Well, duh! It's a service they provide free to customers. Free means they make no money for it. Making no money on something when it costs you money to provide it means it's a freakin' loss! They couldn't have made much on advertising revenue (if any at all) so how did they expect Battle.net to pay for itself? Battle.net was probably a loss from Day 1 and all of a sudden they want me to feel sympathy? The only solid revenue source that I can think of would be a certain portion of games sales going directly to fund the network. As someone who used to cook the books for several corporations, I can tell you that you can make just about any portion of you company look like a profit or loss center.

After all that raving though, I am looking for to a MMOG from Blizzard. Perhaps they can become the only company in recent memory to release one without all the @#$%! glitches that have plagued others. Here's hoping....

Uhm when did they ask anyone to feel sympathy? Oh and you would have to ask someone who ran a large website but even just a couple years ago banner adds paid a decent amount of money didnt they?

It made money at first for Blizzard, I presume from banner ad sales. They might have pulled in $20,000-30,000 per million page views before the online ad market collapsed.

Anyway, I was just speculating. They may just be doing an MMOG because they want to play something besides EQ.

I thought battle.net was paid for throught the retail purchase of Blizzard products. Unlike EQ which can be purchased for anywhere from $10 - $30 depending on the product combination, Blizzard products are usually higher priced for longer periods of time.

-DavidCPA

Sure, bnet is subsidized through retail sales, but you can see the difficulty there. The expense keeps scaling up with each new game, yet the older games don't continue to contribute as much through sales.

Plus, when they went to the client-server model for Diablo 11 (the other games are peer-to-peer) they scaled up their bandwidth and server costs a great deal.

With all the work they did for Diablo 2, they've probably already solved a whole lot of the back-end issues with MMO games. All the previous battle.net games were peer to peer, and b.net was basically a chat room and ranking service. But with D2, it's client/server, they store character data, run games on the server machine, and globally manage stuff like items, monster stats, character data, etc. Plus the cheating bit, which they're not perfect at but definitley ahead of the game.

I'm curious to hear what the actual gameplay will be like, but a blizzard MMORPG is almost as big a license to print money as The Sims Online. Maybe bigger.

"I'm curious to hear what the actual gameplay will be like, but a blizzard MMORPG is almost as big a license to print money as The Sims Online. Maybe bigger."

Probably bigger. I'm not sure a lot of Sims fans will be willing to pay a monthly fee.

Another thing to consider will be gameplay. Folks who like having a fishtank don't always like the ocean. The Sims is a fun small controlled experiment and soap opera starring AI. The Sims Online is going to be filled with people fuelled by the image of "Sims: Hot Date".

Expect tabloid headlines and "A Mother's Nightmare" stories on 20/20.

Get a load of these!

http://www.rpgplanet.com/features/screenshots/worldofwarcraft/

Yeah I dont know anough about WOW yet to be excited yet. But those graphics are the prettiest I'v ever seen in a mmorpg. Fortunate I soppose as we all know we wont be playing this game for at least another three years.

hehe, i just took off my fanboy shirt... yeah its still too early to tell how good this game will be. Read Kasavin's (that sneak) article on gamespot.. it basically sounds like a Diablo online game thats mmrpg but in Warcraft clothing. Fast gameplay over slow gameplay seems to be a credo with the game.

This is a risky undertaking... but Blizzard hasnt failed yet since the first Warcraft... I'm sure they have a hit.

http://www.blizzard.com/wow/

etc

Those graphics look really nice, yes, but they pale next to Star Wars: Galaxies. At least in screenshots. It's hard to compare fairly until I see WoW in motion (downloading gameplay movie now). But Galaxies looks like...like the FUTURE. It's AMAZINGLY gorgeous.

By the way, raise your hand if you think half the reason it's called "world of warcraft" is so they can have the acronym "Wow!"

WOW! yeah this will be a good match. This almost as good as those console wars... well maybe not. I mean, we've got about 2 years to spare til any of them come out. So til then its just hype and screenshots and interviews... the same ole game hype drill.

