Bioware Austin.. damm more Dragons.. or Lightsabers?

[Morat20]

For the most part the early SWG testers were handpicked board warrior fanbois.

Only the first 150 were. By the time period I was referencing, there were thousands of testers, let in by lottery. The tone of the SWG beta was very positive right up until the day we announced a release date. Then it turned ugly.

I dont know about this. I mean you would know more that I about tester feedback. But I remember hordes of testers screaming "ITS NOT READY". As release date speculation got more and more, all the testers where saying, "This wont release for 6 months at least, there are still tons of bugs and issues", then the game released like 2 weeks later.

I think that's what he's saying. Everyone was positive, giving feedback, and pretty happy there'd be a good game there once all the crap was ironed out. Then SOE announced "We're releasing in a week" and everyone started screaming because it wasn't ready. Which it wasn't. I don't think that game's ever been out of beta.

[Strazos]

Yeah, I was in the closed beta. When I was playing, I could see how it could be fun, once they ironed things out and such....

Then it released about 9 months earlier than it really should have. All I could do was laugh.

[dwindlehop]

My apologies for not reading the whole thread. I just wanted to chime in that the Eve devs are planning to allow players to swear allegiance to one of the NPC empires and fight to expand that empire's territory. Here are some links discussing the system:
http://mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?gameId=14&setView=features&loadFeature=107&bhcp=1
http://myeve.eve-online.com/updates/indevelopment.asp

It is currently vaporware, true, but I judge the odds are quite good that they'll have a system in place next December.

[Venkman]

Err, wrong thread? Or are you stumping to grow the Corp while you guys discuss where to move? :)

[Krakrok]

dwindlehop won at the thread derail. I am beaten.

[Rasix]

My apologies for not reading the whole thread. I just wanted to chime in that the Eve devs are planning to allow players to swear allegiance to one of the NPC empires and fight to expand that empire's territory. Here are some links discussing the system:
http://mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm?gameId=14&setView=features&loadFeature=107&bhcp=1
http://myeve.eve-online.com/updates/indevelopment.asp

It is currently vaporware, true, but I judge the odds are quite good that they'll have a system in place next December.

WTF.  Don't do that.

[Slyfeind]

I don't know those numbers. I do know they've added 6150000 accounts in the last 326 days. I'd rate it as sticky as MySpace. Probably more because the client gets installed and then it's in your face every time you reboot. You have to pay $8 to register your name (and become a developer to create content) and $20 to access the adult area. It has software rendering. It has built in RMT. The 'comment' functionality seems to mainly be used for 'answering machine' messages. There is no mail function beyond that which shunts all other communication to the IM client. 'Developers' can create animated actions & content but there is no scripting functionality ala SL beyond what 3DSMAX exports. I'd describe it as an instanced version of SL (or a P2P version take your pick). WoW is to Guild Wars as SL is to IMVU functionality wise.

Damn. It is clearly The One, that which we all knew was coming...except it's here. I'm surprised I'm just now hearing about this imminent dethroning of WoW. I'd try it out, but that "in your face every time you reboot" makes me want to vomit.

MORE HYPOTHETICAL YEY: If it had combat, quests, and PvP, would it still have appeal?

[Trippy]

Now that Blizzard has proven that taking your time and doing it right no matter the cost does in fact pay off in the end do you see the attitude changing to allow you and other developers the time and resources you need to make games of the caliber of wow?  I have no idea how much less time/money was pumped in EQ2 compared to WOW but i very seriously doubt it was in the same ratio as their sub numbers turned out.  I would imagine when the suits see that the difference between 40 million and 3 years vs 80 million and 6 years is 200k subs vs 7.5 million subs they might start to rethink their priorities.  At least thats my hope, i guess i should know better than that right?

I cannot tell you what the EQ2 development budget was. Your ratios are off, though. WoW really did outspend everyone (except for TSO) by 4x or so, I would guess. And yes, they reap more than 4x the rewards -- that's the nature of a commodified market where the products are substantially similar.

I believe his ratio of 2x is closer to the truth than your guess of 4x is. I know how much it cost to develop and to launch WoW and while it is a very large number, if you take into account that that number includes the cost of setting up their server infrastructure in the US and Korea (and possibly Europe as well, I'm not sure on that point) the "development" cost ratio is much closer to 2x than the 4x you are guessing. As a point of comparison The9 said in their recent conference call that they just spent 5 million US dollars building out their newest cluster of 40 realms so deploying a game as popular as WoW was even at launch requires some serious change, and The9's costs don't include the initial data center setup since they had 6 other clusters running plus their labor costs are *a lot* lower though the hardware costs are the same.

