SWTOR

[Venkman]

That's a great illustration of the problem with the competition, though at least Aion had some truly pretty parts to differentiate.

Also, back on topic, for the few that didn't get to /. yet:

Pachter estimates $80mm dev and $20mm marketing for TOR

[Murgos]

Proof of what I was getting at. Any of those games could be perfect from a technical gameplay stanpoint but if you wanna compete, that aint good enough.

Of those you posted only 1 is actually a failure though.  My point the last two pages is that people say (again and again):

A. If you wish to enter the MMO market you must compete with WoW.
B. WoW is an aberration and can not be competed with successfully
C. Therefore you cannot enter the MMO Market.

It comes up over and over and yet most of the photos you posted are games that have entered the MMO market and have made money for their developers and publishers.  Some of the for as much as 7 years.

[Malakili]

Proof of what I was getting at. Any of those games could be perfect from a technical gameplay stanpoint but if you wanna compete, that aint good enough.

Of those you posted only 1 is actually a failure though.  My point the last two pages is that people say (again and again):

A. If you wish to enter the MMO market you must compete with WoW.
B. WoW is an aberration and can not be competed with successfully
C. Therefore you cannot enter the MMO Market.

It comes up over and over and yet most of the photos you posted are games that have entered the MMO market and have made money for their developers and publishers.  Some of the for as much as 7 years.

If they are fine with the subscription numbers, fine, but its also pretty clear that not a single one o them lived up the expectations.  WoW actually did.

[Chimpy]

It comes up over and over and yet most of the photos you posted are games that have entered the MMO market and have made money for their developers and publishers.  Some of the for as much as 7 years.

If they are fine with the subscription numbers, fine, but its also pretty clear that not a single one o them lived up the expectations.  WoW actually did.

WoW didn't live up to expectations, it exceeded them by a large factor.

[Mrbloodworth]

The circle continues. I look forward to having this conversation all over again when the next game is announced :)

[Typhon]

If TOR sells 2M and has 20% retention for a year they'll be happy.

No, EA won't. Their shareholders won't. This is EA's biggest project ever. It has a huge budget and will likely have a marketing budget that is going to be massive as well. If it kinda sort limps along, a lot of blame is going to be thrown around. A big problem is that the 20% retention rate (so: 400k players) arguably catapults SWOR into the #2 spot in the Western subscription market, but still not be enough to hit EA's expectations or pay back the development budget.

This is EA's best shot at taking on WoW, which is exactly what the motivation is behind SWOR. EA wants a huge MMO that earns them something like US$1b a year and has well over 1m players. They are spending too much money on it for EA not to expect massive returns.

And how can you "pay no attention to the operating and continuing development costs" of a MMO? If they wanted to do that, they should have made SWOR a single player title. Also, if you consider WoW the anomaly, you'd be looking at a hell of a lot of crash-and-burned wrecks of recent MMOs and decide that it probably isn't worth developing a AAA subscription-based MMO, then look at building a cheap F2P title.

From a player point of view, all SWOR needs to be is fun. From a business point of view, it's got to make fat cash and lots of it for years to come.

I think it's a bad idea to pay no attention to the operating and continuing development costs.  I think BioWare are making a mistake in the design decision that the game make heavy use of voice and story (story implying a great deal of scripting work) - they aren't paying attention to the high cost of operation and continuing development.  I just don't believe that they will be able to maintain a high degree of quality OR push out frequent-enough updates.  I think that long-term the game will fail, but short-term it will be fun. 

But it doesn't matter.  2M x $60 + (12 x .20 x 2M) = $192M.  My guess is that is their, 'if we do at least this, we haven't failed'.  If development cost $100M (theoretically) they see some return on investment (depending on how much Lucas is gouging them).  I'm sure they looked at the SWG retention figures and used them against a 2M user initial buy-in.

[Draegan]

If only the math was that simple.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I just wonder why they didn't go with clone wars artstyle for swtor, it would have made bank.

[tmp]

I do think if you had WoW lined up with the rest of them it would stand out clearly as different from the rest.

If you line it up with these particular titles then sure, it's no surprise exaggerated cartoon style will look different from semi-realism. Line up WoW with say, Allods, Free Realms and number of others though, and the line starts to blur.

