EVE: Sleeper Jam

Posted on June 12, 2012 by SynCaine

In training all week (SAP BO y u so gui?), so blog content might be slim. Sorry?

As we continue to assimilate into our C5 alliance, I’m noticing the approach to ISK generation and how best to use WH content is quite different from our C3. In our C3, we ran all sites to completion, with only grav sites staying around for more than a day due to the amount of mining time required to clear them. In the C5, not only are sites not ‘finished’, but the majority of the content is the escalation waves. Once those are complete, the fleet moves on to the next one. This is further compounded by the daily downtime ‘refreshing’ the escalations, allowing the same site to be farmed 3-4 times. We are talking billions of ISK per site, so tens of billions over a few days is ‘normal’. More on C5 ISK vs Incursions or station-grinding and such in a different post.

At those amounts, and with the alliance focused on all kinds of PvP activities (more on those as they become history rather than current Ops), the question goes from “when CAN we make ISK” to “when do we WANT to make ISK”. For us (INQ-E) currently, it’s “as often as we can please”, but for those with a few billion and enough ships for all situations, they would much rather USE that ISK (PvP) than make more of it.

“So everyone in HAHA flies around in Officer-fit T3s right?”

Nope. Oh they could, from an ISK aspect, but they don’t. Why? Because a multi-billion ISK loss on a killboard hurts your efficiency a lot more than a 750m T3, and while those Officer fits are nice and all, they don’t ‘belong’ on a T3, or even a Carrier/Dred. This makes sense if you PvP in EVE, it might not to those who don’t. I’d explain it, but… yea.

This is why just making ISK for the sake of making ISK is a non-factor for an alliance like HAHA. At some point (and with C5 sites, that point comes much sooner than later), ISK stops being a major goal and you start really focusing on things that ‘matter’, like knowing wtf to do in PvP. And by PvP, I don’t mean the simply act of locking the called target and hitting F1. That anyone can do, and is again a laughable ‘EVE is easy’ statement you often see from non-players. No, really learning PvP, especially WH PvP, is a very deep rabbit hole that gets deeper and deeper the better you get and the more roles/responsibilities you take on.

Posted in EVE Online, Inquisition Clan, PvP | 10 Comments

EVE: Killer clowns

Posted on June 8, 2012 by SynCaine

With my EVE in-game time somewhat limited due to RL issues, last night was my first real experience with our new alliance, Surely Your Joking (ticker: HAHA). A workable chain of wormhole connections was available, and a good number of INQ-E pilots were able to get ships into our new C5 home and our lovingly small Caldari tower named ‘Bait’.

A quick note about wormhole content: it’s pretty amazing to fly through three different holes to ultimately reach our C5 when you really think about it. There are thousands of wormholes in EVE, and each of these have different static and random entrances/exits that can connect to either known space or other holes, and each of these holes begin and die from both time and mass passing through.

In this giant, dynamic mess, our alliances mapped out a route and guided haulers and new pilots (us) inside. To EVE players this process might sound obvious or ‘normal’, and from the outside it can appear as somewhat minimal, but take a second look at the whole thing and compare it to anything else in the genre. It’s not only unique, but pretty damn cool as well.

Back to HAHA. The alliance Mumble is both active and relaxed. People are joking around in-between providing information or updates, and different people from different Corps are moving in and out of channels as needed. As we were moving in and out, a scout reported an enemy ship in one of the holes along our route.

On a dime, Mumble becomes a very serious place, and Pell (the alliance leader) begins to FC and a response fleet is quickly assembled. With amazing efficiency, the enemy’s entrance location is scouted, and soon Pell is out in null-sec baiting. With the trap set, the order is given and a sizable fleet jumps into local.

Sadly we were unable to pin the enemy and score any kills, but just watching the entire thing develop was very rewarding, and reassured me that joining HAHA will expedited our PvP growth and get us into numerous entertaining scenarios.