But think about the choices... Verant or BLizzard. I know its too early... but really, Blizzard hands down. no contest imo. Star Wars is the trick card... the franchise name. Too early to tell i suppose.

etc

I think the WOW graphics compare ok with Galaxies. Blizzard's going for a more cartoony look is all.

As interesting as Galaxies looks, I'm not really a fan of the Star Wars universe, which I think is a bit dopey. I prefer a fantasy setting. WOW looks really nice.

Star Wars a bit dopey is an understatement. As much as i love the original Star Wars, seeing it now, it seems like a mess of a gameworld. But Star Wars Galaxies supposedly uses the pnp rpg as a backdrop moreso the movie.. from what i read that is.

Yeah I'm a litle more hyped for WoW... fantasy is my fave genre of rpg.

Oh Im still hyped for Star Wars Galxies somewhat... but EQ kinda dilutes it.

etc

Personally, I'm totally psyched about them both. Can't wait for the day I get to justify to my wife paying twenty-five bucks a month so I can play two online games -- probably neither of which I'll get to play nearly as often as I'd like!

Considering it takes Blizzard almost as long as 3drealms to release a new game, I think it's hardly right to say that they haven't failed yet.

Oh, hell, who am I kidding, as much as I don't like RPG's, D2 was actually pretty fun for awhile. And that's as close to having a failure as I'd say they'd come.

But at least Blizzard isn't like Westwood now. "Hey folks, let's do something that's been done since '98, package the Dune label on it, and say that we're reinventing the genre like we did 6 years ago!"

>The expense keeps scaling up with each new game, yet the older games don't continue to contribute as much through sales.

I remember seeing some financials on Blizzard a year or so back and Blizzard consistently pulled in a hefty profit, even in the years they didn't release a game. If I remember right (and my memory isn't what it used to be), in 1999, when they didn't release anything, they turned a profit of 8 million dollars. That's pretty damn impressive.

As for the costs of Battle.net, I'd like to know how many of the three million people who bought Diablo 2 play online at any given time, since that's probably the biggest consumer of bandwith.

>Probably bigger. I'm not sure a lot of Sims fans will be willing to pay a monthly fee.

I recently interviewed Will Wright and he emphasized that a lot of people who play the Sims are first-time gamers and that The Sims is the first and only game they've played. I think those people (with some gentle nudging) will be fairly easy to move because it will be a familiar gaming environment for them. The other big advantage The Sims Online has is that it will garner mainstream attention, something Worlds of WarCraft probably won't get.

The other big question is pretty straight-forward--does anyone care? WoW sounds mildly interesting to me, but it's also pretty damn predictable. Personally, I think a StarCraft mmorpg would be much more interesting.

"I think those people (with some gentle nudging) will be fairly easy to move because it will be a familiar gaming environment for them. The other big advantage The Sims Online has is that it will garner mainstream attention, something Worlds of WarCraft probably won't get."

I doubt that. I don't think most people fully grasp the concept of a persistent world RPG. Even Sims players. And most of those that do move online probably won't stay there. Still, in pure "Sims terms", capturing a tiny percentage of the market on a monthly basis would be a hefty profit indeed.

-Andrew

>Considering it takes Blizzard almost as long as 3drealms to release a new game

Oh, now COME ON. They did Duke Nukem 3D in '96, and then Shadow Warrior. I don't think counting the expansions is fair, since they weren't made in-house. That's two games in the last 5 years. I can't even remember if Shadow Warrior was developed by 3DR or not.

Blizzard has internally made Warcraft 2, Diablo, Starcraft, and Diablo II, as well as expansions for each of them (except Diablo, which was made externally I believe). And if Warcraft III beats Duke Forever out, that's another one.

Blizzard announces a new game or expansion each year at ECTS, and manages to ship about one per year.

"The other big question is pretty straight-forward--does anyone care? WoW sounds mildly interesting to me, but it's also pretty damn predictable. Personally, I think a StarCraft mmorpg would be much more interesting."

I prefer a fantasy setting, so WoW interests me. It's too early to even know how the game will play, though.

