More NC's MMO based on GW business model says Richard Garriott !

[Jayce]

I would imagine that if you were to out source your content creation team you probably the conceptual desing home made and subwork texturing 3dmodeling animation etc

Huh?

[Venkman]

That's actually the wrong way to do it since the quality will drop precipitously. Better to get the China people involved from the start. If you've seen the quality of content in Chinese online games you know that overall it's much lower than Korean or the top US standards. That's not because the artists are crap but because they work in an environment that focuses on getting content made as quickly and as cheaply as possible, stifling whatever creativity these people may have. It's basically a sweatshop environment for cranking out game content. If you have a team of them, removed from the sweatshop environment, working on content from the beginning you can train them up to produce content at the quality you need.

A good point, and at least to me, GW has shown more creativity than the normal bang-out-new-models/textures variety. It still stands that the actual creation of content over there is going to be cheaper based on salary and cost of living though. But as mentioned, the relationship needs to be carefully managed, on both sides. The worst thing to do is to make assumptions about what's going on the other side of the world.

[Trippy]

Arena.net has their own art team run by this guy.

What was wrong with your original reply?

I didn't want to be mistaken for an NCsoft spokesperson.

But we already assume that all red names are official spokespeople for their companies :-D

[tazelbain]

Lum speaks for all MMOGs, everywhere, past and future.

[ynot]

The way Anet uturned  has a taste of Failure for the GW game concept. A.net tried to make something original, but after all there is nothing like a good old receipt for MMO: several race, hundred of character level , power leveling, raids etc... No subscription to pimp on there GW user base .. with the so far released info GW2 would had been with a sub, I would really had nothing original compare to any other MMO.

Pretty sad that they dropped the original GW Concept, I guess It was a pragmatical choice.

[waylander]

Guild Wars 2 Overview

At least they are planning to do the PVP right the second time around, and just allow people who only want to PVP to jump right in. Isaiah and I were chatting over MSN last night about how that would help draw the PVP crowd back to the game, and maybe give a little redemption for what they pulled on us in GW1.

[ynot]

be careful with Gaile shortcuts.
According to the resume that was given to the press. ATM
the main PVP mode will be the "Mist Battle" this is teh end game where players from different "realm" can fight (instance of hundred(s) of played) doing zone control battle.
This PvP mode as gaile stated will be PVE, low level char will be able to access the zone to powerlevel as buff bot / side kick / bitches or what ever you chose to call it.

There will be an other PvP mode knowned as GvG (don't necessarily see GW1 GVG although it share the name) this mode will be give your char temporary UAX. So far A.net doe not speak about ladder , does not speak about competition. But do mention that depending how well you perform in GvG , your REALM will get fame and wealth..

Given the current info  I really don't see anything of GW in this World of Guild Quest 2...

[Llava]

Sounds more like Dark Age of Guilds, imo.

[KallDrexx]

I like how they claim that gw1 was getting overbloated with the new chapters (which I agree, it was) yet they are going for a no monthly fee method again.  How will they pull that off without going back to bloat?

[tazelbain]

Maybe its RMT and they aren't brave enough to admit it yet.
But regardless, everything they are saying doesn't add up.

[Hoax]

I'm sure they are considering trying to implement a cash shop, that seems like the best system out there for mmo's these days.

[KallDrexx]

Actually I guess the meat is in the wording.  In the PC Gamer article they mention a lot about the campaign model leaving, however they also make it known that the next guild wars expansion is an expansion and not a campaign.  They have defined campaign as a stand alone product that integrates with the others (pretty much).  So the reasoning for the no level cap could mean that their revenue is going to come from selling expansions a lot, but you will be required to have previous expansions (unlike the current gw1 model).

Of course, how will the increase in levels affect PvP and how will they encourage pure pvpers to buy expansions, especially with giving them UAX.

