Flagship Studios does it Troika style

[mkreku]

No, nothing that logical.. I had the original Gothic 2 on pre-order and got that. Then they released Gothic 2 Gold (with Night of the Raven expansion) so I had to get that. Then they released a collector's item called Gothic Universe (with Gothic, Gothic 2, Gothic 2: Night of the Raven and Gothic 3 in it) so I got that too. Oh, and I also had Gothic 3 on pre-order, so..

 

Basically I voted with my wallet.

[LadyCrimson]

I'm in the sad for loss of diversity camp...but I'm also not surprised. If you hype your first product up and spend oodles of money, and then the product isn't what people expected/wanted, then...boom. That's business. HG:L wasn't the worst game in the world, but it certainly wasn't anything...stellar.

 

And I buy games that I think I might like .... since I never know if I really like it until I've actually played it. If the game is by a company that I'm familiar with and have liked some of their past games, that's a bonus and makes me more confident I will like the game, but nothing is ever certain. While I'm willing to try anything if there's a free trial or something, to see if I want to purchase, I don't buy games (or anything else) I don't want just to show moral support. Perhaps if I was richer I might, but I'm not, so I don't.

[@\NightandtheShape/@]

No, nothing that logical.. I had the original Gothic 2 on pre-order and got that. Then they released Gothic 2 Gold (with Night of the Raven expansion) so I had to get that. Then they released a collector's item called Gothic Universe (with Gothic, Gothic 2, Gothic 2: Night of the Raven and Gothic 3 in it) so I got that too. Oh, and I also had Gothic 3 on pre-order, so..

 

Basically I voted with my wallet.

 

Didn't help much though did it?

[Tale]

Heh, I had both Volourn and DR on ignore, but I decided to take a look at these posts. Boy was that a bad idea!

Haha. I just can't take either of them seriously enough to feel the need to put them on ignore. I do it automatically.

[Pop]

It's not a little bit presumptuous to assume that the failure of Flagship had anything to do with the quality of their product. The quality of the game likely had nothing to do with it. Flagship threw their lot in with the MMO market. That's only slightly less risky than releasing an mp3 player against the iPod. Age Of Conan is the only MMO to have any real success opposite WoW, and that's mostly due to Europe's collective boner for "dark fantasy".

 

But I suppose thinking in terms of the quality of the game makes the world seem harmonious in its own little way. Now let's all get back to our pissing and moaning about the awful yet popular Bethesda catalogue!

[Tale]

Now let's all get back to our pissing and moaning about the awful yet popular Bethesda catalogue!

Morrowind was cool guy.

[Xard]

It's not a little bit presumptuous to assume that the failure of Flagship had anything to do with the quality of their product. The quality of the game likely had nothing to do with it. Flagship threw their lot in with the MMO market. That's only slightly less risky than releasing an mp3 player against the iPod. Age Of Conan is the only MMO to have any real success opposite WoW, and that's mostly due to Europe's collective boner for "dark fantasy".

 

You forgot LotR: Online

[mkreku]

Didn't help much though did it?

I'd say it did. Gothic 4 is on its way. So is a Gothic 3 expansion. Meanwhile, Piranha Bytes (the Gothic creators) are working on a new IP that's not named yet. The Gothic franchise is about as dead as the Fallout one (and in the same situation), and on top of that I'm getting a new IP in the same vein as Gothic. I can't complain!

[Hurlshort]

And Everquest 2.

[Xard]

Well, after good beginning EQ2 got severe beating by WoW so I didn't count it.

 

Sure, it survives, but it is not what I'd call succesful compared to WoW

[Volourn]

You don't need WOW type numbers to be a success. Just like you don't need Titantic like numbers to be a success.

[Sand]

Hell, you don't need half of WoW's numbers to be successful.

[Pop]

Judging by the scaled back servers of existing games and cancellations of numerous in-development MMOs over the past few months, being the Carls Jr. to WoW's McDonalds doesn't really appeal to most investors. Continued existence =\= success. Hellgate:London and Mythos will likely still live on in Asia.

Edited July 15, 2008 by Pop

[Hurlshort]

I'm not sure anything can be compared to WoW. It's way to early to tell if Conan has stamina, I know quite a few folks that cancelled after the first month. The game isn't built as solid after level 20 and that may hurt their subscription numbers.

 

EQ2 manages a steady rate of subscriptons, and they manage to sell expansions every 6 months, so I think it's doing better than most people think. I would guess that it pulls in about the same money as LotR Online if you factor in the expansions and the extra fees Sony charges for everything.

[Sand]

Which is fine by me. The less MMORPGs and more single player CRPGs the better.

[Xard]

What I meant: EQ2 was ment to be full blown competitor for WoW, one that would put the newbie to its place in the corner

 

And for a moment back when games where published EQ2 was leading. Then WoW made knockout and EQ2 came yet another MMO fighting for scraps. Quite a difference to Everquest 1

 

 

That's why I don't count it succesful, though it sure is financially succesful.

 

It's just that it is like if The Beatles suddenly released single that got only in Top Ten. Sure it is succesful, but not what it was aiming for. Or what would logically be level of its success

Edited July 15, 2008 by Xard

[Tale]

Hard to be succesful if your standard for success is unreasonably high.

Edited July 15, 2008 by Tale

[Xard]

The thing is it wasn't at all unreasonable for juggernaut title like EQ2

[Tale]

It's very unreasonable. World of Warcraft's success is unreasonable to assume or really aim for, period. Doesn't matter who is trying. Everquest was never that popular.

Edited July 15, 2008 by Tale

[Xard]

Note I'm talking about way back in the day. Before WoW had 10 million players.

 

Of course EQ2 wasn't aiming at 10 million - no one did. If you had told Blizzard that game would eventually have over 10 million players they would've rolled their eyes

[Pop]

Yeah, some probably could've predicted that WoW would succeed but not on that scale (save for the fanboys, of course). It's been a long time, but Everquest was once the king of the MMO hill and what people thought of when they thought of MMOs. They had academic studies published on the "virtual nation" of Everquest. If WoW were to be measured in the same way it would rank much higher than Everquest ever was. WoW is, as I said, the iPod of MMOs. There might be better products out there, but WoW's got an iron grip on the culture.

Edited July 15, 2008 by Pop

[Sand]

I wonder if they will get WoW on the IPhone.

[Darque]

WoW, this sucks, I was hoping they'd at least get their game playable before tanking

[Dark_Raven]

Maybe some modders will fix it correctly.

[Deadly_Nightshade]

Well, one of the most serious errors -the fact that it uses full resolution textures for all the in-game items and NPC, regardless of their size and distance- would take an entire team to fix since every texture, and maybe even the engine itself, would need to be edited.