All MMOGs suffer from the same problem -- pointlessness. In a single player game you get the drama of playing through a story and events are keyed around you. In an MMOG you just focus on improving your character.

The Sims Online looked really boring to me. It looks like a graphical chatroom more than anything else.

>I don't think most people fully grasp the concept of a persistent world RPG.

The Sims Online won't be sold to them that way, it'll be sold as the next iteration of a game they already love playing. Except now, instead of playing by themselves, they'll be able to play with their friends and families. And they'll probably never hear the terms "RPG", "persistent world" or any of those other terms that mean so much in our world.

Plus, more than likely they'll read about it in Time and Newsweek and EW and all the major newspapers, and that coverage will cast the game as something they can easily understand and play.

"The Sims Online won't be sold to them that way, it'll be sold as the next iteration of a game they already love playing."

The problem I see is that these non-gamers are more resistent to paying a fee to play. I'd guess that a lot of them play the free online card games and puzzle games. Getting them to pay a monthly recurring fee might be tricky.

The other issue is that my wife and kids, who love The Sims, don't like the idea of not having a family to monitor. When I told them that you no longer have a family and all the related soap operas and instead have a single character you control, they told me they wouldn't play that kind of game. What they like about The Sims is that there's this family they want to take care of indirectly. They love to follow the soap operas of who's in love with whom, who is angry with whom, and so on. In The Sims Online all that's gone, sort of. Every Sim is a real person instead of an unpredictable AI construct.

>Every Sim is a real person instead of an unpredictable AI construct.

And then there are people like me who find that idea pretty interesting. :-)

The Sims Online will be a tough sell, there's no doubt about it, but I think WoW will be an even tougher sell. If I had an interest in playing a MMORPG, I'd already be playing EQ or Asheron's Call or something else. It's going to come down to Blizzard's ability to take people from those games. Is the WarCraft universe going to be that big a draw?

"If I had an interest in playing a MMORPG, I'd already be playing EQ or Asheron's Call or something else. It's going to come down to Blizzard's ability to take people from those games. Is the WarCraft universe going to be that big a draw?"

Actually, I think there's probably a large pool of Blizzard fans who haven't tried MMOGs yet who will try WoW. Also, Blizzard has that Korean fan base too.

As to The Sims Online, I think it will be a big seller. I don't doubt that. I'm just not sure how many Sims fans will play it. In my mind the question isn't if it will be successful, but how successful it will be? Will it be a million subscriber game or a 150,000 subscriber game?

Anyone have a feel for how the new paid episode of Majestic is doing?

This is only the second thread on this game and already I'm sick of the acronym, WoW. :P

--Dave

The Sims Online has missed the boat on what makes The Sims fun. The more I read interviews, I think Will Wright is pretty clueless too. Also the Sims online doesn't seem to add any game play. If you are going to gut a game of its concept, you are going to have to add more game play than chat.

>Actually, I think there's probably a large pool of Blizzard fans who haven't tried MMOGs yet who will try WoW. Also, Blizzard has that Korean fan base too.

I also think by the time WoW comes out, Asheron's Call will have a tiny fanbase and most of the current players of EQ will have either left that game or will be desperate for an alternative. I'm not a fan of MMORPGs at all, but I do think that Star Wars Galaxies, Sims Online and WOW will take the genre into the mainstream.

They all have much more mainstream appeal than the current, second generation games (Anarchy Online, WW2 Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane), all of which will only appeal to niche markets or current fans of the other games.

Stefan

>Actually, I think there's probably a large pool of Blizzard fans who haven't tried MMOGs yet who will try WoW. Also, Blizzard has that Korean fan base too.

I'll give you Korea, but still I think Blizzard has its work cut out for them. I know a lot of people who love WarCraft but won't have anything to do with WoW because it's an RPG and they don't like RPGs, they like RTS games. And that's the potential problem--here is an MMORPG that is based on an RTS.

