SoE New flagship project

[Kirth]

SoE San Diego has a job posting for a lead game designer:

http://careers.vurvexpress.com/jobprofile.cfm?szWID=16059&szCID=72267&szSiteID=1574&szOrderID=534351&szStart=1

This is an exciting opportunity to conceive and lead the game design of a new flagship project and we are looking for a Lead Game Designer to ensure its success!

EQ3? something else?

[Draegan]

Social network game with RMT.

[Ubvman]

Social network game with RMT.

Sounds right...

EQ3 (another improved fantasy diku MUD) in the face of WoW, would basically just cannibalize the already depleted playerbase of EQ1 and EQ2.

[Murgos]

EQ3 (another improved fantasy diku MUD) in the face of WoW, would basically just cannibalize the already depleted playerbase of EQ1 and EQ2.

We went through this before.  Subscriptions are not 0 sum.

[Hawkbit]

It's the right time to start development of EQ3 in the game lifecycle.  I can't imagine they'd den the brandname. 

[Soulflame]

You could probably put forth an argument that in terms of "fantasy MMOG flagship product", there is a zero sum game.  You're either WoW, or you're trying to chisel a few hundred thousand users from the people dissatisfied with WoW.  Since most fantasy MMOGs seem to try to emulate large swaths of WoW, the players end up not being terribly enchanted with the new game either, or they realize that WoW simply has more completion, and they cancel anyway to go back to WoW.

[Murgos]

You could probably put forth an argument that in terms of "fantasy MMOG flagship product", there is a zero sum game.  You're either WoW, or you're trying to chisel a few hundred thousand users from the people dissatisfied with WoW.  Since most fantasy MMOGs seem to try to emulate large swaths of WoW, the players end up not being terribly enchanted with the new game either, or they realize that WoW simply has more completion, and they cancel anyway to go back to WoW.

So, what you're saying is that WoW has magical anti-competitive lock-out powers?

I mean their subscribers came from somewhere, right?  One day, the old king will die and then there will be a new king.  So it goes...

[Soulflame]

I'm saying that in order for something to dethrone WoW, it will have to be significantly better than WoW.  Not "as good".  Not "slightly different flavored game mechanics, but as good".  An incrementally better WoW will interest people, and retain them, but it won't be a significant number.

Until something comes along that is good enough to cause a critical mass of players to exit WoW together, it's pointless to aim a flagship product at the fantasy MMOG market.

Does that make more sense?

[Vinadil]

I'm saying that in order for something to dethrone WoW, it will have to be significantly better than WoW.  Not "as good".  Not "slightly different flavored game mechanics, but as good".  An incrementally better WoW will interest people, and retain them, but it won't be a significant number.

Until something comes along that is good enough to cause a critical mass of players to exit WoW together, it's pointless to aim a flagship product at the fantasy MMOG market.

Does that make more sense?

It makes sense... but not more sense.  What you are basically saying is that when someone develops something that can draw players away from WoW, then someone should develop something that can draw players away from WoW.  It is understood that you have to have a VERY good product to compete, but your only choices are to keep trying or just give them the market.

[Murgos]

Until something comes along that is good enough to cause a critical mass of players to exit WoW together, it's pointless to aim a flagship product at the fantasy MMOG market.

Does that make more sense?

No, because it's a chicken and egg argument.  I mean, srsly, your advice is, "Don't compete with WoW, compete with it's successor"?  How will it ever have a successor if no one ever competes with it?

The only way to win is not to play?

Edit: WoW is a four year old game that looks 6 years old and plays like it's 10 years old.  Someone, somewhere can do better.

Edit 2: The market of MMO subscribers has grown every year.  No one [credible] is predicting that will end any time soon, it's just not 0-sum.  The more [quality] MMO's that get made the more room there is for them to operate in.

[Sky]

It's the right time to start development of EQ3 in the game lifecycle.  I can't imagine they'd den the brandname. 

I agree with this thought. And EQ1 and 2 have coexisted peacefully, even to the point of cross-game chat and Station Pass users having accounts on both.

My main worry for an EQ3 would be the lack of Hartsman :)

[Venkman]

Edit: WoW is a four year old game that looks 6 years old and plays like it's 10 years old.  Someone, somewhere can do better.

Edit 2: The market of MMO subscribers has grown every year.  No one [credible] is predicting that will end any time soon, it's just not 0-sum.  The more [quality] MMO's that get made the more room there is for them to operate in.

There's two markets:

1) The market WoW has grown with its faster-dikuMUD model. It proved there are millions of people who wanted an EQ-like experience that weren't being serviced previously by the various Visions of SOE, Mythic, Cryptic, etc.
2) The new market of free/mtx/ad/light-sub browser and thin client games coming because Smartfox and Unity make banging out these things cheaper and therefore less risky for IP holders. This growth far outpaces #1.

