hybrid will be fairly unique in the US. And again, NCSoft does not seem like the type of company to fund something they don't think will be profitable. TR will probably start around 50k subcribers and if it's good, build from there. I think 50k US subscribers is NCSoft's target for all their games, and it's a smart play. Hell, Shadowbane got 50k at release with the buggiest shit this side of AO. I think with a decent marketing budget, you can fall over your dick and still get 50k to start.

Didn't like Rhyzom myself.   Nasty latency issues when I played.   I'm glad they delayed it, had they went ahead with release it'd have crashed and burned worse than AO did on release day.    The game has potential, but the existing systems were extremely raw and unrefined when I played it a month or two ago.

Really can't justify canceling Ultima X on the grounds that the fantasy genre was saturation.   Ultima X was supposed to be billed as less of a MMORPG and more of a continuation to the Ultima series.  

I'm thinking the real reason why Ultima X was canceled was because the development project really wasn't going the direction they were wanting.   They probably hit an unsurmountable brick wall of sorts.   One other than "OMG, fantasy MMORPG genre is overcrowded!"

There's also still the potential for a *really good* fantasy MMORPG to burn through the competition come out on top.   According to the SirBruce-ster's graph, FFXI actually topped out EQ in subscription count.    However, making a really good fantasy MMORPG is apparently really hard.

The crowding of the Fantasy subgenre wasn't the only factor. But after the entire development group decides they don't want to be forcibly relocated to a city with a humongous increase in cost of living, the cost of hiring an entirely new dev team for a game that won't be significantly differnt than others in its market is way too much for EA to handle. Especially when it would have been competing against one of EA's own products in the same genre. Sure, the gameplay was radically different and fans of one would not likely have enjoyed the other. But this is a company who cancelled UO2 because it would compete with UO.

UXO was doomed from the start, EA just helped push it off the cliff.

It'd say UXO wasn't pushed: it jumped.    

The ironic part is that EA took it upon themselves to build the cliff in the first place.

Haven't you heard....

EA: We destroy worlds.

Yea. I'm not going to say UXO would have set the MMOG world on fire or that it would have gotten X-hundred thousand subscribers...we'll never know and besides, I'm obviously biased. I'll let the players who actually got to see the game in action speak to that.

But from a gameplay standpoint, the game was far more like CoH (action combat, very directed experience, etc.) than EQ. Most of us on the dev. team didn't even want to call it an "MMOG" because while the feature set looked similar to many MMOGs on paper, the actual gameplay was very different. It was more like a persistent online action/adventure RPG (what a horrible acronym that would make!). The original goal of the project wasn't to take EQ head on…it was to try to appeal to a new audience. A very large portion of our community came from the single player game crowd and from players who had left the MMOG genre years ago. Many of them either had never played an MMOG or hadn't played one in years.

It was a challenging and fun project and I got to work with some very talented people. I'm sad to see it go, but you learn from your own mistakes, don't fret about the parts you can't control, and life goes on. :)

Don't forget WW2OL. :)

We're unlikely to go away now that the financial situation is stable, but you're always walking that knife edge.

Bruce

Marketing UXO would have been a nightmare, IMO.

It wasn't for Ultima fans AT ALL, yet it had the Ultima name. It wasn't like EQ, but it was a fantasy-subscription game. For MMOG vets, it had no crafting and housing. It was like Diablo (guessing here), but Diablo fans didn't want to pay a subscription fee nor were they at all interested in "the virtues" if it got in the way of foozle bashing.

I think even had it been like CoH, it would have had a hard row to hoe. CoH had the benefit of being in a genre that is underrepresented (superheroes) and didn't have the emotional marketing baggage of an Ultima title. I think UXO would have had a hard time establishing itself with the kind of numbers EA probably requires (i.e. 100k+). And thus, it was entirely too easy to flush down the drain when the dev team gave them the finger.

Other than the Ultima part (we had a huge following from the single player Ultima fanbase), I think that's a very fair assessment. When I compare UXO to CoH, I don't mean to imply the games were the same. It's more the philosophy of creating core, fun gameplay, focusing on depth rather than breadth. Whether it would have worked in the fantasy genre remains to be seen.

The game was definitely not for hardcore MMOGers. I do think people were underestimating UXO though, especially those who are focused on MMOGs. Again, we had a lot of single-player gamers giving UXO a serious look and the reaction from the press and players who saw it was even more positive than I thought it would be. I would love to have seen if word of mouth (which in my opinion is the biggest factor for a MMOG's success or failure) would have generated enough hype had we had hit beta.

Don't get me wrong though, UXO needed work to get it ready for beta. It's not like we were ready to ship in two months. :) But none of it was insurmountable had the team remained stable.

