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f13.net  |  f13.net General Forums  |  The Gaming Graveyard  |  Archived: We distort. We decide.  |  Topic: Possibility Space 0 Members and 1 Guest are viewing this topic.
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Author Topic: Possibility Space  (Read 19707 times)
Paelos
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Reply #35 on: February 22, 2005, 01:48:52 PM

Dubloons sound interesting, but it does verge on the weirdness of virtual property and may become more of a CS/legal nightmare. I'm not sure what to think about the long term effects of such an idea.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
HaemishM
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Reply #36 on: February 22, 2005, 02:01:30 PM

What I would like to add is this, I'm sure you have read it, but just in case you haven't there is a book called Snowcrash (which is fantastic imo) where the author's vision of the future of the internet or cyberspace is very similar to how you describe this future mmog.

Yes, I'm hardly original. :) I loved Snow Crash.

EDIT: Also, I've been informed by some of the guys on the UO team that the $10 a month was arrived at in a fashion similar to what I wrote. It's all anecdotal. Yes, M59 was out and may well have been charging that price, but I'm not sure that was the reason UO followed suit. It may have been precedent. Psychochild could back me up on the pay-per-hour thing for M59 as his posts are where I got that information in the first place. Those posts were on Waterthread, so probably aren't available anymore.
« Last Edit: February 22, 2005, 02:06:12 PM by HaemishM »

Stephen Zepp
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Reply #37 on: February 22, 2005, 04:03:34 PM

I personally think the one major flaw of any pricing system that does not include some form of steady, recurring revenue (subscription fees) is that regardless of what the players do, there is still substantial operations costs associated with the infrastructure and customer support that must be funded.

Example Scenario using Guild Wars
DISCLAIMER: I have no idea exactly how GW plans their infrastructure, their revenue models, or their operating budget plans, so please don't take this example literally, but as an analogy to demonstrate a point.

Let's use a minimalistic example, and say that 1,000 people buy GW, and they have infrastucture set up to handle roughly that number. They come out with 2 expansions over the next year that people purchase on a transaction basis, and continue to make a profit even with the expense of the infrastructure/CS.

They fund development on a new expansion, but (for whatever reason) the player base simply thinks it sucks...and no one buys it. All 1000 players continue to play regularly, but within the content that they have already purchased, and therefore their is no additional revenue stream for the next 9 months while the expansion languishes.

Now, the devs and publishers are in a catch-22: they have to produce another expansion, because their revenue model is firmly based in the idea that players must continue to purchase new content to fund the game's steady operations costs, not to mention additional content dev costs. However, the reserves are running very low, because those steady operations costs have been draining funds continuously...and there is zero revenue stream coming in. They have to either run fully in the red while the new expansion is in development, and pray like hell that not only does everyone purchase the new expansion, but that even more people buy the game due to the new expansion so that they can recognize the one-time revenue for the game purchase of these new players, so that they can get back ahead of the revenue vs cost curve and maintain development.

Transactional models are great when the very act of purchasing the transaction does not incur a recurring cost for the seller. However, my expectation is that unless the players are never satisfied with existing content, and continue to purchase additional content, the recurring costs of operations will doom the game to a zero profit over the long term, or a shutdown of the game once certain profit margins are reached on the downside of negative revenue (no intelligent executive management is going to let a game continue with negative revenue to the point where their already earned profits are eaten up by operations costs, or at least I think none would...)

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Shockeye
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Reply #38 on: February 22, 2005, 04:08:30 PM

They fund development on a new expansion, but (for whatever reason) the player base simply thinks it sucks...and no one buys it. All 1000 players continue to play regularly, but within the content that they have already purchased, and therefore their is no additional revenue stream for the next 9 months while the expansion languishes.

I think that's flawed because people will still feel compelled to buy it, no matter how much it sucks. I mean, look at EQ expansions and particularly DAoC ones.