All the costs I've seen estimated for EQ 2 are the "development costs" and don't suggest that they include the infrastructure costs. However the WoW estimates do include the infrastructure costs. That means if you subtract out a server infrastructure cost estimate for WoW and compare the remaining costs the ratio is closer to 2x than 4x. E.g. let's say the development cost of EQ2 was $20 million and the WoW development + infrastructure cost was $80 million (which is way too high but we'll go with it for this example). If you subtract out, say, $20 million for the initial servers and data centers setup (I'm throwing Europe in there as well which may be wrong) you get $60 million compared to $20 million which is a 3 to 1 ratio and given that the $80 million estimate is much too high you get closer to the 2 to 1 estimate.

[Venkman]

Either back when I was at EQ2 Stratics or in a CGW mag review at that time (2003 time frame), SOE mentioned in an interview that they budgeted $25mil for EQ2. They built a new graphics engine for it, and a lot of the Station Exchange stuff didn't exist yet, so I imagine that cut into it as it would WoW and others.

[SnakeCharmer]

Question regarding the development costs of WoW vs EQ2...

Which game was immediately available to the most countries at launch?  It would seem to me, to get the most accurate development cost comparison, it would be best to discount the costs associated with a BIGGER launch that WoW possibly had. 

I guess my question is:  How much more did Blizzard spend on WoW than say, SOE did for EQ2, to make the game ITSELF.  To me, the extra "development" costs that Blizzard spent to make the game more available at launch in more countries (IF that is the case) are void.

[Trippy]

Question regarding the development costs of WoW vs EQ2...

Which game was immediately available to the most countries at launch?  It would seem to me, to get the most accurate development cost comparison, it would be best to discount the costs associated with a BIGGER launch that WoW possibly had. 

I guess my question is:  How much more did Blizzard spend on WoW than say, SOE did for EQ2, to make the game ITSELF.  To me, the extra "development" costs that Blizzard spent to make the game more available at launch in more countries (IF that is the case) are void.

WoW launched in South Korea and North America at the same time and Europe two months later. EQ 2 launched in NA and Europe at the same time.

[dwindlehop]

Dude, I was totally on topic n replies ago. My point was some developers had a game design for PvE content that is not instanced, not canned, and allows the player to make meaningful decisions and actions in the game's plot --- support the Amarr empire's slavers or fight for the scrappy but outnumberered Matari. The caveat is that it iis still just a dream in CCP's collective head.

[Krakrok]

MORE HYPOTHETICAL YEY: If it had combat, quests, and PvP, would it still have appeal?

I doubt it will ever have that kind of thing. It's coming from an internet company not a game company. It really has nothing to do with WoW either. The demographic is entirely different and it isn't subscription based.

[SnakeCharmer]

Question regarding the development costs of WoW vs EQ2...

Which game was immediately available to the most countries at launch?  It would seem to me, to get the most accurate development cost comparison, it would be best to discount the costs associated with a BIGGER launch that WoW possibly had. 

I guess my question is:  How much more did Blizzard spend on WoW than say, SOE did for EQ2, to make the game ITSELF.  To me, the extra "development" costs that Blizzard spent to make the game more available at launch in more countries (IF that is the case) are void.

WoW launched in South Korea and North America at the same time and Europe two months later. EQ 2 launched in NA and Europe at the same time.

Soooooo.....WoW had a bigger launch than EQ2, yes? 

[Trippy]

Soooooo.....WoW had a bigger launch than EQ2, yes? 

I don't have the numbers anymore but I'm pretty sure WoW launched with more servers than EQ 2 did.

[SnakeCharmer]

Soooooo.....WoW had a bigger launch than EQ2, yes? 

I don't have the numbers anymore but I'm pretty sure WoW launched with more servers than EQ 2 did.

OK.  That being said.

Throwing out that cost (a bigger launch), how much more did Blizzard spend than SOE to make the GAME.  The polished, working GAME.

[Trippy]

Throwing out that cost (a bigger launch), how much more did Blizzard spend than SOE to make the GAME.  The polished, working GAME.

Like I said above I believe that Blizzard spent about twice what SOE spent on EQ 2 developing just the game part. 4x is way off unless Raph is claiming that the $20 - $25 million bandied about for EQ 2 includes all the costs for the game (development, marketing, server infrastruture, etc.) putting the actual development costs closer to $10 - $15 million.