[ynot]

GW was suppose to get extension like gwen from the start.(no tutorial only lvl20 .. I had Jeff on tape explaining that)
I'm betting that the free furnace was an avatar of what was supposed to be such extension. But they had to drop that because NC ask them to redesign the game durring summer 2005
redesign to make it more suitable to Korean Taste ( GW was failing in Korea) => chapter 2 factions...
Nothing was forcing them to keep this model after they could have went back to extension and only once a year new classes..
Hell they did went back to extension : GWEN .

IMO the "2 chapter a years was to difficult to keep so we had to to gw2" is horse shit

as far as the model is concerned. I think that they look a there GW sale figure and they thought our key sale point is no monthly fee, we will make some thing a bit orginal we will benefit of teh GW user base and if we make a MMORPG loads of MMORPG will understand our game this time and will buy it => It seems that they are not that far from beeing profitable , a moderate increase in player base would do it.

I guess that once they can properly assess there sale target for GW2  they will set there mind up on how they will make $.

[Venkman]

Will GW2 replace GW1? That seems to be the implication, but if they're doing well enough with GW1, I can't see why they'd launch a completely different game at the risk of cannabalization. Unless they're projecting ahead and realizing the GW1 model is soon to be unsupportable, or not enough people are buying expansions?

Otherwise, the GW2 writeup indicates a fairly traditional diku. Monthly fee, ingame adverts, or microtrans could be fine. But that's less important than having to come up with a strategy that will pull people into yet-another-derivative and out of the time sinks already having captured them.

[robusticus]

I was curious about this one.  2 million boxes sold in 06, for revenue of $14 million and a loss of $6 million?  Is it me or does something not add up?  I realize retailers get a chunk, but that's averaging $7 a box.  Is that just measuring developer royalties, or is that a function of currency exchange, or what?  The financial statement DID say the results were unaudited.

[Lantyssa]

Developers only get a tiny fraction of retail sales.  It's one reason digital distribution is a great option IF there is enough publicity for people to know it exists.  Then it becomes an exercise in figuring out if your title will net more with a high-volume a retail precense or a lower volume through direct means.

[shiznitz]

I was curious about this one.  2 million boxes sold in 06, for revenue of $14 million and a loss of $6 million?  Is it me or does something not add up?  I realize retailers get a chunk, but that's averaging $7 a box.  Is that just measuring developer royalties, or is that a function of currency exchange, or what?  The financial statement DID say the results were unaudited.

All the guys who worked on making that 2 million boxes sold game weren't all sent packing. They have to be paid for their work on the new games. Those expenses get booked as the revenue from the game they finished 3-9 months ago flows in.

[robusticus]

I don't doubt the costs.  It is the revenue that looks funky.  I would think if you sold 2 or 3 million of ANYTHING you'd be rolling in the money, not sitting on 7 figures of red ink.  Hence Garriot's comments.

It's even weirder with the fact that as of August 06, in time for Nightfall, there WAS a digitial distribution system.  And the prices for that are the same as retail.  So where's the money going?  I want some GW licenses for $1, too, damnit.

[Lantyssa]

50 employees at $35k a year is 1.75 million.  Then you have licensing, promotion, hardware, software, office space and utilities, fully stocked fridges, conferences, business trips, waste, profit distribution, accounting tricks...

It can easily add up.

[shiznitz]

The digital distribution system might known by current players, but I had no idea about it until after I bought a box.  This is my bad since I had many people I could have asked, but why seek it out when the actual CDs can be found at a discount and having the CDs is usually easier when I get a new PC.

[Lantyssa]

That is one of the downsides.

The best is probably some middle ground where retail presence provides advertising, lets people know the game exists, and picques their interest then they hopefully go home and purchase it online.  It could be sold a more cheaply online to encourage the practice, dressed up as saving on physical materials, yet each sale would still yield more profit than a retail box.

[shiznitz]

Sell 3-6 hours of gameplay in the stores on a demo disk for $9.99. Then, if the player likes the game, he/she can by the rest digitally for $39.99. The risk of that model is clear though: the first 3-6 hours better grab them.