I was thinking about this last night, and what I really want is a massively-multiplayer StarCraft game that's set up like WWII Online. You can be a Terran Marine, control a Goliath, or be a zergling. Imagine being in a bunker firing out at hundreds of attacking zerglings. That would be awesome.

Why on earth would you want to be a Zergling? Most of the time, gameplay would consist of spawn, die, respawn, die, respawn, actually make it to the bunker, die.

Still, I see your point about a StarCraft MMOG.

Heh -- yeah, being a zergling would be a drag. You'd probably start as one and hunt AI-controlled critters until you gained enough XP to become a hydralisk or something.

Who knows? We may see a Starcraft MMOG at some point too.

As for MMOGs in general. I just started playing EQ about 4 weeks ago and I am already tired of it. I have a 15th level Mage and now when I log in I just as myself, "why?".

EQ consists of nothing more than a virtual jogger game and a "pressed attack button and stare at screen" game. Pretty fricken boring if you ask me.

As for SWG, I just HOPE they make the world real, in the sense of a social atmosphere and society. EQ's problem is that there is just no imersion into a "world" that I can sink my teeth into. If SWG can create a real society where laws are enforced and moral and ethical structures apply I will be sucked in so far I might never play another game.

The only way they could do this though is through money. You get money for doing what you should and penalized money for doing what you shouldn't. Hard model to enforce but it is really the only way you could make people "play" the game instead of just running around and abusing the environment.

Just a thought. More like a pipe dream though.

Jeff

I have a friend who still plays a lot of EQ, and for him the draw is the logistics behind trying to arrange large group outings (12+ people). With that perspective, there's definitely a social aspect to EQ which transcends the basic game mechanics.

On the other hand, I fall into the "hit attack button = boring" category. I would much prefer something more along the lines of a persistent FPS where player skill is as important as equipment or character experience levels. Basically, it isn't enough for my character to improve; I want to feel like I'm improving too (even if the improvement is "assisted" by better equipment, etc.).

- Alan

---

Quote:

On the other hand, I fall into the "hit attack button = boring" category.

---

>in 1999, when they didn't release anything, they turned a profit of 8 million dollars.

I think Diablo was essentially a '99 game. It was the game that was released so close to the New Year that it actually ended up winning Game of the Year awards for '98 and '99, right?

re: Sims Online - the reason The Sims is popular is not because of it's game-y aspects. It's because average everyday ordinary people can make cool houses and design kitchens and play house with virtual people who do funny and unexpected things. Of the 4+ million Sims owners, like 500,000 gamers are trying to "play the game", the rest are having a ball screwing around with little goofy virtual people, to no end.

The Sims has a pseudo-social, voyeuristic, real-world appeal that has gotten people who have no interest in games of any kind hooked on it.

Sims Online is not what most gamers want, and it's everything the other 3 million Sims fans do. It's more social, more voyeuristic, more real-world related. It's AOL chat rooms and instant messaging with fake personalities and popularity rankings. It appeals to the "Reality TV watcher" in the general populace.

I think it's going to pull in fat sacks of cash money like nobody's business.

Me, I'm a people watcher. I can't WAIT to play that game, because I'm going to have an endless source of amusement just kicking back in front of my computer with a beer and watching real people all over the world make a total ass of themselves. It's what I do downtown on the weekends, and now I'll be able to do it all week or when the weather's bad. =)

Maybe Sims Online won't be a very good "game," but it will be an amazingly good online toybox.

"I have a friend who still plays a lot of EQ, and for him the draw is the logistics behind trying to arrange large group outings (12+ people). With that perspective, there's definitely a social aspect to EQ which transcends the basic game mechanics. "

Yes this is what Everquest has in spades. though to get to this level of gameplay you really have to be an "expert" in the game (play over 30 days fulltime- 30*24 = 720 hours). Even if i despise EQ now, they did make party dynamics pretty cool. When you're playing a healer, you really do feel the heat when you are lom/oom (low on mana or out of mana). There were some monumental EQ battles i remember and alot of them were b4 level 30! Lotsa fun, though half the time was staring at a book meditating/chatting.

etc

---

Quote:

I think Diablo was essentially a '99 game. It was the game that was released so close to the New Year that it actually ended up winning Game of the Year awards for '98 and '99, right?

