Tabula Rasa, now with no FUN!

[Ghambit]

So why dont they put prostitutes into TR?  Maybe that'll save the game!   

[TheCastle]

So why dont they put prostitutes into TR?  Maybe that'll save the game!   

Would only work in a fully realized virtual reality.
Would most likely be the death of all other games known to mankind. In fact... Having vivid Orgies with large numbers hot night elfs every night in a full virtual world would certainly effect things outside of the gaming community...

[Sir T]

This is a podcast on the End of Tabula Rasa. The blurb below is self explanitory. The cover some other topics (other games and comics) But the Tabula Rasa discussion starts about 17 minutes in.

Its worth listening to I think

http://www.virginworlds.com/podcast.php?show=27&ep=8

Limited Edition #8 / TabulaCast #32
Wed, 3 Dec 2008 19:56:00 GMT

This episode of Limited Edition is a very special combined episode with TabulaCast.

Following the recent news announcing the closure Tabula Rasa we had to get the old TabulaCast team together

In this Show John and Matt are joined by Shawn the founder of TabulaCast and Tia (Avatea) NCSoft Europe's Community Co-ordinator for Tabula Rasa

We have a rather honest and frank conversation about the news and chat about the past, present and the future of the TR community.

We have a small chat about comics before the main topic and hope the comic fans can bear with us whilst we discuss something dear to our hearts.

[Riggswolfe]

Do they have a transcript of it somewhere?

[Sir T]

Not as far as I am aware.

[Ghambit]

[most of the podcast after the 1st 1/4 is about TR btw - so no xscript]

Interesting discussion on that webcast, albeit a little "gentle" on the rhetoric.  You could tell they were being pretty politically correct.  Fact is, there's no reason at all for NCSoft to axe TR.  Yah, they can hypothesize about the staff being shifted to another project but really... there isnt that much staff to begin with, nor do they need much staff to maintain it.  I just look at it as NCSoft just washing their hands of the game, which is sad and stupid IMO.  It makes no sense to take a digital IP and just flush it. 

Interestingly, the podcast led me here:
http://changingwind.org/savetr/news.php

(warning:  cursing below) 
Anyone know if NCSoft really just wants to hang on to the IP for itself for some reason?  I mean... why?  Just fuckin outsource it... franchise it!  If that's the case; then they can get their rocks off by still having their logo on the game.  Or hell, they can make that just a condition of totally washing their hands of the liability.  Save the impending flood of emulators and the time/work involved and just make it open source the moment the games goes offline.  I mean shit, it's like they've learned NOTHING about this market at all.

I can understand with something like AutoAssault, because that game was a failure the moment it launched and they reduxed a of the tech. and staff from that game, but TR is a different animal.  More akin to EnB than anything else (another game that should've lived on).

Now they use this free gametime ploy to sucker us into their products after they show us this crap.  And it just might work.

[Venkman]

Does the servers (and people) cost more to leave on than to turn off? If so, then there's no reason to keep the game up. It's not attracting new players at all, much less new players into a larger TR system that adequately cross-promotes the library of NC titles (that launchpad unto itself is not nearly enough).

[Ghambit]

Does the servers (and people) cost more to leave on than to turn off? If so, then there's no reason to keep the game up. It's not attracting new players at all, much less new players into a larger TR system that adequately cross-promotes the library of NC titles (that launchpad unto itself is not nearly enough).

It costs as much as they want it to cost.  Again, nothing is FIXED-COST here.  And if they go open source, guess what?  It's free. 
Let's analyze what this really costs here now, since I think some people are confused.

1)  Servers for a hundred people cost around what??  $300/month/server?  If we bloat them to support about 2000 people/server you'd probably only need 2 servers and that'd extrapolate to $12000/month. [really need more data on this one]
2)  5 staffmembers (dev and some CS) cost probably around $300,000/year [if the average salary is 60k/year] or $25,000/month (assuming they decide to hang onto the title)
3)  4000 players @ $15/month equates to $60,000/month income

   OMFG, a profit!!!  Can you believe it?  [sarcasm]
Even if the servers cost a helluva lot more to maintain, it'd still turn a profit with a meagre 4000 players.