#1 is what Soulflame is talking about. And I think he is right. You want to draw people away from WoW, you give them a game that is better  because it is different. Sci-fi diku wouldn't cut it because if anything, the market for sci-fi RPG-like games is smaller than the fantasy one. So you need an evolutionary gameplay that combines what people like of WoW with a theme that casts a wider net. And you need that because the investment spend is going to be even more, unless you can make a better game mechanic that a) isn't as expensive; and, b) doesn't require as much content.

#2 is already happening. It's a different market though. 10 years from now they won't be in WoW nor EQ1 nor UO. They'll be in something unrecognizable compared to today. And I don't mean might-as-well-be-DCUO FusionFall.

[Ratman_tf]

Edit: WoW is a four year old game that looks 6 years old and plays like it's 10 years old.  Someone, somewhere can do better.

Edit 2: The market of MMO subscribers has grown every year.  No one [credible] is predicting that will end any time soon, it's just not 0-sum.  The more [quality] MMO's that get made the more room there is for them to operate in.

The market has grown for WoW. Not for MMOGs like EQ or WAR or LOTRO. The market for those types of MMOGs is around 500k-1m (plus or minus depending on if the game sucks or not) And I base those numbers on the sales and subscription numbers we know about.

Anyone who wants to make a MMOG that gets the subscriber numbers of WoW needs to come at it from another angle. Making a better WoW is futile if you don't understand what makes a game better than WoW.

[Salamok]

Every product has a lifecycle, even WoW and it isn't really a requirement for something better to come along.  EQ was ready to give up the ghost at least a year before wow came out.  Players evolve faster than games do and the larger and more entrenched the wow world gets the harder it will be for them to keep up.  EQ went through this same cycle.

[Venkman]

I've wondered about EQ1 actually. Did it die of its own accord or was it prematurely killed by SOE developing EQ2 and early beta reports emerging about WoW's uberness?

Because since then I've felt the only ways in which WoW "dies" is either:

• Blizzard kills it with WoW2 or the same game better but with a different theme. There isn't yet much a market for ex-WoW players. They leave WoW and instead go play COD5 or X360 or something. Meanwhile, you couldn't keep EQ1 players if you offered anything better.
  
• The publicly-held metric of success changes. I don't mean forum warriors, but the average developer pitching management/VC with a point of reference. Maybe down the road MTX/adsales end up producing more revenue in a game than WoW makes. Doubtful but at least plausible. But while the theory is being used to push companies with less appetite for WoW-level investments anyway, there's simply less money flowing around (lower fees, somewhere south of 10% of players seem to want to get invested at all, etc).

WoW will fade eventually. But unless #1 happens, or someone surprises us, so goes the whole AAA sub-based genre too and we contract back to what it was before the bubble came along.

[Murgos]

The market has grown for WoW. Not for MMOGs like EQ or WAR or LOTRO. The market for those types of MMOGs is around 500k-1m (plus or minus depending on if the game sucks or not) And I base those numbers on the sales and subscription numbers we know about.

Start counting operating MMO's and then tell me the market hasn't grown.  The realistic market for EACH game that's not WoW maybe around 500k + but there are a lot more them then there were 5 years ago.  We call that growth.

WoW maybe be special, but it just proves the point that if you build something good, people will find it and play it WITHOUT taking away from everyone else.

[Salamok]

I've wondered about EQ1 actually. Did it die of its own accord or was it prematurely killed by SOE developing EQ2 and early beta reports emerging about WoW's uberness?

Most the people I knew including myself were just going through the motions with EQ for at least a year prior to EQ2 or WoW being released.  WoW comes out and it's all new and shiny and w/o the cockblock issues of EQ1.  Then once the griefing wounds healed over WoW evolved to include more pvp content.

I don't overly care for PvP and I was never a big fan of the majority of the gameplay being instanced and was always a big fan of fast respawns.  Also if you absolutely must instance the dungeon then at least take advantage of the opportunity to randomize it (like Diablo or EQ/LDoN).  Hopefully some day the mainstream will migrate back to non-instanced play.

Being a bit of a min/maxer another thing I have always hated in MMO's that I would have to think contributes to the subscription suicide rate is when they inevitably have to change the rules of the game.  From a ruleset standpoint I preferred the 1st year of wow and nearly every mechanic type of change they made to the game since pretty much just pissed me off.  Even TBC which I thought had some awesome content was pretty much ruined for me by the messed up warrior/tank mechanics.  This is what finally did me in I dropped shortly after hitting 70 (right about kara), I haven't/won't buy the latest expansion and there didn't need to be another mmo around to steal me away.

[Mrbloodworth]

Planetside 2?




I know, never happen. *Sad panda*

[Venkman]

Start counting operating MMO's and then tell me the market hasn't grown.