Posted in EVE Online, Inquisition Clan, MMO design, PvP | 11 Comments

Help a noob out

Posted on June 7, 2012 by SynCaine

TAGN has a fine overview of the latest expansion for LoTRO, and specifically the money Turbine is asking for it. $70 seems outrageous for an expansion, especially when you consider that certain MMOs give them out for ‘free’, but that’s a different topic. Not to mention that if people are paying $70 for expansions, charge them $70 until they stop.

What is interesting is that Wilhelm has little motivation to really splurge because he is so far behind the content curve. In a way, Turbine adding levels to LotRO as ‘fast’ as they have been has hurt them with this particular customer.

Sell him a character already!

They already sell The One Ring and other gear in the item store, why not characters or just +1 level potions? Much like WoW, any kind of lore-based reasoning has long since died, and with an aging game that, while far from dead, is not exactly lighting the genre on fire, why not let people like Wilhelm easily come back and experience whatever content at whatever level they want?

Especially under the F2P model. You don’t have the ‘what if they consume content too quickly’ concern since you are not collecting a monthly sub, and really where you make most of your money is on impulse buys from people who see something they want RIGHT NOW. By selling levels, you introduce lots of RIGHT NOW situations. Just add more gear to the cash shop and bam, moneytree.

If you are going to go F2P, go big.

Posted in Lord of the Rings Online, MMO design, RMT | 11 Comments

This post is about one MMO

Posted on June 5, 2012 by SynCaine

Why is Wargaming.net still calling its MOBA titles MMOs? Especially now that MOBA titles are a bigger genre than MMOs. Someone pass them the memo already.

SW:TOR getting a limited free trial is somewhat of a non-factor (although does this mean it’s no longer free on weekends?), but giving away the content I’m sure EA planned to sell as an expansion? That’s another. I’ll say this about SW, it’s dying in very entertaining fashion.

The upcoming Rift expansion is exactly what one would expect out of Rift, more of the exact same. I think a few readers here are confused about my current opinion about Rift, so let me try and explain it. I hate Rift as a game. The content that was around when I left was soulless (get it), dumbed down, and just not what I wanted out of an MMO. What was an interesting evolution of the themepark model in beta ended up being a 2011 version of current themepark design at launch.

That said, I love Rift as a model. Trion puts out content as fast as a themepark should, and they don’t pretend to be something they are not; they know they are delivering generic themepark MMO content, and they are focused on just that. I wish more MMOs did that in their respective areas (not to be confused with wishing that more MMOs went hyper-generic).

Posted in Random, Rift, SW:TOR | 16 Comments

Out of the kiddy pool

Posted on June 4, 2012 by SynCaine

This weekend I made the decision to have INQ-E join a wormhole alliance and move into their C5. It was not an easy decision, but one that I ultimately think will benefit us in many ways.

First some back story, because that itself is fairly interesting.

Within the first week or so of moving into our C3, we had a few experienced enemy pilots find their way inside our WH. They scored some nice kills, and stayed around for a few days. Looking back it was horrible luck, as since that visit we have had very minimal enemy activity inside your WH, and today we would be much better prepared to counter them.

Of course, much like our first high-sec war when the Corp was founded, what was once an enemy becomes an ally in EVE. That group of early invaders are now the alliance we are joining, and the opportunity came about because while we died horribly, we at least tried to fight back rather than ragequit or failcascade, and were open to communicating with our enemies rather than throwing a pity party. Its things like this that always make me laugh when the uninformed talk about the EVE community and how horrible it is. It’s only horrible if you deserve it.

As expected, many in my Corp were surprised by the announcement, and confused how things would work in our new home. In our C3 we divided things up evenly based on a minimal participation requirement, and all WH profits (Sleepers, PI, mining, production) went into one big pool. In the C5 you get paid if you show up for something, which worried those with lower SP or those without extensive combat training.

The other factor I struggled with was one of Corp identity. We put in a lot of time and effort making the C3 our home, and we just recently really hit our stride and got into a groove with the space. We had our PI going, we were producing stuff, and we just recently started converting gas into products. We were (slowly) expanding our possibilities in terms of PvP as well, and overall activity was very high. “If it’s not broken, don’t fix it” certainly crossed my mind, as did the general change of going from being fully in charge of our destiny to being one part of something greater.