[Lucas]

*dramatic music background*

Bioware presents...THE CODEX  

http://www.swtor.com/news/blog/20110506

Very ME and DA-like.

[tmp]

Placing stuff in tricky to reach places can be neat. LotRO had that with the "Ridge Racer" achievement and that seemed quite popular.

[Fordel]

I do think if you had WoW lined up with the rest of them it would stand out clearly as different from the rest.

If you line it up with these particular titles then sure, it's no surprise exaggerated cartoon style will look different from semi-realism. Line up WoW with say, Allods, Free Realms and number of others though, and the line starts to blur.

Well, lets do it, drop some screen shots!

[Morat20]

I just wonder why they didn't go with clone wars artstyle for swtor, it would have made bank.

Also tied in younger kids, and also run on lower-end systems.

I won't be even trying this -- like I didn't try the Star Trek MMO or most post-WoW MMO's because I have a very old PC, and have long since gotten rid of the desire for it to remain 'cutting edge'.

I'm hoping to buy a new one late this year, meaning the old one lasted like 8 years with just a hard drive, memory, and video card upgrade.

[tmp]

Well, lets do it, drop some screen shots!

They're kinda big so spoilered.

[Amaron]

I would argue that Rift is a much more well made game at release, than WoW at release. WoW now is the better game, but Rift is still well made.

Speaking as a professional coder who has a lot of experience evaluating other peoples software I just can't agree.   WoW client side was and has always been a technically superior product.   In fact besides id/Carmack there haven't really ever been any companies that focus on quality software to such a degree as Blizzard.  The server problems (ie loot lag etc) WoW had with it's own success gave people a bad impression but anyone who played alpha and beta knows that caught everyone by surprise.   The game was always running smooth as silk until open beta blew everyone's expectations away.

RIFT's backend code might be at something you could call a superior level  but the client itself while great has numerous nitpicking flaws that WoW at release did not have.   The only other thing I could say RIFT might be doing a bit better on is overall compatibility graphics wise.   I would argue though that that is simply them leveraging the fact that DX9 is extremely mature and far more universal than what WoW had to deal with.

[Ingmar]

My understanding (and this is hearsay) is that the loot lag was blameable on the Oracle backend - WoW was one of the first Oracle 10g implementations or something, or maybe one of the first really big ones, and there were some problems that it exposed that Oracle had to fix. Not sure how much truth there is to it, but that's what I heard from a couple places back at the time.

[Amaron]

My understanding (and this is hearsay) is that the loot lag was blameable on the Oracle backend - WoW was one of the first Oracle 10g implementations or something, or maybe one of the first really big ones, and there were some problems that it exposed that Oracle had to fix. Not sure how much truth there is to it, but that's what I heard from a couple places back at the time.

I don't know any specifics for sure but it was VERY clear to anyone who played beta that it was very much a "OH SHIT WE HAVE 1 MILLION PLAYERS" problem.  Nobody had even seen loot lag prior to open beta.

[Ingmar]

My understanding (and this is hearsay) is that the loot lag was blameable on the Oracle backend - WoW was one of the first Oracle 10g implementations or something, or maybe one of the first really big ones, and there were some problems that it exposed that Oracle had to fix. Not sure how much truth there is to it, but that's what I heard from a couple places back at the time.

I don't know any specifics for sure but it was VERY clear to anyone who played beta that it was very much a "OH SHIT WE HAVE 1 MILLION PLAYERS" problem.  Nobody had even seen loot lag prior to closed beta.

Yeah that's what I mean - it was along the lines of "Larry, you told us this system could handle a million players. IT IS NOT WORKING." Or so I heard.

[Fordel]

Was good old Gil in a lot of trouble? 

[Koyasha]

Allods and Free Realms I recognize from having played them a bit.

Alganon I recognize actually because of its resemblance to wow - I recall how much that was commented on in the threads about it a while back.

The fourth one - Prius online according to the screenshot name - I don't believe I've ever heard of and never seen before.

Maybe I'm just a details person, and I see the differences much more easily than the average person, but again I don't really find those particularly similar.  If I spent any significant time playing them, I could instantly tell them apart with or without UI.  The visual styles of various games are noticeable to me and clearly distinct.