Ok:

• GW- Incomparable. Lots of people, but there's no fee.
• VG- Bombed hard. Never was a serious "competitor" anyway.
• DDO- 
• AoC- Started strong, tanking to probably EQ3 levels.
• WAR- Started ok, tanking to probably DAoC 2.0 levels.
• DnL- Closed.
• TR- Closed.
• LoTRO- The one they had to make up a stat for ("a million registered characters"). Plugging along nicely, but small.

And I would wager large that even AoC and WAR wouldn't start at 750k+ numbers if not for the market WoW both created and is. In a world where the king of kings was 550k, those would have started at maybe 400k at best and tapered down further, because even though they followed WoW by years, they still didn't solve any of the enduser problems WoW did.

That is not market growth. That is market dominance and other games unnaturally benefiting from it.

The only actual growth we've seen is in the web-based/IP/kid space. Which is why some people keep talking about it.

[Kirth]

You forgot EVE, Lineage and the city of's off the top of my head.


I really don't expect anything to kill WoW. And honestly anyone making a MMO shouldn't try to aim remotely that high, as the recent flops this year have shown if your gonna come out of the gate and put WoW in your cross-hairs you have better be able to pack 4 years worth of polish into your launch or your going to be disappointed. aiming for 200k -300k subs and hoping for the best seems like a more reasonable goal. SoE seems to be in a good position to pull off something decent, they seem to have a lot of lesions learned in the past 4-5 years and won't have the whole company hinging on the release of something amazing (yet).

[Venkman]

I figured he meant games that have launched since 2004, since we know the size of the genre and it's (shallow) growth rate from all the games that preceded EQ2, including those you mentioned plus about two dozen others.

[Sheepherder]

as the recent flops this year have shown if your gonna come out of the gate and put WoW in your cross-hairs you have better be able to pack 4 years worth of polish into your launch or your going to be disappointed.

No, they haven't shown this.  AoC and War were both unfinished games, they hadn't even gotten to the point where you could pass them off as unpolished.  In addition, it is pretty apparent to even a bystander that Warhammer is broken at the mechanics level as well.  We have proven that broken shit is unfun.

[Murgos]

I figured he meant games that have launched since 2004, since we know the size of the genre and it's (shallow) growth rate from all the games that preceded EQ2, including those you mentioned plus about two dozen others.

You keep trying to say that WoW is magic and shares no correlation with anyone else.  I don't believe in magic, people will play another game, as long as that game also, 'get's it right'.  It's asinine that people keep popping up in this thread with, "Don't bother to compete, you can't do it."   Yeah, if the world followed that advice, you would be right, it's self fulfilling.  But the fact is, WoW sucks to quite a few people and if someone does try and compete then someone will take the throne.

The population of people that play MMO's is in the teens and probably 20's of millions and it has just been continuously increasing ever since day 1.

[Venkman]

You keep saying it has been increasing, but you're not backing it up by any insights. Do you not care that the majority of growth has come from non-WoW competitors? Do you not care that tweens and teenagers are playing very different games from the late-20/early-30-somethings? Do you think the growth of Gaia has any impact at all on EQ2 players, or WoW players looking for a viable alternative?

It's fine if you don't. But we can't have a discussion about where the genre is and is going without these kind of questions being asked.

The question isn't just growth. Because growth requires metrics, and not everyone's using the same one.

WoW is in its own bubble because people aren't leaving in droves to other games. And that is because of unique things about WoW that nobody else has tapped into to the same degree. We can sit back and talk about "welp, somebody will someday", but I find that about as enriching as "welp, someday someone will populate another planet".

I want to know how.

[gryeyes]

The think "magic" is a pretty apt term to apply to WoW's success. In a genre (at least in the west) where the pinnacle of success was 300-400k subscriptions WoW seems pretty mystical. It did not  steal a user base from a preexisting demographic. It CREATED the demographic. Everyone so far who has tried to compete with WoW directly has died or is in the process of dying.

For many WoW is the genre defining MMO. Most WoW players had no concept of what an MMO was previous to playing WoW. It is the alpha and omega of MMO's. WoW is also imo one of the most polished and refined MMO's to hit the market with a limitless fount of wealth to support and market it. Thus far any attempt to "compete" with WoW for its userbase has failed to various degrees of horror. Anyone who is looking to directly compete against WoW is doomed.

Create well developed niche titles of a different genre or you are going to be destroyed by a direct comparison to WoW.

When creating a burger joint the last thing on your mind should be "how do i compete against Mcdonalds". You cannot to try is stupid.

[CharlieMopps]

Everything SOE has done in the past couple of years has been RMT, micro transactions, mini-expansions, etc... They are trying to build a game as big as WOW in which people "Accidentally" send upwards of $60/month. What they (and everyone else who's tried this) keep failing to realize is, people see through the BS and don't like getting ripped off.