I think everyone can agree that Trials of Atlantis left much to be desired, yet everyone who wanted to complete in RVR had to have it and had to advance through it. Guild Wars PVP and GVG will encourage that same type of purchases. If one group has it and has a leg up on everyone else, the rest of the players will have to purchase it as well.

And as for Guild Wars expansion releases, I'm expecting 3-4 a year.
Stephen Zepp
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Reply #39 on: February 22, 2005, 04:14:53 PM

They fund development on a new expansion, but (for whatever reason) the player base simply thinks it sucks...and no one buys it. All 1000 players continue to play regularly, but within the content that they have already purchased, and therefore their is no additional revenue stream for the next 9 months while the expansion languishes.

I think that's flawed because people will still feel compelled to buy it, no matter how much it sucks. I mean, look at EQ expansions and particularly DAoC ones.

I think everyone can agree that Trials of Atlantis left much to be desired, yet everyone who wanted to complete in RVR had to have it and had to advance through it. Guild Wars PVP and GVG will encourage that same type of purchases. If one group has it and has a leg up on everyone else, the rest of the players will have to purchase it as well.

And as for Guild Wars expansion releases, I'm expecting 3-4 a year.

Maybe so, but that's like going all-in with AA on the first bet of the first hand of the game--hoping that someone will feel compelled to call with their TT. It may work, and you may make a lot of money, but the smart player is probably going to play it differently.

It also implies that item inflation and dependence is a planned design criteria. And that is (IMO) not a good idea.

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Shockeye
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Reply #40 on: February 22, 2005, 04:21:56 PM

Maybe so, but that's like going all-in with AA on the first bet of the first hand of the game--hoping that someone will feel compelled to call with their TT. It may work, and you may make a lot of money, but the smart player is probably going to play it differently.

It also implies that item inflation and dependence is a planned design criteria. And that is (IMO) not a good idea.

Even a lousy expansion will do well if it gives some kind of advantage to PVP/GVG. I don't see how that is a risky bet on Arena.Net's part.
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Reply #41 on: February 22, 2005, 05:08:01 PM

You took way to long to say, "I hate MMOGs." Who doesn't? They clearly suck and will never improve. Be a man and give up.

Oh... FYI... the two people in the "You don't want us dressing up as ninjas" ad holder look more like oppressed muslim women than ninjas. Just thought you'd like to know.
AOFanboi
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Reply #42 on: February 23, 2005, 01:19:03 AM

As for alternative pricing schemes, check out Puzzle Pirates' recent announcement about Doubloons:  http://www.puzzlepirates.com/support/faqs/doubloons.html

Quote from: FAQ
To facilitate exchange between mates who have the time to play a lot, and those who lack time but have financial resources.
That is almost a definition of "eBaying". Interesting development.

Current: Mario Kart DS, Nintendogs
Margalis
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Reply #43 on: February 23, 2005, 02:24:17 AM

I would guess that most people buy most expansions. Because sooner or later your friend is going to say "let's go fight the Emerald Dragon in the Cave of Creepiness" and you have to emote sheepishness and fess up that you were too cheap to buy the "Caves of Creepiness" expansion.

Either that or everyone is going to start running around with all the great loot they got from the Cave of Creepiness and all the new spells and you're still stuck with a rusty wrench and static electricity 2.

Lack of subscriber fees certainly does imply a lot more volitility though. Even if none of your customers buys the expansion you still have about the same hardware, support and bandwidth costs. Then again, Battle.Net was run for free, so maybe the hardware, support and bandwidth costs aren't that high. (I would expect support for Guild Wars to be less than for 'real' MMORPG games)

Blizzard sold Starcraft boxes and let people play on battle.net for a half-decade while still turning a profit. (I would assume) I know the tech was different (basically all client side other than the match-making) but I suppose the idea is if you can sell a Starcraft every 8 months over those 5 years you'll be just peachy.


vampirehipi23: I would enjoy a book written by a monkey and turned into a movie rather than this.
Paelos
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Reply #44 on: February 23, 2005, 06:51:39 AM

I agree with most of you in that expansions will sell. Smart business people will offer a fundamental advantage that can't be ignored in addition to the new content. That will mobilize your playerbase.