[Ironwood]

 But there were also a lot of good things being tried. (And I still need to make a HAM simulator so people can try what I was hoping it would play like).

You should not do this.

You will be totally disheartened if you ever do make it and we all turn round and say 'No, that also sucks ass.  And it's unworkable.'

Let it lie.

No. He should do it. Look, there's two possible outcomes if he puts together what he had in mind:

1) People think it sucks, and he learns from the experience, drops it and works on something else.
2) People love it, and he might use it now that he has something besides the galaxy of suck SWG became to point to the "fun" factor.

Right now, he's got the "It was never tried the way I designed" thing going. Often that's just an excuse for suck ("This only sucks because I was forced to compromise my VISION. See: Vanguard), but given the way the game industry pushes shit -- every once in awhile it's true. Only way to find out is for him to throw up a demo and let people try it, and then be appropriately sarcastic.

It's certainly better to try it out on a jaded and generally hostile enviroment then a bunch of starry-eyed beta testers who don't want to piss off the Powers That Be. (Although SWG's beta wasn't that bad, the NGE "sneak peaks" were. Flying your ass down to Austin for a super-sneak-peak? Virtually anyone is going to find something positive to say at that point, no matter how much it sucks. You want honest opinions? Find a bunch of sarcastic assholes who have been playing games since fucking Pong. They might not have jack shit in common with your target audience, but they're not really going to hold back either).

I think you just made my point.

:)

[Endie]

Yeah, Morat, I believe that Ironwood was saying "Find a bunch of sarcastic assholes who have been playing games since fucking Pong. They might not have jack shit in common with your target audience, but they're not really going to hold back either" as well.  He just reckoned that it might not be the closure Raph was looking for.  Let's face it, if Bartle and Trubshaw had knocked together an alpha of MUD and, upon excitedly roaming the corridors of Essex University for someone to show it off to, had stumbled upon proto-Sinij and ur-WUA, then the history of MMOs might have been a lot shorter.

Raph, I'd whole-heartedly recommend that you do fly some starry-eyed beta-testers to your fortress of solitude for a super-sneak-peak at the putative HAM simulator, then ask them what they think.  They'll be happy.  You'll be happy.  F13 won't be happy, but then hey, what were the odds?

[Sky]

Let's face it, if Bartle and Trubshaw had knocked together an alpha of MUD and, upon excitedly roaming the corridors of Essex University for someone to show it off to, had stumbled upon proto-Sinij and ur-WUA, then the history of MMOs might have been a lot shorter.

Awesome line.

[Morat20]

I think you just made my point.

:)

Raph's a big boy. He can handle it. And frankly, he'd probably find impressing the jaded forum monkeys a challenge.

[Venkman]

Soooooo.....WoW had a bigger launch than EQ2, yes? 

Bigger "tech":
Hard to compare the two though on that level. WoW's server architecture is probably pretty different from EQ2's, and then there's the question of how many player accounts can be supported per server (and then concurrency).

Bigger "success":
WoW launched in more territories and way more quickly ramped up into other ones throughout 2005. They hit 1.5mil subscribers four months after launch.

[geldonyetich]

Numbers?  Bah!  WoW is still doomed.  On some level.  Some mysterious level.  Where money hats are not desired, but rather, anti-money hats.  And my horde of cyborgs shred humanity on their titanium claws... <trails off>

Where was I?  Oh, right, EQ2 and WoW, different and not better or worse.

[SnakeCharmer]

Soooooo.....WoW had a bigger launch than EQ2, yes? 

Bigger "tech":
Hard to compare the two though on that level. WoW's server architecture is probably pretty different from EQ2's, and then there's the question of how many player accounts can be supported per server (and then concurrency).

Bigger "success":
WoW launched in more territories and way more quickly ramped up into other ones throughout 2005. They hit 1.5mil subscribers four months after launch.

What I was getting at, in my own particular way was this:

Blizzard spent XX million dollars developing the GAME (WoW).
SOE spent XX million dollars developing the GAME (EQ2).

The GAME being full of content from 1-60, WORKING classes, WORKING quests, WORKING content areas, etc.  In my mind (however warped it might be), to consider the costs associated with server ramp up for WoW versus EQ2 is a mistake.   More than anything, I wanted to know the cost to make the game itself (and the level of "polish" the game itself had versus the other).