The one field on which I do have trouble recognizing differences is in many Korean games - I've noticed a lot of them look bloody identical to Lineage II, so much so that a long time ago I honestly thought they were somehow actual copies of the software.

[tmp]

The fourth one - Prius online according to the screenshot name - I don't believe I've ever heard of and never seen before.

I haven't heard of this one before either, but it's allegedly one of the most popular/biggest MMOs in Korea at the moment. The Western version is supposedly in the works.

[DLRiley]

Proof of what I was getting at. Any of those games could be perfect from a technical gameplay stanpoint but if you wanna compete, that aint good enough.

Of those you posted only 1 is actually a failure though.  My point the last two pages is that people say (again and again):

A. If you wish to enter the MMO market you must compete with WoW.
B. WoW is an aberration and can not be competed with successfully
C. Therefore you cannot enter the MMO Market.

It comes up over and over and yet most of the photos you posted are games that have entered the MMO market and have made money for their developers and publishers.  Some of the for as much as 7 years.

Hmm. If you make a good game people play it. Hence B and C. is complete horseshit. Drumming the old horse, guild wars reached 6 million copies sold back in 2009... Making a good game in mmo land is hard, partially because most mmo's don't make good games. Its either live action D&D or Sandbox and most people loath both.

[Samprimary]

At least it let me know I could have a purple lightsaber...

At the end of a grindfest so severe it'll make Justicar look like a walk in the park.

[Venkman]

It comes up over and over and yet most of the photos you posted are games that have entered the MMO market and have made money for their developers and publishers.  Some of the for as much as 7 years.

Going down the list:

Age of Conan- How well did Funcom do after the initial flop?
EverQuest 2- Yes, eventually, after complete redesign and never really rebounding from co-launching (effectively) with WoW
Rift- TBD. Wasn't expected to take over the planet anyway.
Vanguard- Total write down, free accounts to upsell into Station Pass, no expectation of success.
Aion- Not sure on Korean numbers. Seemed to do fine in U.S.
LotRO- Blew a CEO over it. And why'd they completely change their business model again?

You're not wrong Murgos. These games still live and they still make money, and there's more still-running MMOs than there are ones that have closed.

But TOR is not going to be held to these standards. And I'm not talking about the gamers. They'll play it simply for it being a big budget MMO launching at all.

Nah, the real judges are the investors. Their expectations are not set by comparing screenshots and having played other MMOs. Closest they ever got was maybe a sizzle reel. Their expectations are set by the weight of the publisher (who made the big budget studio purchase), the amount of money ("more than WoW") and the IP (which is still has as high awareness as The Bible)

Doing "fine" (as these other games have) is not going to win the day. This game has to give WoW a run for its money or it will have "failed".

It's a shame, because it's different enough an MMO to not being directly comparable to WoW (not Eve-different, but not Rift-similar either). That's not a distinction investors care about though.

[Ingmar]

LOTRO changed their business model because it was incredibly successful in DDO, which was down to almost nothing. LOTRO was succeeding before the change, and I suspect they're printing money now.

[Amaron]

Age of Conan- How well did Funcom do after the initial flop?
EverQuest 2- Yes, eventually, after complete redesign and never really rebounding from co-launching (effectively) with WoW
Vanguard- Total write down, free accounts to upsell into Station Pass, no expectation of success.
Aion- Not sure on Korean numbers. Seemed to do fine in U.S.
LotRO- Blew a CEO over it. And why'd they completely change their business model again?
Rift- TBD. Wasn't expected to take over the planet anyway.

AoC = Flop.   EQ2 = Lots of money.  Vanguard = Flop.  Aion = MONEY HATS in like 5 different forms of currency.  LotRO = Buckets of money.
You have invalidated yourself from ever ever discussing profit in MMO's if you think RIFT is TBD.

Doing "fine" (as these other games have) is not going to win the day. This game has to give WoW a run for its money or it will have "failed".

    On one end you've got "make a lot of money" and the other end you've got "make so much money I wipe my ass with Franklins".  I've got this wild hunch they'll settle for some numbers well short of WoW's 11 million.