---

>I think Diablo was essentially a '99 game

Not even close. Diablo was released the last week of 1996 or the fist week of 1997, depending upon who you ask, heh. StarCraft came out in 98. Brood War came out in 99.

EQ has no "real" social aspect to the game that is really based on some "reality" in EQ.

If you are chatting is usually not about something relevant to EQ and the only reason to party is to go out and kill stuff. Ooooo.. what fun.

The quests are criptic at best and have an imersive feel equal to playing air guitar while watching MTV.

There is just nothing there to puts me into some fantasy world where I take on a "role" or "character". There is NO role-playing in EQ. It is just massive mutliplayer that is about it.

To me EQ is jsut a more complicated and slower paced version of playing Diablo II.

But in EQ being in a good group was the best and nothing like Diablo. If everyone did their job correctly it was like watching a finely oiled machine running. One misstep could be the death of everyone when you were in a tough area. It was very intense and fun when it went well.

Now finding a good group (or any group) at high levels? That is another story.

Okay, Desslock says 96/97, Dave says 97/98. I'm gonna go look it up.

http://www.blizzard.com/blizz-anniversary/timeline.shtml

It was released in 96 (on December 27th, another page on that blizzard anniversary site mentions).

And it looks like that 8 million profit in '99 was a result of the Korean Starcraft boom.

Remember, the best thing about MMO games (in my opinion) is that you don't have to take anything "mainstream."

300,000 people paying you $10 a month will make you more money over the life of your product than all of the games that sell a couple million copies.

The first dev. team that manages to make an MMO game that gets a million subscribers at $10 a pop/month are gonna be the guys who truly get to act like movie stars. That's when this industry enters the Big Time.

We might see that million subscriber mark with Galaxies, The Sims Online, or World of Warcraft. Those would be my leading candidates, although I'm not sure that the people who keep buying The Sims are the kind of gamers who will be willing to pay a monthly fee to play a game.

I think WoW could do it if you factor in the Korean market.

I may not like EQ as much as I used to, but it sure was fun to play the role of healer, to be depended on. There is a skill to grouping, its a dynamic gameplay element to EQ that no other mmrpg i've played has done well. If WoW can keep this element of gameplay and increase the speed of the game about 4x ... they got me for sure.

Grouping is the bread and butter of these mmrpgs. Its so much fun when you have a well oiled machine taking on things in EQ, as Xaroc said. BTW, Xaroc are you still playing EQ?

If only EQ just quickened a bit. Im sure they might be doing some offshoot EQ servers soon with Luclin (to remain new), maybe a fast play one would bring me back...

etc

---

Quote:

Okay, Desslock says 96/97, Dave says 97/98. I'm gonna go look it up.

---

In in EQ the only reason to get in a group is to kill stuff. Do you realize how boring that gets after a while?

Oooo.. look another Frost Giant. Someone pull him. (Hit attack button or press spell button over and over again. Giant dies.) Wow, that was fun. Wash, rinse, repeat.

I hope SWG has more depth to it than EQ. If I play a Jedi, or a Stormtropper I want to "feel" like I am one when I am playing. I want to do the things that they should do in real life. I want more motivation than just getting a better item. Whooptie doo.

I hope SWG has no grouping at all. The entire concept is so D&D fantasy world. The only reason for a group should be for communication if at all.

Also I hope SWG stays away from levels and goes strictly skill based. And I pray they don't make the game one big item and credit collecting kill fest. I want story. I want plot. I want motivation.

I admit it will take alot of effort to achieve this but I really expect no less from the Star Wars universe.

Jeff

I wouldn't hold your breath, Jeff. The MMORPG genre seems completely unable to break away from the get-a-pellet routine. With Verant's past and ongoing history of game design ("expansion packs = BIGGER pellets!"), and their already-ludicrous design ("The first expansion pack will involve some twitch type skills in addition to the RPG piloting skills of your character when flying space ships,") it doesn't look like there's any changes on the horizon.