There are no real excuses here for NCSoft, so get over it.  They just want to tank it because, really...  I just dont think they know what the fuck they're doing.

[Murgos]

It costs as much as they want it to cost.  Again, nothing is FIXED-COST here.  And if they go open source, guess what?  It's free. 
Let's analyze what this really costs here now, since I think some people are confused.

1)  Servers for a hundred people cost around what??  $300/month/server?  If we bloat them to support about 2000 people/server you'd probably only need 2 servers and that'd extrapolate to $12000/month. [really need more data on this one]
2)  5 staffmembers (dev and some CS) cost probably around $300,000/year [if the average salary is 60k/year] or $25,000/month (assuming they decide to hang onto the title)
3)  4000 players @ $15/month equates to $60,000/month income

   OMFG, a profit!!!  Can you believe it?  [sarcasm]
Even if the servers cost a helluva lot more to maintain, it'd still turn a profit with a meagre 4000 players.

There are no real excuses here for NCSoft, so get over it.  They just want to tank it because, really...  I just dont think they know what the fuck they're doing.

I think the post in my sig was slightly more insane than this one.  Slightly.

[Ghambit]

It costs as much as they want it to cost.  Again, nothing is FIXED-COST here.  And if they go open source, guess what?  It's free. 
Let's analyze what this really costs here now, since I think some people are confused.

1)  Servers for a hundred people cost around what??  $300/month/server?  If we bloat them to support about 2000 people/server you'd probably only need 2 servers and that'd extrapolate to $12000/month. [really need more data on this one]
2)  5 staffmembers (dev and some CS) cost probably around $300,000/year [if the average salary is 60k/year] or $25,000/month (assuming they decide to hang onto the title)
3)  4000 players @ $15/month equates to $60,000/month income

   OMFG, a profit!!!  Can you believe it?  [sarcasm]
Even if the servers cost a helluva lot more to maintain, it'd still turn a profit with a meagre 4000 players.

There are no real excuses here for NCSoft, so get over it.  They just want to tank it because, really...  I just dont think they know what the fuck they're doing.

I think the post in my sig was slightly more insane than this one.  Slightly.

Educate me then.  Apply whatever medication you think you have that'll make me right in the head.  Otherwise, welcome to the club.

[IainC]

MMO servers are a bit of a different proposition to just renting some rackspace for your vent or a private FPS server. Generally (and I have no idea of the specifics of the TR servers) they are a SAN consisting of up to several dozen actual machines. Per 'game server'. Plus a few extra as lobby servers, patch servers and other secondary systems that aren't directly to do with the zones or characters. How much do those servers cost? I don't know and it doesn't matter. The question that does matter is 'Can NCSoft use those servers more usefully somewhere else?' And the answer to that is almost certainly in the affirmative. Gearing up for Aion, I'd imagine they can certainly put the TR datacentre to good use and avoid an expensive call to their hardware supplier of choice at the same time.

Secondly employees do not cost their salary times the number of people you employ. There are extra direct costs - healthcare, pension, social security on top of the stuff that you actually give the employee, plus there are a lot of secondary costs such as the cost to maintain the office that the employee sits in, the cost of his workstation, software licences, additional burdens on other departments who support those employees such as HR, IT etc.

Finally, NC soft doesn't get $15 per player per month. Depending on their payment partners, they'll pay a percentage as handling fees, plus there may be licencing fees for technology, systems or other assets that they need to use - no-one who isn't an NCSoft employee would know for sure what those added up to but potentially it could be a big cut out of that $15 a month.

[Murgos]

I think the post in my sig was slightly more insane than this one.  Slightly.

Educate me then.  Apply whatever medication you think you have that'll make me right in the head.  Otherwise, welcome to the club.

You do realize you made everything in your post up?  That you pulled every number out of your ass?  Yes?