Healthy way for you to look at things, but it just seems a waste for many of these companies to spend several years developing something, only to then cancel them.  Poor planning at the top, change of the decision makers or the direction of the company, bean counters running numbers with cost overruns, whatever it is, makes you wonder why these decisions weren't made earlier?  Either you support something or you don't.  Not support it for several years and then drop it.  Doing this breeds less player trust in certain gaming companies.  My opinion is, if you make it that far, you sure as hell should finish it.  It isn't fair to the fans or the devs not to.  I am tired of listening to marketing and get excited about a game, only to have it cancelled.  Anyway, I also agree that the COH is type play is where MMO's are going, not because it is based upon "superheros" but because it provides a fun MMO for those who can't play 24/7.

Good. Pretentious wankers.

Anyone know how Planetside is doing? The little engine that could seemed like such a neat thing. Too bad they're charging so much for it.

My bets:
MEO drops, DDO gets made. WotC and Hasbro can throw money at the game until the cows come home.

I won't agrue with that for a moment. I could go into the things that went wrong on UXO (both things I would have done differently and other aspects of the project that should have been done better) but I've never been about badmouthing people or airing dirty laundry. It's just not my style.

That said, whenever a project goes sour, everyone involved, from the temps to the execs, shares in that responsibility to some degree. I'm very critical of my own work, especially once I start seeing things in hindsight. At the same time, I can't waste time dwelling on things I had no control over. :)

Auto Assault is my bet for "Biggest Surprise Hit".  Nobody is lukewarm about this game after they play it, your reaction is either "Meh," or it's "OMG DID YOU FREAKING SEE THAT!?!?!!"  It will be the most male demographic of any MMO on the market (armored cars with giant guns blowing up massive amounts of stuff isn't a girl thing), but I'm betting it will be a hit (not a 50K marginal success, but 100K+).

--Dave (in the interests of full disclosure, I've put in a resume for a position with ND on Auto Assault.  But I loved the game before I knew about the position)

Yeah, and like I said before, I wasn't trying to badmouth you or anyone else in suggesting the project wasn't being managed correctly.  I was just trying to figure out what EA *might* have been thinking that motivated them to do what they did.

If EA cared about UXO, why didn't they have a plan in place in case most of the development team didn't want to move?

Bruce

EA doesn't even have a clue, how the hell could they have had a plan?

Last I heard, it was still remaining stable at about the 20k active player point.

I'm pretty sure Planetside is doomed (http://forums.f13.net/viewtopic.php?t=684) because the developers can't seem to introduce content fast enough to justify the monthly fee and the balance has gone too far in the less deep, more twitch direction.

For anyone who still cares:

http://www.homelanfed.com/index.php?id=24499

I know I don't.

Sorry about the nasty site. :(

Because if you can't succeed there, all you have left is EA Sports?

--
Alkiera

I guess there's only one response to this:

Get in the game.

I've read a lot of interviews where the information was vague and uninformative, but Aaron Cohen has saying nothing down to a science.

MMO MADDEN, BITCHES!

Only on PS2.

OOOh OOOOH!!!!  Can I play third string QB???  Please???

From a player-count point of view, the game has enough players to be enjoyable. However, with only three servers, and even using a liberal 1:5 players-to-account formula, if Planetside has 15k active accounts, I'd be very surprised (Geldon, I'm not sure where your 20k player count is coming from. Did you mean accounts?)

The game is exactly what it's supposed to be, except for the damned fee. It's simply too much to grab the attention of enough players to give Planetside the attention it deserves. I'd keep my account open indefinitely if the fee was $5/mo or so because I love popping for a month every three months.

But asking MMOG players to shell out the same monthly fee that the ultra-meta-games like EQ and SWG collect is stretching things a bit too far. And asking FPS players to shell out a fee for a game they have no problem emulating without said fee is sorta ludicrous. Neither of these is saying anything new. Even those of us in the earliest betas were saying it. Nothing has changed there.

Yea, what your paying for is a dev staff to close bugs and an integrated voice chat. Unfortunately, the dev staff has proven to want to be more responsive than SOE is allowing them to be. Also, everyone uses TeamSpeak or RogerWilco anyway because that's independent of the inevitable client crashes or lag or ultra-long-zone-load times. The fee doesn't actually buy enough players enough features to make it worth it, and is atop whatever clan infrastructure that group is already paying for (URL, server space for forums, TeamSpeak, etc).

It's a risk to change it though. Reducing the revenue stream to hopefully get a few more players probably doesn't make as much sense as continuing to collect it from those who have stayed.

Star Wars Planetside. Everyone here has already written a workable design document for it. Forget Battlefront, make it persistent. And then charge $7.95/mo for it.

As to UXO, ah well. I maintain that EA didn't really believe they'd get the whole team to move in the first place and that if they were serious about maintaining it, they'd have quickly hired to replace everyone. UXO just wasn't top of mind enough to keep going, which is a shame because it could have been good, for a different type of MMOGer.

That article was the biggest piece of PR spin I've seen since "Alchemy is working as intended." Ok, maybe not, but holy shit was a whole lot of words used to say "No comment."

Online sports MMOG's like Ultimate Baseball Online could be wildly successful, but they better be at least as playable and fun as last year's biggest franchise game in that sport, or they'll tank. Why pay $15 a month for a game that isn't even as fun as Madden 2003?