Maybe the influence from some of the ex-UO people will improve things, but I'm not holding my breath. Here's my quick, entirely speculative guide to it:

Begin the game by leveling up killing Ewoks. Get slightly better rusty guns. Flying between planets will take 15 minutes of boredom, maybe with some token Tetris-clone thrown in to pass the time. The game world will never change, unless you count "developers randomally rearranging mob locations and removing/inserting zones." The supposed classes that don't "need combat to advance" will be pointless and broken. Everyone will be forced into playing a neutral or a rebel, as designing a way for people to work their way up through the Empire organization in anything more complicated than EQ's faction system is "too hard." The economic classes will be just as boring as UO (they specifically mention that you'll want a mining skill or two in the FAQ, though making you a factory owner with it is vaguely interesting.) You'll need to procure food for yourself, because it's boring and unfun and Very Important to make your character eat.

As for space combat: Ha. Ha. Ha.

They're not creating "Everquest in Space." They're creating "Everquest combined with UO" in space. It'll probably look pretty good, though. Oh, my cup runneth over.

Read the FAQ, it's pretty amusing:
http://starwarsgalaxies.station.sony.com/features/faq.jsp

The only neat thing I see in that entire thing: buying a house and hiring an NPC to run a shop there for you. This sounds perilously close to "having a real-world job," however.

Why would Verant or anyone radically change their thinking on MMORPG's? Everquest is a massive, massive success. Massive. Nobody should underestimate the degree of success Everquest is - even with "only" 400,000 paying customers, they are making an absolute PILE of money right now, and it's clear that their non-PVP, group-oriented, item-centric world is spot on.

Look at Diablo - same deal - there's absolutely ZERO content added after you beat it the first time, yet there are thousands of people who only play for those items.

You think SWG will be different? World of Warcraft? No way. Any MMORPG that wants to be successful will be an evolutionary change from Everquest and not a revolutionary one.

People want community. Sure, EQ is very heavy-handed about forcing people to group and that can be toned down, but why play an MMORPG at all if you don't like other people?

People love to get invested in their characters. What better way to create that investment than by making an item-centric world? You don't think SWG is going to be the same way? It'll be worse! They're already talking about having different hair styles, clothing sets and more. If anything, SWG is going to be EQ's item-based world times ten. And people are going to suck it down, because that's what they want.

One thing they want to do with SWG that's different is offer a lot of non-combat things to do. They want to let you set up a shop, for instance, or run an in-game newspaper that other players can buy and read.

Ok, two things different. As far as I know, SWG isn't really level-based but is skill-based.

Anyway, I think there's a lot of pie-in-sky stuff they want to do so I'm dubious.

Personally, WoW sounds more like what I want to do -- run around and kill things. As long as Blizzard can keep that from getting boring after a year of play, I'll be happy.

I only have two real complaints about EQ:

1. The downtime.
2. The slow leveling.

'Look at Diablo - same deal - there's absolutely ZERO content added after you beat it the first time, yet there are thousands of people who only play for those items.'

Good point. I wrote the above because I think an MMORPG that *isn't* just Diablo writ large would make you ten times the amount that Everquest cum Vader would. I'm sure it'll make them a pile of cash, but it awon't be any more fun for me, or a lot of other people, than Everquest is.

People don't talk about "item collecting" or "character design" when they discuss what they want out of a MMORPG, though. It's all about "mutating worlds" and "social constructs." Where's the disconnect?

"People don't talk about "item collecting" or "character design" when they discuss what they want out of a MMORPG, though. It's all about "mutating worlds" and "social constructs." Where's the disconnect?"

I dunno -- I don't want all that social stuff. I want a game I can log onto and have fun for an hour or two. I don't want to be involved in some artificial society.

Just give me some good monster bashing with an interesting element of persistence in the game and I'll be happy.

400k subscribers * 10 dollars a month = 4 million a month * 12 months = 48 million dollars a year give or take a few million.