[Ghambit]

MMO servers are a bit of a different proposition to just renting some rackspace for your vent or a private FPS server. Generally (and I have no idea of the specifics of the TR servers) they are a SAN consisting of up to several dozen actual machines. Per 'game server'. Plus a few extra as lobby servers, patch servers and other secondary systems that aren't directly to do with the zones or characters. How much do those servers cost? I don't know and it doesn't matter. The question that does matter is 'Can NCSoft use those servers more usefully somewhere else?' And the answer to that is almost certainly in the affirmative. Gearing up for Aion, I'd imagine they can certainly put the TR datacentre to good use and avoid an expensive call to their hardware supplier of choice at the same time.

Secondly employees do not cost their salary times the number of people you employ. There are extra direct costs - healthcare, pension, social security on top of the stuff that you actually give the employee, plus there are a lot of secondary costs such as the cost to maintain the office that the employee sits in, the cost of his workstation, software licences, additional burdens on other departments who support those employees such as HR, IT etc.

Finally, NC soft doesn't get $15 per player per month. Depending on their payment partners, they'll pay a percentage as handling fees, plus there may be licencing fees for technology, systems or other assets that they need to use - no-one who isn't an NCSoft employee would know for sure what those added up to but potentially it could be a big cut out of that $15 a month.

I feel ya, but;
-Many large-scale FPS servers are contained on muliple server rack systems.
-Most studios sub out their server farms to another company... I'm unsure of NCSoft though, but the logic that they can "use those farms for something better" is moot.  Even if it WAS their datacenter and they didnt want to "waste" it, the game could "easily" be ported to another center yes?  Perhaps a center that's a bit better at managing their business than NCSoft (cough cough).... which would put the game in a better position to grow up/down.
-Employees cost what employees cost (I've hired them), regardless of the extra 'bits' of gravy you pour on (healthcare, etc.).  Fact is $60k/employee is a pretty nice figure in today's economy.  Pensions and healthcare account for a few hundred bucks/month either direction.  It's irrelevant.  And in reality, they could utilize their team as independant contractors if they wanted, and the employees would get a better tax break and probably better benefits.  Regardless, cash is King.
-TR was proprietary tech.  There are no fees for them to pay for it.  RG has gone away into space ashamed; I doubt he'd stick his nose in unless it was beneficial to his title... seriously doubt he'd even have a case if he wanted to sue.  Matter of fact, why the hell doesnt HE save the game with his owned damned money?
-A small mobille staff doesnt "burden" a company.  They dont require ANY HR (they do it themselves) or any real IT dept. (they ARE I.T. guys).  The dudes managing the server are a different cost, and that's sunk into the monthly server rental already.  Cost of a workstation?  Uhh, they've already bought those.  And if they had to buy new, so what..  <$1500

Let's face it NCSoft is Asia's EA.  Big, bloated, and not afraid to just squash a product if it doesnt work.  It's like how we as humans love to squash ants.  Rather than find a way to live with them or perhaps intelligently "remove" them our first instinct is to just jump up and down on top of the mound until they're dead dead dead.  And the richer and more powerful you are, the more this instinct grabs you. [I know, I work with many very wealthy people]  They'd rather shut it down and not be bothered with it... even if it hurts their bottom line in the end; that "pride of ownership" is gone so phuck it - kill it, 'specially if it aint makin me much money.  If they cant make it work, than no one can so let it die.

I think the post in my sig was slightly more insane than this one.  Slightly.

Educate me then.  Apply whatever medication you think you have that'll make me right in the head.  Otherwise, welcome to the club.

You do realize you made everything in your post up?  That you pulled every number out of your ass?  Yes?

... uhh, I'm still waiting for your response.  At least IainC is engaging the issue.  Gonna attack me, at least come back with something solid, rather than some assumptions, accusations, and negative comments.

[Nebu]

... uhh, I'm still waiting for your response.  At least IainC is engaging the issue.  Gonna attack me, at least come back with something solid, rather than some assumptions, accusations, and negative comments.

You can't really expect him to provide solid numbers when you, yourself, failed to do it in the first place. We call that a double standard. 

 IainC is educating you.  That's generous on his part. 