And while change is scary, EVE is also very much a game where if you get too comfortable, and things become too routine, you slowly lose interest and can fade away, and it’s my job as CEO to ensure that does not happen. Much like leaving Empire and moving into the C3, it was more a matter of “screw it, here we go” rather than of finally being really ready. In EVE, if you are 100% ready, you are probably doing it too late.

One of the major pros of moving is the ISK generation itself; simply put, the ISK made in a C5 dwarfs a C3. What we made in a month the C5 makes in a few days. I’ll comment more on this at a later time, but I have little doubt that ISK will soon be a non-issue for many of us (or rather, it will allow us to get blown up in shinier ships more often, which is just as good).

The other major factor in moving is for the PvP. PvP in EVE is, IMO, the hardest PvP of any MMO. While the PvP in Darkfall is more twitch, and allows for more heroic individual feats, the amount of information you have to process in a very short amount of time in EVE is staggering. Learning by trial and error is very costly, and can often result in few lessons learned. There is a reason quality FCs are so highly valued in EVE, and it’s a very good one.

By joining this alliance, we will fly in Ops with some great FCs, and learn wormhole PvP at an accelerated rate. Combine this with the ISK factor, and each pilot in the Corp should progress at a rate far beyond anything we could have done in our C3 alone.

The final factor is one of numbers. Everyone in the alliance lives out of one C5, which means there will always be people online doing something, and the alliance is very open in terms of accepting people into fleets. This is another case of “obvious MMO design” that most games get horribly wrong; there is no hard-coded penalty to inviting others in EVE, which allows vets and newer players to fly together and fill out the various roles of a fleet. Much like the whole community thing, the above is why I laugh at the uninformed complaining about ‘never catching up to vets’ in EVE. More than a few of my pilots have less than 5m SP, and yet they will be full contributing members of a C5 WH alliance, doing ‘end-game’ PvE content and PvP’ing alongside pilots with 100m+ SP, blowing up billions of ISK.

Certainly more to come as things roll out.

Posted in Combat Systems, crafting, EVE Online, Inquisition Clan, MMO design, PvP | 27 Comments

Back back back back back… GONE

Posted on June 1, 2012 by SynCaine

Let’s keep one thing in mind as we read this: a startup game studio failed to release a WoW-clone themepark MMO after spending 6+ years and north of $100m on it. Said startup also bought another studio that had a basically-complete game, and that game failed to sell enough to justify the price paid for the studio.

This article is embarrassing. To even remotely suggest that somehow someone other than 38 Studios screwed 38 Studios is atrocious. To believe that if only someone on the hook for $75m would have kept shut, and allowed another victim to toss money into the 38 black hole, everything would have worked out is crazy-talk.

Then we have this:

“I can say that the company didn’t spend money extravagantly at all,” he adds. “We didn’t have giant statues in the halls, or supercomputers with 30-inch monitors at every desk. We had what we needed to work on the game and that was it.”

Sound good right? Maybe one could even argue that had they had supercomputers, maybe it would not have taken 6 years to get (maybe) within one year of release, but whatever. Oh wait:

Schilling “went to lavish personal expense” for his teams, buying customized jerseys and other morale perks.

So no supercomputers or bigger monitors, but customized jerseys and other stuff. That makes sense. How many lines of code did those jerseys write? And before someone brings up that it was a ‘personal expense’ for Schilling, 38 Studios is also a ‘personal expense’ for him, so we are talking money from the same piggybank here.

“But in the end, his optimism turned out to be naivete, and it slowly killed us,” the source continues.

So Schilling is not the bad guy here, but at the same time he slowly killed 38 Studios. Neat.

On a higher level, what kind of business plan assumes you will just keep getting money anytime you ask, without first delivering anything, in an industry that has a track record a mile long of actually completed products failing horribly? What could possibly go wrong?

And why is Schilling, with $50m to invest in his gaming studio, setting out to create a game that is going to cost $150m+? Maybe, I don’t know, try to first design one for around $50m? Pretty sure it might be possible to clone WoW for that amount, just ask Trion.