CPA, CFO, Sports Fan, Game when I have the time
HaemishM
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Reply #45 on: February 23, 2005, 07:28:32 AM

This is the MMOG PVP competitive mindset of MMOG players that the expansions will work on. If even ONE (1) item in the expansion is worthwhile (i.e. powerful, makes you more competitive) and you can only get it in the expansion, the expansion will sell. Especially if it is priced right. MMOG players cannot stand having someone's dial go to 11 while theirs goes to 10.

Quote from: Pug
You took way to long to say, "I hate MMOGs." Who doesn't? They clearly suck and will never improve. Be a man and give up.

I like MMOG's. I'm still subscribed to City of Heroes, and I'd still play WoW if I didn't have the CoH subscription. The fact that most MMOG's suck donkey dick is well-established. Even the good ones could stand improvement in the fundamental formula. My article is about different possibilities for MMOG's other than the static, subscription-based worlds we have.

Hoax
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Reply #46 on: February 23, 2005, 11:10:29 AM

*warning I am at this time a fanboi of this game (FoM), but I like to call myself an inspired idealist, I'll try to stay in general terms*

I was playing FoM last night, then logged and was talking to some people in irc about WoW being the penultimate EQ clone.  We discussed this for awhile and I pointed out that WoW was doomed to suck in the end (all silver tarnishes or something?).  I was asked why, untill now I hadn't had much of a chance to ever explain why EQ/EQ2/DAOC/AO/WoW/CoH sucked I just knew they did.  I knew it was unlikely I could stomach them for 6mo's, something just didn't jibe with me.

So now I'm going to test out an analogy for why Player Driven content/storyline must be the future over the static quests or even worse stupid GM events: Spawn XyZ in Location q wait for it to die, possibly say some stupid crap, log off.  Let me know what you think of it.  If you've never played PnP games or at least hung out in hobby shops (perhaps playing WH40k, BFG, Confrontation ect) you might not get what I'm saying.

The EQ model of mmorpg's is like a bad game of Dungeons and Dragons, with a shitty GM.  All he does is create some stupid reason that you Must enter a dungeon/castle/temple whatever and slay/find something.  The only true purpose of this is to find the cool items he will generate when you defeat it (often its so stupid that at the end there is just some treasure room).  You do this every session, perhaps w/ a session devoted to selling some magic items and buying others and comparing the uberness of your feat setup.  This is the type of DnD where people tri-class so they can combo out certain feats to do cheezy things.  Where the gear is kind of ridiculous and 75%+ of your sessions involves a graph map w/ figures on it so you can better track combat.  Because combat is all there is to it, you just fight, get loot, find next fight.


Player driven content is like a good PnP rpg.  You influence what the GM does, the path is anything but linear, in-fact the GM might be even more along for the ride then you.  He reacts to your wishes, your choice, instead of there only being one town within travel distance of your party there are five.  Instead of only one person in each place who must have your help with some theft or kidnapping or evil menace the dangers are hidden for you to discover or create through your actions.  Combat might not take place but once a week, when it does it has the sweet taste of being something you set into action and planned.  The world shapes itself around you instead of just being dungeons a-z.  I have really never seen good PnP, but I dont touch PnP if I can help it (Inquisitor from GW is the only system I would ever touch, and possible ShadowRun). 

Anyways, does that make any sense?  I hope it does, but I'm not sure.  Thinking it last night I felt smart, but when you type it esp in an unforgiving environment such as this, you get to second guessing yourself.

Basically, while I dont really feel like the subscription model is the problem or the solution is to fragment the game world into 100 instances each radically different then the rest.  Instead I think what we must escape is the linear systems that inhabit ALL eq clones, every treadmill:  levels, items, qualifying for raids, ect ect ect  they suck and they make games suck.  The one good thing about being alive is freedom.  Playing games that go out of their way to restrict your freedom is stupid.  Sure anyone can enjoy making a character and becomming more powerful.  But it grows old and hollow after time.  There are only so many dungeons you can force a person through just for the promise of +1 on his sword... right?