[Murgos]

... uhh, I'm still waiting for your response.  At least IainC is engaging the issue.  Gonna attack me, at least come back with something solid, rather than some assumptions, accusations, and negative comments.

I really don't have to debate your made up numbers with you.

[Ghambit]

... uhh, I'm still waiting for your response.  At least IainC is engaging the issue.  Gonna attack me, at least come back with something solid, rather than some assumptions, accusations, and negative comments.

You can't really expect him to provide solid numbers when you, yourself, failed to do it in the first place. We call that a double standard. 

 IainC is educating you.  That's generous on his part. 

I never touted my numbers were solid, and OBVIOUSLY they were "made up" to an extent.  It was simply a thought experiment, something I see isnt very welcomed here I guess.  And again, I suggest that if you dont feel the urge to engage in a progressive dialogue, then just dont post.  Piling-on ME accomplishes nothing 'cept to massage your ego.

... next?

[UnSub]

NCsoft's CFO indicated it cost something in the vicinity of US $1 million a month to keep TR going, but it was only earning the company half that amount back.

TR's budgeted revenue in 2008 was about US $16 million (it had only earned about US $5 million in 2007) which means it might have had as many as 88k active subs. But that was needed for it to break even. It's development budget - assuming no extra costs - might have been over US $100 million, if you take all costs from various iterations of the title over 7 years.

TR has been a financial dog from day one. A mangy rabid dog that's mere continued existence killed other some of the other dogs in the yard. (Sorry Lum - I just called Blighted Empire a dog. It was a sacrifice for an analogy. No offence intended.)

If we want to ignore that NCsoft has grown incredibly tired of their relationship with the Garriott brothers, the major reason NCsoft isn't going to open source TR, or sell it to a competitor, or any other magical thing that keeps it going as is: it failed for NCsoft and they don't want another competitor. TR failed for NCsoft, so that's it. The possibility exists that NCsoft might scavenge TR for everything they can get, but this idea that they should save TR is insane. TR got a lot of chances and it never picked up from its very mediocre launch.

[Lum]

-Many large-scale FPS servers are contained on muliple server rack systems.

An MMO server is an order of magnitude more demanding than an FPS server. MMO servers in addition to handling many game systems FPSs do not (anything involving NPCs for example) also do much more serverside, where FPS games out of necessity have to have many systems run on the client.

-Most studios sub out their server farms to another company

No MMO company does this. MMO server technology is almost always proprietary.

TR was proprietary tech.

Which would be why they don't want to give it away or open source it, yes.

A small mobille staff doesnt "burden" a company.  They dont require ANY HR (they do it themselves) or any real IT dept. (they ARE I.T. guys).

I work at a startup with 10 people. Believe it or not we still have to pay taxes, have medical insurance, and get paid.

[Ghambit]

If NCSoft is actually concerned for TR taking away "competition" I find that pretty laughable.  That's not a serious statement right?  We'd need to make 2 assumptions to come to this conclusion:
1)  TR would actually someday get a respectable amount of subs (uhh.. no)
2)  NCSoft is making another hardcore FPS Sci-Fi mmo  (?)

Furthermore, It could be said the biggest problem for TR wasnt TR itself, but NCSoft and Garriott themselves.  Axing the company and not the game is probably the best way to go.  A game can only go as far as its Devs and their company lets it... if they fail, let them fail, and let the game live on some other way.  If we kept the notion that IPs should die because the moneyball was dropped it'd be akin to saying phuck Star Wars because Lucas is a dick...  or Trek is a steaming pile because Roddenberry died.  

Why has TR been a financial dog?  Because of gross mismanagement and misallocation of funds via an overbloated, overly-leveraged Korean gaming company... in partnership with a dolt.   I can make the crappiest game in the world and make more money than TR, not because TR might not be a good product, but because I wont be financially over my head in doing so.  The CFOs statement of TR costing $1million/month to run is case and point to that.  

Same game in the hands of more qualified management wont cost that much to run, would probably turn a small profit, and would probably be a better game for it.   So no, I dont for a second think "saving TR" is an insane idea.  But I do think saving it under the current circumstances is.  If that means subbing out the game, going open-source, or restructuring in-house... so be it.