It’s also crazy to hear that this could have happened to the studio before, but the previous time they were running on empty, someone gave them more money (how’s that working out for ya?).

More gems:

and to a perceived opacity about the higher-ups, whose roles sources say were unclear and led to jokes about a profusion of unnecessary VPs at 38.

The above begs the question; how many VPs does it take to not release anything? Apparently many.

Chafee also publicly claimed 38’s first release, the single-player RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, “failed,” artificially deflating its sales numbers and suggesting it was a commercial flop — which it wasn’t. It’s true that the game didn’t sell enough to fulfill a clause whereby publisher Electronic Arts would start paying a cut to the studio, but employees say potential profits for Reckoning were never part of the budgeting plans for 38.

What? So KoA:R did not fail, but 38 Studios never saw cash from it because it never crossed an amount that EA set? Call me crazy, but don’t we normally define a successful product by it generating profit? Is 38 Studios a charity venture? But no, 38 would have been just fine had someone who is on the hook for $75m not brought up the fact that the game from that studio they paid for did not earn them money. Total non-issue…

Because, you know, their “budget plans” looked something like this: spent money until we run out, ask for more, spend, ask, spend, ask, keep on keeping on, custom jersey, spend, ask. Oh and maybe finish a WoW-clone at some point. Maybe.

And again, it totally sucks that the ones ultimately screwed are the actual workers for 38 Studios and the taxpayers of RI. Schilling will be perfectly fine doing ESPN segments and calling local sports radio, and most of his VP staff will go on to do whatever it is they ‘do’. Or just do more of this:

Jen MacLean, former CEO of 38 Studios, informed Gamasutra after this report was published: “I left 38 Studios on an indefinite leave of absence on March 23, 2012, and resigned from my position as director, officer, and employee on May 17. I was not involved in any day to day company operations after March 23.”

Raise your hand if you have the option to take an indefinite leave of absence for almost two months and then bail? Anyone, anyone?

And the crazies part? I suspect this is only the first step down this epic failcascade.

Posted in Mass Media, Random, Rant | 26 Comments

Son of a…

Posted on June 1, 2012 by SynCaine

Didn’t want those weekends anyway…

Posted in Civilization Series | 1 Comment

Blogging 101

Posted on May 31, 2012 by SynCaine

Remember that post about how to make it big in blogging?

I present you with exhibit A.

Well played Ravious, well played.

Posted in Blogroll, Guild Wars | 7 Comments

Opinions

Posted on May 31, 2012 by SynCaine

Today’s post is somewhat of a continuation from yesterday, because what I’ve heard/read is fascinating in so many ways.

According to more than one commentator here, the themepark side of the MMO genre is doing just fine, and all but Blizzard would wish they had the problems SW:TOR has with its ‘1.4m subs’. Also the fact that WoW is declining was both expected and still OK.

On the other hand, you have certain analysts and bloggers calling the recent events surrounding SW:TOR and 38 studios as the death of the genre as a whole.

Jester believes the problem is that $15 a month per player is just not enough to make the business work, while also believing that the market for MMOs is indeed 10s of millions, rather than the hundreds of thousands that every game but one has managed to retain.

Unrelated but related, Jester also believes EVE’s growth problem (a growth ‘problem’ I’m pretty sure every MMO would like to have) is that the game is not attracting new players, but rather that vets just keep buying more alts. At the same time, we have Mittens talking about how there are too many soft noobs in EVE, who just now are potentially ruining the game with their carebear noobishness. Luckily we have the goons working on that problem!

And you would think that SW:TOR impaling itself on the 4th pillar would put an end to that nonsense, yet TESO devs are selling us a 100% solo-story for their upcoming game. Oh and it will have PvP. And be a themepark that looks like WoW. Yup.

So yes, opinions vary. Interesting stuff to be sure.

And I still contend that if you can’t make $18m in annual revenue work (100k subs), you are doing something wrong, but that’s a different post.

Posted in EVE Online, Mass Media, Random, Rant, SW:TOR | 48 Comments

My favorite genre is coming back!