[Bunk]

I believe his ratio of 2x is closer to the truth than your guess of 4x is. I know how much it cost to develop and to launch WoW and while it is a very large number, if you take into account that that number includes the cost of setting up their server infrastructure in the US and Korea (and possibly Europe as well, I'm not sure on that point) the "development" cost ratio is much closer to 2x than the 4x you are guessing. As a point of comparison The9 said in their recent conference call that they just spent 5 million US dollars building out their newest cluster of 40 realms so deploying a game as popular as WoW was even at launch requires some serious change, and The9's costs don't include the initial data center setup since they had 6 other clusters running plus their labor costs are *a lot* lower though the hardware costs are the same.

All the costs I've seen estimated for EQ 2 are the "development costs" and don't suggest that they include the infrastructure costs. However the WoW estimates do include the infrastructure costs. That means if you subtract out a server infrastructure cost estimate for WoW and compare the remaining costs the ratio is closer to 2x than 4x. E.g. let's say the development cost of EQ2 was $20 million and the WoW development + infrastructure cost was $80 million (which is way too high but we'll go with it for this example). If you subtract out, say, $20 million for the initial servers and data centers setup (I'm throwing Europe in there as well which may be wrong) you get $60 million compared to $20 million which is a 3 to 1 ratio and given that the $80 million estimate is much too high you get closer to the 2 to 1 estimate.

I think you should take all of the information you have gathered on the startup costs of MMoGs and put together a chart. Put it on your own website and you might become famous for it or something.


 

[Venkman]

What I was getting at, in my own particular way was this:

Blizzard spent XX million dollars developing the GAME (WoW).
SOE spent XX million dollars developing the GAME (EQ2).

The GAME being full of content from 1-60, WORKING classes, WORKING quests, WORKING content areas, etc.  In my mind (however warped it might be), to consider the costs associated with server ramp up for WoW versus EQ2 is a mistake.   More than anything, I wanted to know the cost to make the game itself (and the level of "polish" the game itself had versus the other).

Yea, figured something like that. Trouble is, those are pretty well kept secrets. It's sort of a competitive edge that companies have to hold onto. I would imagine it'd be easier to get info from SOE on this, because they make games themselves and provide services to enable others to make games. Blizzard, on the other hand, is way more vertically oriented. They ARE the game, AND the tech, AND the profit center. No real reason for them to bother telling anyone.

It's anyone's guess really.

[Montague]

WISE FWOM YOUW GWAVE!!!!!

http://www.primotechnology.com/2007/10/19/biowares-upcoming-mmo-based-in-kotor-universe/

"A source close to BioWare confirmed to us today that the studio’s upcoming untitled massively-multiplayer online RPG will be centered around the Star Wars universe, specifically that of Knights of the Old Republic, which the developer released in 2003. The game garnered critical acclaim and spawned a less-popular sequel, released by Obsidian two years later.

The game is being developed by the company’s Austin studio, formed in 2006 and headed by BioWare Creative Director James Ohlen, whose past credits include the first KOTOR, Neverwinter Nights, and Baldur Gate’s I and II.

This is not the first Star Wars-related MMORPG: Star Wars Galaxies debuted in the summer of 2003, followed by several expansions. It was generally well-received by fans and critics, but subscriber numbers plunged and never recovered after a controversial gameplay update in 2005. It’s estimated that the game now has fewer than 100,000 subscribers and less than 20,000 active players.

It’s currently unknown whether or not EA, which acquired BioWare last week, will act as publisher for this title, or if the studio had a previous arrangement with another publisher."


Necro post and a reference to the game that shall not be named. I like writing checks my post count cant cash.

[schild]

Obvious game is obvious.

[Montague]

Obvious game is obvious.

Eh pretty much. Germans bombed Pearl Harbor, film at 11.

I'm feeling twinges of excitement over the possibilities. I feel dirty and ashamed.

[Miasma]

They did this just to screw over schild's no SWG discussion idea .  Now SWG can be validly brought up in dozens of threads that will be created from now until well after launch KotORO.

[HaemishM]

A KotOR-based MMOG COULD be good. Or it could suck because it's an MMOG and the developers don't go far enough outside the diku comfort zone to be interesting. Without more information about the game itself, there's no way to know.

[Hoax]

Think this will have twitch combat?   

[Yegolev]

Sure we can know.  It will be DIKU and set 4000 years before the movies.  Raids on krayt dragon nests.  Bounty Hunters will be balanced with Jedi, world turns, etc.

[HaemishM]

You make sad pandas out of us all.

[MrHat]

Does LucasArts still have to give permission for all things SW?