[Ingmar]

No MMO companies have hosted servers? That is HIGHLY surprising to me. I mean I know DAOC had a server running on someone's (your?) desk at one point, but I would think most of the smaller MMO companies would opt for hosting their servers at places that come with their own massive UPS systems, cooling, 24 hour support, etc. That stuff can be highly burdensome to a smaller company.

[Ghambit]

-Most studios sub out their server farms to another company

No MMO company does this. MMO server technology is almost always proprietary.

Are you speaking of the server TECH (software) or the server farms themselves?
Obviously the nature of subbing out the server farm is so it can run the tech. you make.... I'm not arguing that point.  But I know for a fact many MMOs dont physically run their own server farms.  Just because their software runs on it doeesnt make it theirs.  Shyt, doesnt Blizz sub their bandwidth?

[Lum]

No MMO companies have hosted servers? That is HIGHLY surprising to me. I mean I know DAOC had a server running on someone's (your?) desk at one point, but I would think most of the smaller MMO companies would opt for hosting their servers at places that come with their own massive UPS systems, cooling, 24 hour support, etc. That stuff can be highly burdensome to a smaller company.

Yeah, sorry if I was unclear, some MMO companies do co-lo their server farms - Mythic did and might still do, or they might have a new deal with EA. NCsoft does not, they have all their servers hosted onsite at the Austin office.  Pretty sure SOE has their own server facility, I know Blizzard runs their own server farm (and it's freakin' huge). In any event his statement was phrased in such a way I thought he was saying that studios rented server space.

In general smaller MMO publishers will work out a co-lo agreement with a large ISP but once you get to the high end it's more cost effective to have hosting on-site.

And the "server on my desk" for DAOC ran one zone (Camelot Hills), and not very well!

[Ghambit]

I thought Blizz started out renting space and having some deal with an ISP (for WoW)... then they upgraded and formulated their own.
Bah, regardless... there's nothing in the rulebook that says things have to be done a certain way.  You should do what's within your means.  If NCSoft is justifying axing TR because it cant sustain a $1million/month server site (for example), then address the server costs - not the game.

[Venkman]

Does the servers (and people) cost more to leave on than to turn off? If so, then there's no reason to keep the game up. It's not attracting new players at all, much less new players into a larger TR system that adequately cross-promotes the library of NC titles (that launchpad unto itself is not nearly enough).

<stuff>

You said this all before. And it was niave and uninformed then too. I'm too lazy to find the reply I left then, and besides, it obviously didn't take.

NC is not in the business of subsisting. Nobody is. They're in the business of profiting. It is cheaper for them to walk away entirely and take the depreciation as a write off than to struggle and find some way to support the game. That's it. It is the way of things in big companies.

It's not right or wrong, but your tactics would only maybe work for a startup. In fact, you should send them to the DF guys 

[Ghambit]

Does the servers (and people) cost more to leave on than to turn off? If so, then there's no reason to keep the game up. It's not attracting new players at all, much less new players into a larger TR system that adequately cross-promotes the library of NC titles (that launchpad unto itself is not nearly enough).

<stuff>

You said this all before. And it was niave and uninformed then too. I'm too lazy to find the reply I left then, and besides, it obviously didn't take.

NC is not in the business of subsisting. Nobody is. They're in the business of profiting. It is cheaper for them to walk away entirely and take the depreciation as a write off than to struggle and find some way to support the game. That's it. It is the way of things in big companies.

It's not right or wrong, but your tactics would only maybe work for a startup. In fact, you should send them to the DF guys 

My issue Darniaq is that most of these "Big Companies" arent WORKING.  And part of the problem is what you just cited.  They dont know how to profit from anything unless it's an over-hyped, over-developed, over-marketed, over-speculated product that can sustain their bottom line (and they can leverage to death)... which could include a multitude of extravagancies that have nothing to do with making a profit from a game.