I don't think so myself. Some (most?) people want to fly Xwings and Star Destroyers. With Stratagy and tactics and stuff. Not SWG mind you. I want to be able to plan, recon, particapate in and watch the movie afterwards of a Allience Hit and Fade attack on a Imperial Starbase before the SD shows up with a wing of 36 tie fighters shows up.

Star Wars Battlefront the Online MMOG would only work if it's like WW2OL, not Quake, but I guess Jump to LightSpeed will prove that one way or the other. SWG certinaly hasn't proved people want a MMOG Star Wars ground combat RPG.

Erm, with over 250k subscribers, I'd say it's proved enough people want it. Maybe not as much as could have been had with a better game (particularly with a better combat mechanic), but certainly enough to say it's nowhere near the failure some continue to asert.


KOTOR proves otherwise.

SW Planetside would just be a larger persistent version of SW Battlefront, and that's being heralded not just here. I'd say Planetside hasn't lived up to it's potential nearly enough. Generic sci-fi FPS games need a hook to compete with the big boys, and being persistent with a monthly fee obviously isn't enough.

Between X-Wing, Tie Fighter, Rogue Squadron, X vs. Tie, Alliance, the Starfighter games, and anything else that I'm forgetting; it just proves that Star Wars can sell anything except for Christmas specials.

Planetside proves people want it! :) Replace Reapers with Xwings. Terran Republic becomes the Empire. SOE would be silly not to consider using the Planetside combat design for a deeper MMO experience. Best of both worlds.

If SWG had that combat model...well, let's just say that's my idea of a combat revamp. PvP would be fun in and of itself, not so much who has the better stack of defensive bonuses.

But SWG is way too invested in it's current engine and advancement/skill system to ever do such a thing. That's why I've left it in the dust, but I'm still dropping into Planetside for a little fragging.

Here is what I don't get about the whole thing.  I have repeatedly seen people say the following in practically the same breath:

People want to play jedi when they play a starwars game.
Battlefront is what people want!!!!

The first is just patently illogical as there have been more star wars games where you don't play a jedi than there have been star wars games where you do (well, maybe not anymore with all the new movie license games).

You can't put jedi in a battlefront type game for sure unless it is some kind of silly temporary power up.  Actually now that I think about it, you could.  There could be one jedi/sith per team.  You lose it when you die... not sure how to define who gets it at that point.  You don't want it to be the leader in points, that would cause a rich get richer syndrome... maybe an item that respawns randomly in the world and the first to it becomes the next jedi.  That could actually be pretty cool having one sort of avatar like power per side.  Add in a delay before the jedi making item respawns and you have a big incentive for the other side to hunt down and kill your jedi.  So they have one and you don't.

Same thing could apply to a larger scale game.  Just make more jedi per side.

In the end it would not have any more depth than planetside though.  And for that reason would have to charge less than $15 a month.

Actually, Sky mentioned the other angle so many have wished SWG would have taken. PS combat in SWG. I ask again as I have at every interation of WT.o:

Why wouldn't that work? Because the stats junkies wouldn't like it? So? I would love to hear from both PvE farmers (hides, rare loot, etc) and PvP players who would rather just sit back and watch their statistics do the work. PS is such a scalable combat engine it's not funny. The Cone-of-Fire system can easily have it's formulae adjusted for the stats of the equipment craftable in SWG, as can the absorption factors of the various armors.

I would love to know how many stats-junkies would quit in the face of a combat system that is fun for the fucking sake of being fun.

I'm waiting for JTL. I will bet the money I have on Bloodfin and Eclipse that not a single player quits the game because they don't like the twitch combat in the space engine. Some forum rats will of course complain that their catassery isn't netting enough reward for time in, but they are statistically irrelevant. When JTL takes off like gangbusters, I hope to hell SOE considers a true vamp of the ground combat game.

Like, to something that is fun in a way that isn't already fun in 25 fucking other MMORPGs and for the same set of game jumpers.


I agree. The emphasis on same-number-of-people vs same-number-of-people is what has screwed this time and again. If one side had one player Jedi and the other side had 10 FPS BHs, it would feel right. But would it be fun? I doubt it. I doubt it so much because so often the opportunity has presented itself but been ignored or changed. Players want themselves to matter and there's no better way to diminish a player's enjoyment than to say their moment-to-moment decision making is irrelevant.

Why not? Jedi don't have to be overpowered, any more than wizards in EQ are. Sure, in a lot of situations they'd wtfpwn, but it can be coded so that they also have weaknesses like interrupts or mana, whereas a Stormtrooper gets armor and tons of ammo.

Is it pure canon? Who gives a crap, it'd be a fun game. THAT'S THE POINT IMO. It'd be kinda like a MMO Jedi Knight. Some people got good with sabers, some used guns, some used force powers.

And in a combined arms style like Planetside, while you're thinking you're all that with your force lightning, an xwing swoops in behind you and lays in a plasma bomb.