A nation consists of its laws. A nation does not consist of its situation at a given time. If an individual's morals are situational, then that individual is without morals. If a nation's laws are situational, that nation has no laws, and soon isn't a nation.
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Pug
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Reply #47 on: February 23, 2005, 11:16:39 AM

Oh sorry. I read it (or read into it) as a desire to return to peer to peer gameplay. I'm sure that I was projecting.

I don't see Guild Wars' business model as being anything revolutionary. Guild Wars is clearly Quake with swords, Diablo 3, M:TGO2 or NWNTOO. It's been done before in one way or another.

I hate MMOGs. I think most people hate MMOGs deep down... even the ones who pay to play them. I noticed the last Guild Wars preview was being bashed because the character advancement was nearing MMOG status. Duh. Who likes to grind? The game was more fun before they implemented their character progression. The only amazing part is that players got to experience the game before the retard-a-thon grind and pointless delivery quests were added.

I think that the single biggest improvement that could ever happen to MMOGs would be the removal of leveling (including skill gain). It would force game developers to concentrate on finding ways to entertain players rather than simply raising the level/skill cap or renaming the NPC rats every six months.

So, ya... I hate MMOGs... RPGs... leveling... and customer support.
HaemishM
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Reply #48 on: February 23, 2005, 11:53:54 AM

The EQ model of mmorpg's is like a bad game of Dungeons and Dragons, with a shitty GM. 

Welcome to 1998.  evil

Sorry to be snarky, but yes, you are correct about that. I say it in such a smartass way because a lot of us came to that conclusion while playing EQ1 back in, say, 1998. There are a lot of reasons that the games are as you say they are, a bad game of D&D with a shitty DM. The computer is an infinitely good numbers tracker, not so good at reacting to situations it wasn't programmed to deal with. It has no anticipation and very little improv skills. That isn't changing anytime soon for MMOG's, mainly because real AI, say on the level of the Sims, takes up so much computer power, it cannot be used without bringing server tech to its knees, at least in worlds where 3,000 people are on the same server at once. It cannot handle all those network connections, calculations etc. AND have great AI. That part of the MMOG equation will be helped by nothing but time; more raw processing power, more memory, etc.

Good PNP works because the players feel they are directing the story, if the GM is good enough to let them. The MMOG industry has seen what happens when we let players do that on a massive scale, and it led to Trammel and the "carebearing" of MMOG's. When large amounts of people are allowed to get together and given no direction about what to do, they generally end up eating each other in a Lord of the Flies digital style.

Taking the MMOG's down to a more boutique feel with a large meeting hub at the center would help bring some of that "six against the world" type of feeling back to MMOG's, and allow characters to have more control over the environment (in instances) as well as more complex AI for enemies and the world itself. But it still won't be able to handle improvisation, because to a computer, improvisation is exploiting the holes in the formal systems that make up the game. As Raph says in "Theory of Fun," it breaks the "magic circle" of the game.

I don't see a problem with peer to peer gameplay, nor do I see any reason that having peer to peer style of gameplay removes the MMOG definition.

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Reply #49 on: March 10, 2005, 01:18:10 AM

What your talking about for a pricing system has yet to materialize for big CAD and Graphic Art packages.  These guys don't offer the base + pay as you go tool/ modules system.

Minor point here, but...  Where I work, we have a number of very expensive drawing, modelling and simulation programs for electronics.  (I'm the the sysadmin, so I don't actually use them.)  Some of these programs license by the feature.  On several occasions I've had to install new licenses to our network license server because we bought an extra feature for an existing program.  Recently I had to edit out a couple lines of the license file because while we had a permanent license for the base product, we had only bought a year of these two features and it had expired so now the thing was giving errors.

Just saying, the model IS out there...
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