Whatever they're doing, they will probably produce more of this RMT garbage, and further relegate themselves to relics of the past that no-one cares about anymore. If they actually produce an EQ3 with none of the garbage micro transaction, nickle and diming in it, I think this would be their last chance to turn things around. They don't need to hit WOW numbers, they just need to make something that restores a little respect in the company.

[Ratman_tf]

Most WoW players had no concept of what an MMO was previous to playing WoW.

Every other MMORPG is the GoBots to WoW's Transformers. 

[Venkman]

Everything SOE has done in the past couple of years has been RMT, micro transactions, mini-expansions, etc... They are trying to build a game as big as WOW in which people "Accidentally" send upwards of $60/month.

I can't speak for SOE of course, but whether or not this was their goal, what they've actually been doing is building laterally. No single title from SOE is going to one-up WoW. But if they can get future titles like Free Realms and Agency done right, and incorporate other titles that wouldn't stand on their own (as they have with MxO, VG, PotBS, etc), then their business goals can continue to be met even if they don't use metrics forum warriors like us think are interesting

They're sort of retroactively externalizing to smaller more motivated studios the whole "is it fun" portion. This gives them greater flexibility than the days when their entire divison lived or died by EQ1 alone. It's only good to have all your eggs in a single basket during the specific phase in which you are successful

[CharlieMopps]

Yea, but there comes a point in which the consumer pics up a title, says "ooo, neat, this looks cool! Oh... SOE? Damn." and puts it back down.

EA for example. They make a lot of games that when I see the title, I think "COOL!" then I see the EA sticker and I know if i buy it I'm just going to get ticked off as dudes that spent $99.99 on the preorder snipe me with the 'UBERLEET' sniper rifle I'll have to speand the next 3 months trying to unlock. No thanks, I just put the box back on the shelf.

[Lantyssa]

I want to know how.

Don't put out shit.  Seriously.  It's that easy.

WoW, Gaia, etc. they all contribute to the pool.  WAR and AoC launches show there's demand for a non-WoW game.  Games in other spaces will have people who leave to try something new.  They all grow the numbers interested in some kind of MMO, and the more kinds there are, the more players and play styles that can be supported.

To see continued growth we need three things:
1) Companies willing to try new things; or at least refine existing ones when the current alternatives have room for improvement
2) Fun
3) Not be utter shite

[Sky]

I know if i buy it I'm just going to get ticked off as dudes that spent $99.99 on the preorder snipe me with the 'UBERLEET' sniper rifle I'll have to speand the next 3 months trying to unlock. No thanks, I just put the box back on the shelf.

I can see the gripe about unlocking a weapon, I think it sucks fps has gone in the mmo direction. But to bitch about the RMT part? Please provide specific examples of how RMT has affected the power differential on pvp servers of SOE games or gtfo. And really, even then you're talking a niche of a niche. And you shouldn't be playing on a pvp server of a pve game, SOE would be much better served closing those crapholes down and avoiding the balancing headaches.

On PvE, I couldn't give a shit if Johnny Uber spends money on some item. Doesn't affect my gameplay in the slightest.

I hear a whole lot of bitching about SOE's RMT, but I'm not seeing much in the way of tangible effects. Ooo, an xp potion. Big fuckin' whup.

[Numtini]

I don't think it's worth doing an EQ3. SoE will never have a major hit game again until they are able to overcome their reputation and they are still busy digging the hole. It just doesn't make sense to try to develop a AAA title.

From old grudges over EQ1 nerfs and slights to the SWG:TNG thing, they just keep creating new customers who do not want to do business with them. I still hear people who are unwilling to try EQ2 because their class got nerfed or they hated the play nice policy in EQ1 or because they played SWG and will never forgive them.

That's not enough people to make or break a game in sheer numbers, but it's enough to make or break momentum, particularly when you're competing against WoW.

EQ2 is a fantastic game and they could have and should have used the last few years as a way to dig themselves out of that public relations hole. But while development on the game has been great, management of the financials of it haven't been. They continue to try to chisel an extra couple of bucks out of subscribers for website services that other games give away for free. They had the SOEbay servers followed by the intrusive card game followed by the RMT stuff.

[Der Helm]

SoE seems to be in a good position to pull off something decent, they seem to have a lot of lesions learned in the past 4-5 years and won't have the whole company hinging on the release of something amazing (yet).

Most awesome typo today. 

[Tearofsoul]

Prob Vangurd II 

[Kirth]

SoE seems to be in a good position to pull off something decent, they seem to have a lot of lesions learned in the past 4-5 years and won't have the whole company hinging on the release of something amazing (yet).

Most awesome typo today. 

By the way people talk about SWG: NGE, lesion sounds like it fits...