Everyone is in the business to make a profit... umm duh!  But it aint cheaper for them to walk away, it's just easier and justifies their own shytty business model.  And how would it be CHEAPER for them to just kill the title rather than sell it to a small group willing to take on the project?  (scratch head)  You say it's cheaper, but you dont explain how or why exactly.  I never said they should necessarily support the game fully (hell, I dont really want them to).

And if my thoughts are naive and uninformed, then thoughts to the contrary (namely the existing models for gaming and MMO development) are not??  doubtful...  I'd put more faith in my own naivity than most of the gaming companies.

[Venkman]

Every game is unique. We do not know what rights RG retains on the game (he's not stupid. I'm sure his name, likeness, and his creatively inspired world are all linked to some licensing arrangement, and maybe some triggered clawbacks). We do not know what the costs are for general account management (even for free games you're paying a fee for it). We do not know how stable the code is (MMOs never having a "done" phase do not exist in a form that can be easily handed off to another team just to be caretakers of the game at that state). We do not know what sort of staff is needed just to keep the game running at all (every MMO constantly needs tuning). Oh, and through this transfer you lose all of the account data for everyone because no way in hell NC gives that up (legally probably couldn't anyway), so everyone loses everything. We don't know what tax nor financial elements exist that would make walking away a better deal (ie, writeoffs) than selling it to a bunch of hobbiest for a Manhatten-island like song.

You've basically been saying they could just wrap this up like a COD4 map, move it to some 1&1 Premiere server space and a few gamers could keep it alive. Not so much. MMOs are much more a merging of business and creative than almost any other genre. They need to be in order to unlock the funds of building them in the first place.

It would be easier for a group of industrious people to make a private shard for TR (ala UO, SWG, etc). That nobody has should tell you just how much (little) there is in this game. This thread will outlive the emotional recovery of even the harder-core fans 

[Ghambit]

It would be easier for a group of industrious people to make a private shard for TR (ala UO, SWG, etc). That nobody has should tell you just how much (little) there is in this game. This thread will outlive the emotional recovery of even the harder-core fans 

Okay, so give up the source files and let some people make a private shard... rather then having industrious folks have to crack the game from scratch, along with the netcode, and testfiles (including PAUs, flashpoints, and new endgame).
But you're right though, we'll all get over it (I havent even PLAYED TR since last year).  But I'm just tired of having to get over it, over and over and over again.

[Lantyssa]

If they have any licensing deals whatsoever (which more than likely they do with Garriot's name on the game), or propietary tech, they simply cannot release the code into the wild.  Your "let the information be free" stance notwithstanding, it's not going to happen.

[UnSub]

If NCSoft is actually concerned for TR taking away "competition" I find that pretty laughable.  That's not a serious statement right?  We'd need to make 2 assumptions to come to this conclusion:
1)  TR would actually someday get a respectable amount of subs (uhh.. no)
2)  NCSoft is making another hardcore FPS Sci-Fi mmo  (?)

So:

1) Not many people are going to be playing TR anyway
2) Other supported sci-fi titles will be coming out that will draw away the player base

Why the hell would NCsoft release TR, anyway? Who'd buy it - all those players looking to play a dead game? They can get a Station Pass if they want that particular experience.

And yeah, if it really is as simple as you say in this "mind exercise" then TR could take people away from playing other NCsoft games. EvE got its true start when the publisher sold back the rights to CCP. So there is precedent for a 'failure' to attract a sizeable audience back to it.

[Venkman]

Okay, so give up the source files and let some people make a private shard... rather then having industrious folks have to crack the game from scratch, along with the netcode, and testfiles (including PAUs, flashpoints, and new endgame).
But you're right though, we'll all get over it (I havent even PLAYED TR since last year).  But I'm just tired of having to get over it, over and over and over again.

I'd actually like to see them do this. I'd love to have seen NetDevil do it for Auto Assault too. Rip out the avatar game and just make it Death match 3000.

The problem here is the proprietary nature of some code blocks and development methodologies. Some companies consider these competitive advantages. NDAs for the development world are not just about whether you can talk about what you're working on. They also cover things like how you're working on it, what pre-existing code and libraries you're working with, and what development processes you use to get it done. And such NDAs often last beyond the end of employment for six to twelve months in some cases (called "non-competes"). Not everyone gets to carry the I'm-a-Big-Name celebrity-developer immunity card.