[Simond]

I'm guessing you haven't seen the article where EA executives outright said "Yes, we are competing directly with WoW" then?

[eldaec]

It's a shame, because it's different enough an MMO to not being directly comparable to WoW (not Eve-different, but not Rift-similar either). That's not a distinction investors care about though.

The analysis hasn't reached that level yet, but investors are going to start asking these questions soon, because too much money is going down the drain for future projects to be able to avoid having to justify where subscribers are going to come from and how this product will differentiate from the failure of every mmog since 2004.

My guess is that SWTOR's budget, like Galaxies before it, is based more on BUT IT'LL BE OK BECAUSE OMG STAR WARS than any rational analysis of the market gap it sits in. But if you want ten million dollars greenlighted in future, I doubt people are going to get away with 'but look at WoW'.

[eldaec]

My understanding is that the loot lag was blameable on the Oracle backend - WoW was one of the first Oracle 10g implementations or something, or maybe one of the first really big ones, and there were some problems that it exposed that Oracle had to fix.

I don't know any specifics for sure but it was VERY clear to anyone who played beta that it was very much a "OH SHIT WE HAVE 1 MILLION PLAYERS" problem.  

SWG had similar issues with Oracle, at the time they seemed proud of how they were moving MMOs from home brew components to industry standard products. The result was a typical case of development managers assuming that because they were making the switch from bespoke to industry standard, problems of database design and optimisation would just be hand-waved away. They never are, and you end up having to hire an entirely different type of expert to manage the interface between your app specific elements and your bought in components.

[UnSub]

Also, back on topic, for the few that didn't get to /. yet:

Pachter estimates $80mm dev and $20mm marketing for TOR

It is interesting to see the idea that EA isn't really counting development costs for SWOR since they come out of an R&D budget. This may be true in an accounting sense, but I'm sure there are people in EA who know exactly what dollar amount is being spent on SWOR and will be checking the ledger when the revenue starts coming in.

Also, the idea that Lucasarts is picking up 33% of sub revenue is interesting, as is the idea that once SWOR gets over 500k players, it only costs $5 a month or so to deal with their operating costs and $5 goes to EA in straight profit. Figures I've seen for other MMOs would indicate that operating costs are a bit higher than $5 per player.

But that might be due to economies of scale as player numbers get higher. 

All in all, I thought the article was a bit optimistic.

[Amaron]

I'm guessing you haven't seen the article where EA executives outright said "Yes, we are competing directly with WoW" then?

That article is from oct 24 2008.   In other words they claimed this right after the companies stock took a 50% nose dive over a period of less than 3 months. 

[Count Nerfedalot]

My understanding is that the loot lag was blameable on the Oracle backend - WoW was one of the first Oracle 10g implementations or something, or maybe one of the first really big ones, and there were some problems that it exposed that Oracle had to fix.

I don't know any specifics for sure but it was VERY clear to anyone who played beta that it was very much a "OH SHIT WE HAVE 1 MILLION PLAYERS" problem.  

SWG had similar issues with Oracle, at the time they seemed proud of how they were moving MMOs from home brew components to industry standard products. The result was a typical case of development managers assuming that because they were making the switch from bespoke to industry standard, problems of database design and optimisation would just be hand-waved away. They never are, and you end up having to hire an entirely different type of expert to manage the interface between your app specific elements and your bought in components.

SWG used Oracle?  Huh. I thought I'd heard it was SQL Server.  I do recall SWG had to reboot their database servers every single day just to keep them running as they'd slow down to a crawl (from a leisurely walk  ) after a few hours running.  I've never heard of an Oracle DB that was that unstable.  Somebody really screwed up somewhere there.  Given the execrable state of all the rest of the code I guess that's no big surprise though.

[Reg]

I think the shitty database software is why they had the ridiculous one character per server rule too.

[Merusk]

I think the shitty database software is why they had the ridiculous one character per server rule too.

It wasn't shitty software so much as "fucking expensive database space" from the hints that were dropped via Raph years past.  iirc it was something about how the oracle licenses changed based on the size of the database, so they said "Um, yeah, we'll just keep that a lot smaller than other MMOs."   I could be misremembering, though.

[Mrbloodworth]

They stored a ton of data per toon.