I just hope Verant uses this money to really make a great game. I think they are making a mistake by focusing solely on mmrpg's. I'm sure they could sell a cool half a million games, if they developed a knockout solo EQ game... I would definitely try it if they wanted to make one. Actually, Verant should one up Blizzard by making there own Diablo / Starcraft game ... but they are sinking there money with Planetside and Sovereign... you know not EVERY FRIGGIN GAME has to be mmrpg. but watching some Planetside video shots, looks pretty cool... rambling !

etc

Don't confuse gross with net.

Servers cost money. Infrastructure costs money. Bandwidth costs money. Staff cost money.

They aren't clearing anything close to that total after the basic costs of running the game.

--Dave

I know *exactly* how much their servers and bandwidth cost, and can extrapolate their staffing budget, and let's just say they're still bringing home the bacon.

And that's not even counting the gravy that boxed product sales bring in.

It's an unbelievable business model for them. Why Sony is behind on rolling out an online business model for PS2 boggles the mind.

Aaagh! Mark! Noooooo!

Don't you want more out of a game than "Heh, heh. Bash monster. Get good stuff. Oooo.. Look at me and my cool stuff. I'm 39th level. Me good. Drool."?

If you want that play Diablo. What is the point of have a multiplayer online persisant game world, if it is not to have social and moral dilema played out on you computer? THAT is what makes the game interesting!

If I play a storm trooper where is the excitement in going out and shooting Jawaas so I can "level"? That is fricken boring as hell.

If I am playing a stormtrooper I want, for example, to guard an outpost base from possible rebel attack. Check IDs of suspicous characters. Apprehend crimminals. Blast away at the occasional smuggler sneaking out of town. I WANT to get a mission on the radio that tells me, "Be on the lookout for two stolen droids traveling with two men. They are armed and dangerous." I want to be him!

Nothing could be more boring than wander the deserts of Tantooine looking for "sand lizards" or some other stupid creature to kill so that I gather enough lizard pelts and eventually sell them so that I can get enough credits to finally buy my "Rusty Blaster". Kieeerist how utterly boring.

Jeff

Jeff - don't forget that "guarding an outpost" would be boring as all hell 99% of the time. Who wants to sit around and do nothing most of the time for a couple minutes of action?

Actually, when you think about it, you just described EQ! :)

If you think about the life of your average Stormtrooper on your average planet, I'd say he lives a pretty boring life. Not to mention the chafing from that rediculous armor, which doesn't stop laser blasts anyway!

Come on quit droning on about semantics. You can give the outpost guards other activities to do, or you can set a certain time they must guard. The reward being a credit payout and some sort of point advance in rank. Sure, if you think it is boring and don't want to do it then choose to do something else BUT if you do guard you are rewarded AND you get the possibility of joining in battle where the rewards would increase dramaticly.

If you use a reward base system based on "Do this get X reward" you can compel people to behave in a realistic way and at the sametime create a believable world.

Just use your imagination and you can think of countless possibilities. I know I can.

Another example: Crimminals. People who commit crimes that are discovered and reported are listed at the central stormtrooper barracks. When you log in you can choose to go "Policing" which means you investigate the crime and watch out of wanted criminals. These crimminals can be either real players or NPCs. You may need to get a larger group of storm troopers together to make a raid on a local illegal establishment or rebel hideout. The reward being.. Credits AND say prestige or points towards climbing in rank. Also you some sort of measureable progress on attaining new skills our getting better at current ones.

I could go on and on for hours on how you could do this, but I can't type for that long.

As for "punishment" you can loss credits, or prestige (i.e. standing with people), or rank. You could possibly be branded as a rebel, or possibly a crimminal. Then you could be hunted by bounty hunters and once you are killed your record is altered either to remove your crime or possibly lower the bounty amount on your head until it reaches zero, whereas you would then be "clean" agian.

Think about it! This game could be like no other and FAR from the boring pesudo "Hamster push button. Hamster get pellet." game like EQ is.