Again, I have no idea how much of what I've said applies specifically to NC/TR, but RG has been around since there was barely an industry at all and NC is both huge and a public company. They're no dummies in the legal department. So I'm sure they've got all sorts of stuff like this that makes it all but impossible for failed games to be creatively executed in other forms, whether as a development exercise or a business one. Incidentally, this kind of crap not only stifles creativity it can actually spark it (necessity is the mother of invention).

If it were me, I'd wonder why they couldn't license out their TR tech as a middleware suite. Seems like so many of those come and go, usually by companies who made the tech then made a tech demo that became so big they thought they could publish it until they realized they couldn't (Perpetual, Nevrax) that having a game that was already out and functioning would be a competitive advantage. Going this route allows business-to-business NDAs that could protect what if any exists in the proprietary realm.

But the gains from doing that would be measured against the loss of buying out RG ;-)

[Ghambit]

I'd always thought the mother of all invention was improvement.  That is, improvement upon prior designs through creative thought-processes and constructive brainstorming (and I can think of no better example than good Code).  There is no such thing as a truly original idea (even when in your mind you think it is).  Hell, the US of A would be Mexico if they hadnt stolen (and reverse engineered) so much tech. from the Germans through brute force.  Furthermore, the Universe would've blown itself apart a nanosecond after the big bang if true originality indeed existed.  But I digress:

When good ideas, art, philosophy, and smart programming for that matter go 'poof' they're just gone.  And that's what these guys (these "big" companies) do when they close their doors and throw away the key IMO.  Matter of fact, you could largely account for MMO stupidities to that simple reason.  They've got nothing to grow on because of their phucked up scorched earth policies. 

If it wasnt for the majority of their staff (and the end-user) stealing much of the work they've done when they leave the office I'd say the genre would have died by now.  And we all know that's what really happens when programmers move on. 

You're absolutely right about the tech. licensing though, seems an obvious solution.  But, in TR and RG's case... do they even have a sellable product?  I'd say they do, but not for a lot of money.  But some is better than nothing.

[UnSub]

What colour is the sky in your world? I'm guessing purple.

[simonh]

If you design a game to operate with hundreds of thousands of players, then it can be very difficult to scale it back to operate efficiently with just a few thousand users.

Every game has a different server architecture, some can support a thousand players on just a handful of servers, others need 20+ boxes to support the same concurrency. Traditionally, Korean games have been very efficient when it comes to backend infrastructure, but this is a required approach as the revenue per active user of free to play games is significantly lower than for western subscription games. In order to support the game on a lighter server infrastructure, the game itself needs to be designed to be more simple. Tabula Rasa is a subscription game, and I would not call the systems design simple.

Although its not the norm, I have seen games designed where one server is fixed to run one 'zone' in the game and can not perform any other function. This works fine if you have a lot of players, but with small numbers of players it is hugely inefficient.

On top of servers that actually run the game you are playing, there are a bunch of other servers required. A login server, a patch server, an accounts database, game database servers, a storage area network, web servers, CS ticketing servers, etc. In a low traffic environment, some of these systems can potentially be run on the same box, but there is no reason to design them to be able to do so if you thought your game was going to have hundreds of thousands of players. Oh, and you pretty much need two of everything or you will have no redundancy and you will lose a huge number of players if you cant provide a stable environment to play in.

You now need bandwidth. Not much with such a small number of players, but you have to commit to a certain amount and then manage it so it doesn't spike too high on patch day.

You need to support those servers 24/7. I guess NC could just stick up a few monitoring servers in the same network operations area that Lineage or CoX is run from, but normally they would have a team of personell working in a shift pattern, at minimum this would be 5 full time employees.

You also need to provide some level of customer services. NC have an image to protect and that requires them to look professional. I just dont see them using community volunteers as CS staff. At a very minimum level of support you need one person online at all times. Assuming the game is being operated in Europe as well as the US (a good number of TR retail sales are in Germany) then you either need that person to be multi-lingual, or you need one person in each language online at all times. A minimum shift pattern CS team for 3 languages is a total of 15 employees.

