Hurlshort

Congrats Alanschu! You aren't going to ditch us now, are you?

I've played a lot of MMO's, and when I played the WoW open beta, I remember thinking how different it was from every MMO before it in the fact that it was stable, balanced, and pretty much ready to go. Sure, after launch they had issues with too many players and not enough servers, but overall it was a very stable launch. I haven't seen a lot of games manage that. WAR was really rough for me, I loved the game, but it crashed like crazy.

This is really my whole point here. Some folks were questioning why a game would bother going up against WoW. My point is that a few hundred thousand subscribers is a viable business model. Everquest 2, FFXI, LotR Online, Eve, City of Heroes, and a few others are all managing to pull in subscribers consistently and are clearly profitable. There is no evidence that the market is at its ceiling. Age of Conan shows that if you have a good product, you can pull it tremendous numbers, BUT you need to have a GOOD product. AoC had some serious flaws.

You're still not really making sense, and I fail to see where the evidence is. I could understand your point if there were actually publicized sales numbers and goals somewhere here, but without it you are just making up scenarios. My point is an MMO is a success if it is turning a profit, and you seem to be trying to prove some complex business model without showing any actual numbers or evidence.

What is it? That Hired Guns game? Yeah, I think he means that one: http://petergames.de/Hired-Guns-The-Jagged...0.html?&L=1 They were slated to do JA3, but Strategy First cut ties because they thought they were doing a horrible job. Which is funny, because Strategy First isn't exactly a high quality game publisher anymore.

It totally was. edit: I don't really get why people are upset. It was a solid game, but far from classic status.

As I said, the Sharks would probably need to throw in another player. But don't forget that Ottawa is dealing from a weak position here, everyone knows that Heatley wants out. Marleau, on the other hand, wants to stay but may waive his clause if the Sharks approach him right. If you are referring to the money, I don't know what Ottawa's cap room is. I know the Sharks are close, but they have a few guys moving on, so they can handle the extra mil. for Heatley.

Then I imagine it'd make a great setting for a game. Go explore the ruins.

Wow, the writing in that comic was a lot better than in the games. Where are all the terrible similes and metaphors? "The sun went down like an egg being cooked on a skillet, then flipped over and turned into an omelette." "He screamed like a tornado moving over a whistle factory."

He might be closer to 7. My guess is that the Sharks would need to throw in someone else to sweeten the pot, but it would be a good trade for both teams. Marleau is fantastic, I don't want to give him up, but he's probably losing the C and it's probably time for a change of scenery. Maybe Errhoff could be the sweetener, he also needs a change.

I'd agree to that, the scenes right after they woke up had me in tears. I could barely breathe I was laughing so hard. It was the best comedy I've seen in awhile. I watched Righteous Kill last night. Very predictable. It was watchable because Deniro and Pacino are just great, but the story was mediocre.

I read that, I'd go for a Heatley-Marleau swap to San Jose. Heatley with Joe Thornton might be a nice mix.

It's not called Jagged Alliance - The Jagged Edge. Don't disparage JA with that junk!

It's not worth to shut down MMOG once it's released unless operating costs or reputation damage is too high. This means that even if project was way over-budget, full of bugs and players fleeing by the masses, it's still usually worth to keep game running. That's what happend to EQ2, EVE, CoH and many more games. That makes no sense. Do you have any evidence to support your claims? My evidence is the fact that the games are still operating, I don't know a lot of companies that maintain a product unless it is making them money. Really, you just seem to be making stuff up to justify your dislike for MMO's. It's ok to dislike a successful genre. I don't enjoy most FPS games, but I'm not going to make up claims about their success.

DDO was based on a brand new setting, so I'm not sure how powerful the D&D license really was for it. It also is a fairly different type of MMO, they took a few risks with the game play. Personally, I was a bit put off by the fact it was completely instanced. I felt it was too close to Guild Wars in that respect and so wasn't fully an MMO. I think it was a large combination of factors that kept it from selling well. I think the new business model might be a better fit anyways. Neverwinter Nights is a more recognizable brand, and Faerun is a very popular setting, so I don't think it's a stretch to say that NWN Online would have a lot more visibility than DDO.

It's amazing how much made up data on MMO's is being spewed in this thread. I've never EVER seen an MMO developer say "We expect to pull in about the same numbers as WoW" or "We are making a WoW killer" Not every movie has to make Titanic money to be successful. Not every MMO has to sell millions to be successful. Saying Everquest 2 is a failure is just silly. They continue to release expansions, they continue to run servers, they continue to be a profitable game for SOE. This is all an indication of a successful business plan. Same thing with City of Heroes, LotR Online, FF Online, and all the other long running MMO's. That doesn't mean there aren't a fair share of failures. Tabula Rasa and Auto Assault are fairly dramatic ones, but DDO had to change its business model because it is struggling, so that can be put in the failure category. Games like Vanguard obviously didn't meet expectations, but for the time being they have stabilized. If anything, Age of Conan proved that there still is a huge market outside of WoW. They sold a million copies in a month! Unfortunately they had a terrible business model and a weak late game, so they need to adjust. But they should be able to stabilize if managed properly. So I'm not sure where people are getting this idea that the MMO market is some minefield, more-so than other markets. It is a major project to undergo as a developer, but there are plenty of success stories out there.

Yay, Game 7! There sure wasn't much room on the ice in game 6.

I don't think the dialogue is real.

And Lord of the Rings Online And Everquest 2 And City of Heroes but that's totally it, stupid developers! oh, and Final Fantasy XI But that's totally it, unless you count all the stupid last generation MMO's.

DDO is pretty solid, not my cup of tea but when I played with a permadeath group it was intense and fairly close in feel to the NWN permadeath server I used to play with. NWN3 is a looooooong way off people. We really have no idea what type of game it will turn out to be. The term MMORPG doesn't refer only to WoW and its clones, so it's a bit early to jump to conclusions about NWN3. Also, the original NWN was very much designed around multiplayer aspects, so it's a bit alarmist to say NWN3 is abandoning the original vision.

I suppose the dugong makes sense if you aren't circumcised. This thread has gone down an unexpected path.

This thread took a hilarious turn When I say GTA style sandbox, I don't really mean GTA4, which actually departed from the formula quite a bit of the previous games.

Nah, they're easy, just like the rest of the game. What a ridiculous statement. Sometimes I get heartburn from eating bacon. Would you like to argue that as well?

I'm happy with it, $1100 a month. Unfortunately we bought at the top of the housing bubble, so that doesn't nearly cover our mortgage, but we can write off the loss on our taxes from what I hear. Plus if I can rent it long term, hopefully the market will return to a decent price and I can get a more comfortable mortgage someday.

Sure, I enjoyed the demo. It's a sandbox game, if you like GTA style stuff then it will entertain for a bit.