You don't need to supply an endless stream on brianless monsters for your players to kill to entertain them. Just think about it! What if you could REALLY feel like you were a citizen and a part of the Star Wars world? The social intereaction, the rumors, the drama, the stories, the mystery! God! That would be fun enough! I don't need to go aggro sand lizrds to have fun. Who cares about that, when I have Los Isley's spaceport to roam about in!

Jeff

I just think Verant should make a solo player crpg... they sure can afford it. But they really seem greedy. The idea of pay for play in all there games gives me a sour taste, maybe if they packaged all there games (besides EQ) like EA will do, maybe it will seem better. I'm just tired of mmrpg's as well, theyre all the same hack n slash. But im still hyped for WoW because it will be faster paced. There still is a lot of room open for innovation in mmrpgs... Lineage and EQ and UO have proved they are viable games, internationally... so the next step is innovation. But none of the ones coming out are not that much innovative. If you think about it... UO is still ahead in terms of features and gameplay for mmrpgs.

Also, Star Wars Galacies will let us see what woprats really look like and if they're really "not much bigger than 2 meters!"

etc

if on the subject of crpg design, has any company been able to break away from the stat-point pen and paper system that DnD pioneered oh so many years ago? One thing The Sims did more or less correctly was really try to break away from the concept of skill and level points, and even so it was still in many ways a mathematical maximization game; i need X friends at Y friendship and Z many talent points ect. Yet, it had so many interactivities possible, things to do that had no relation to stat points, the underlying stats driving the game were disguised.

What i have always pined for in a crpg was hyper or ultra-reality, reality condensed with all the boring parts cut out. I don't want to sleep or eat or manage a shop, i want to explore the most dangerous mountain passes man has ever seen, watched the most gorgeous sunsets even beholden unto human eyes, fight in the most titanic battles, cross the most forbidding deserts and wastes, watch the brilliant stars over the ocean on a small canoe sailing across the open seas. I want to be able to influence a dynamic, RTS like world, with real economies more or less real AI npcs. I want to hunt animals by using terrain, watching their patterns, setting ambushes. I want skills to be learned as a player, not as a number (similar for example to how you learn to play Counterstrike - no +4 pistol skill points in that game!)

Do i want to walk up to a green Kobold and click-click-click? Oh boy, a rare rusty iron short sword! Do i want to monsters that endlessly spawn, to be immortal myself and have no real loss if i die? Blah. If couterstrike teaches anything death can be fun.

MMORPG are in a very real sense pyramid scheme games. Your reward is being able to play more - to get more rewards. The profitable ones make it so that its nearly impossible to get all the rewards within a reasonable timeframe.

I don't think all of these ideas are just pipedreams, but i do think theyre too different from the mainstream to get anything but passing consideration. Dungeon hack games have been successful for 15 years and few have the guts or vision to fundamentally change the genre, just iteratively improve it.

"MMORPG are in a very real sense pyramid scheme games."

Yep, and that's exactly what's wrong with them. "If you spend 60 hours a week playing this, eventually you'll be able to lord your character over the gamers that only play 40 hours a week!"

I like my stats and numbers crunching in my crpgs. I really do! There is a tactical combat aspect to crpgs that shouldn't be taken away, even Diablo 2 uses this convention well. If we took them away, all we'd be left with is guesswork and an adventure game imo.

etc

You have leaving out a few things one for example sometimes I just like to explore the world in a mmorpg see what I can find. There usually pretty massive so this could take months. Though ultimitly everythings pretty static and the areas sometimes get reppetive and I dont get much out of it. Still some people are explorers and thats anough. Then theres pkers like me why bash monsters when you can bash humans? Its really alot of fun and a good challenge. Thats a major reason why I"m looking forward to shadowbane and to a lesser extent DAOC. Actually Shadowbane seems to solve or is attempting to solve alot of the problems some you have with mmorpgs. Go to there website and check it out.

Oh my, it looks like Shadowbane *will* fix a good set of MMORPG problems. The actually created a non-inflationary economy, for one thing.

http://www.shadowbane.com/worldinfo/economy.shtml

Player-built cities, too. Mmmm.