Posted on May 30, 2012 by SynCaine

MMOs are a niche genre in gaming. They are games that require additional ‘work’ beyond just loading something up, and to really get the most out of them you have to put in that ‘work’ consistently. They can also be very expensive or absurdly cheap depending on how much you play, and overall the barrier of entry and when the game ‘clicks’ is far longer than most other genres.

In 1997 Ultima Online came out and did far better than anyone expected. Stronger than expected sales, plus the ability to collect money after the initial sale in the form of a subscription, meant a LOT of money was being made from an unexpected source. Those with the ability jumped in as soon as they could, and most games did well if not very well (EQ1) in the MMO niche. You had to try really hard (AO) to screw up an MMO, and even if you did you still survived.

Then in 2004 WoW came out and suddenly a niche genre was flooded. Some called them tourists, others believed the genre had finally ‘made it’. Most importantly, Blizzard was printing money faster than anyone else, regardless of the genre. No matter how awesome Madden X was, after EA got your $60, that was it, and that always somewhat limited the earning potential of games. Not so for MMOs, and with WoW subscriptions toping 10m, the market was no longer collecting $15 a month from a niche crowd.

If UO encouraged others to give the genre a shot, WoW basically forced companies to do it. WoW’s profits made all other genres of gaming seem inept, and hey, how hard could this MMO thing be anyway? Grab an IP, toss a bunch of cash at it, and bam, 10m people throwing $15 a month at you forever!

A few problems.

The first being that 2004 WoW is not the version of WoW being cloned. WoW 04-06 built the foundation for the juggernaut, and the mistakes of WotLK and especially Cata were not realized until recently. The reason? MMOs snowball. Once you have a certain number of people playing, it’s difficult to piss them all off fast enough to boot them all out instantly. Even when you try (NGE), it still might not work.

The second issue is that for most, WoW was their first MMO. You always like your first MMO more because hey, it’s all new to you. That newness only happens once, and even if you perfectly clone the correct version of WoW, you can’t replicate your game being someone’s first MMO. This aspect can’t be underestimated, both for initial impressions and retention.

So you have MMO ‘noob devs’ cloning the wrong version of WoW, and not only that, but you have a fan base that is rather confused. True MMO players hate casual themepark games because they are MMO-lite, while the millions that made WoW such a huge hit say they are looking for more WoW, but time and time again they move on much faster than the previous title; and in a space where retention and collecting $15 a month is king, that’s an issue.

Is it really that surprising that AAA themeparks have sold well and retained so poorly?

The reason I take such pleasure in watching SW:TOR fail is because that game is the very definition of the above, only magnified to such an extreme that even the most casual observers are coming to the correct conclusions (mostly). And if the casuals get it, at some point devs and publishers will as well.

The truth is that the MMO genre is not dying. Not even close. MMOs like EVE or Rift are doing well. MMO-lite titles like SW:TOR and current-day WoW are not. This is very good news for MMO players, who for years have seen the vast majority of resources wasted on AAA themepark failures. Yes, not all of the money will flow into real MMOs, but we don’t need all of it. Just some, and some will most definitely find the right people due to the fact that real MMOs are making money. It’s hundreds of thousands of subs money rather than millions, but the MMO genre never contained millions of players. Just a solid core, and a whole lot of tourists mucking everything up.

In a year from now the story won’t be that the MMO genre is dead. Actually there won’t be a story because who writes about niche stuff anyway? But outside of the spotlight, we will be talking about some pretty cool upcoming games, and how EVE continues to be awesome, and how Rift is still getting content added like crazy, and how GW2 (maybe) feels so fresh and yet so familiar. That will be nice.

PS: It’s tough to judge 38 Studios in the above. If Copernicus was yet another WoW-clone (it sure looked like one), then the studio closing down was just an acceleration of the inevitable. If the game truly was an EQ1-clone, it’s a sad loss and further reason to shake an angry fist at management.

Posted in Darkfall Online, EQ2, EVE Online, Guild Wars, Mass Media, MMO design, Rant, Rift, SW:TOR, Ultima Online, World of Warcraft | 39 Comments