When it comes to the $15 per month, you wont see all of this money. You are going to lose somewhere between 4% and 12% to payment processing. You are going to lose between 0% and 18% to sales tax or VAT (depending on where the player is, and where your company is incorporated). You are also going to get a bunch of chargebacks, how many depends on the design of your billing and payment solutions, it could be anywhere between 1% and 10% of revenue. I would also expect you to lose a few percentage points to Mr Garriot et al, who probably had profit share in their contracts.

I am not saying it cant be made profitable, just that there are a lot of things to evaluate.

Is it more difficult to scale back a game that is designed to support a huge number of users, or to scale up a game designed to support a small number of users? I dont know, but I would much rather have the latter as a problem.

[Ghambit]

What colour is the sky in your world? I'm guessing purple.

There is no sky, only the illusion of one created by a single vibrating conscious electron.

If you design a game to operate with hundreds of thousands of players, then it can be very difficult to scale it back to operate efficiently with just a few thousand users.

Every game has a different server architecture, some can support a thousand players on just a handful of servers, others need 20+ boxes to support the same concurrency. Traditionally, Korean games have been very efficient when it comes to backend infrastructure, but this is a required approach as the revenue per active user of free to play games is significantly lower than for western subscription games. In order to support the game on a lighter server infrastructure, the game itself needs to be designed to be more simple. Tabula Rasa is a subscription game, and I would not call the systems design simple.

Although its not the norm, I have seen games designed where one server is fixed to run one 'zone' in the game and can not perform any other function. This works fine if you have a lot of players, but with small numbers of players it is hugely inefficient.

On top of servers that actually run the game you are playing, there are a bunch of other servers required. A login server, a patch server, an accounts database, game database servers, a storage area network, web servers, CS ticketing servers, etc. In a low traffic environment, some of these systems can potentially be run on the same box, but there is no reason to design them to be able to do so if you thought your game was going to have hundreds of thousands of players. Oh, and you pretty much need two of everything or you will have no redundancy and you will lose a huge number of players if you cant provide a stable environment to play in.

You now need bandwidth. Not much with such a small number of players, but you have to commit to a certain amount and then manage it so it doesn't spike too high on patch day.

You need to support those servers 24/7. I guess NC could just stick up a few monitoring servers in the same network operations area that Lineage or CoX is run from, but normally they would have a team of personell working in a shift pattern, at minimum this would be 5 full time employees.

You also need to provide some level of customer services. NC have an image to protect and that requires them to look professional. I just dont see them using community volunteers as CS staff. At a very minimum level of support you need one person online at all times. Assuming the game is being operated in Europe as well as the US (a good number of TR retail sales are in Germany) then you either need that person to be multi-lingual, or you need one person in each language online at all times. A minimum shift pattern CS team for 3 languages is a total of 15 employees.

When it comes to the $15 per month, you wont see all of this money. You are going to lose somewhere between 4% and 12% to payment processing. You are going to lose between 0% and 18% to sales tax or VAT (depending on where the player is, and where your company is incorporated). You are also going to get a bunch of chargebacks, how many depends on the design of your billing and payment solutions, it could be anywhere between 1% and 10% of revenue. I would also expect you to lose a few percentage points to Mr Garriot et al, who probably had profit share in their contracts.

I am not saying it cant be made profitable, just that there are a lot of things to evaluate.

Is it more difficult to scale back a game that is designed to support a huge number of users, or to scale up a game designed to support a small number of users? I dont know, but I would much rather have the latter as a problem.

So... Make it happen!

[kildorn]

If you have a situation in which you need one server to run a zone and you can't recode to avoid this, VM the boxes if you're trying to consolidate for cost. That is unless you already contracted out some amazingly large amount of datacenter space and power and you were too overconfident and tried to buy the space on some 4 year contract.

That said, there's a point at which you look at the product and say "is it worth the investment to make this slightly profitable, or should we just dump the whole mess."