NWN3 will be actually a MMO

[Killian Kalthorne]

Isn't there already a DnD MMO? There is also DnD Insider. We don't need another DnD MMO. This is completely and totally stupid on Atari's part.

[Niten_Ryu]

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.

 

That's if you want to count peanuts. LotR was expect to be WoW killer. It did ok, but failed to reach target numbers. Game did kinda save Turbine, after huge failures of Asheron's Call 2 and D&D Online. EQ2 was total failure then it was released, took Scott Hartsman years to get the game any kind of decent shape but then it was way too late to save the game. City of Heroes was another failure. Game had maybe about month worth of content and potential coustomers saw that. FF XI and Lineage 1 and 2 are mostly Asian MMOGs and their subscribers (or internet cafe account holders) accept ultra grinds as content. I don't think western IP like NWN3 is developed for very saturated Asian market.

 

For last generation games, EverQuest peaked highest, for about 450k active subscribtions. That's only about 25 times less then WoW have now. Ok, it was great success based on it's relatively low, mid 90's budget but there's no way to develop anything like that with such low budget nowadays.

[steelfiredragon]

whichever whatever.

 

im not buying any mmo.

 

I can waste my time and enjoy it, mmos are a waste of time and a waste of money.

[Mamoulian War]

whichever whatever.

 

im not buying any mmo.

 

I can waste my time and enjoy it, mmos are a waste of time and a waste of money.

 

Not realy, man can enjoy MMO for very very long time, but most of the users pay only 1 subscription for 1 MMO and man can easy say that 75% of that people paying 1 subscription monthly are playing WoW...

 

most of the MMO developers found that hard way... Age of Conan, Warhammer, Tabula Rasa etc etc...

 

And the more MMOs on the market and growing budgets, it will be bigger and bigger risk to make an MMO which are still able to make profits... I am curious when developers notice that

[213374U]

And here I thought I was bitter inside.

[Meshugger]

And here I thought I was bitter inside.

 

You are just bitter on issues that do not matter for the rest of us. You know, moral dilemmas in real life, politics and code of conduct in a modern society. Such things are not welcomed here, and frowned upon. Shoo! Back to the way offtopic with you!

[RangerSG]

Atari is bereft of ideas. Is anyone surprised?

 

There is only one MMO I would ever support. A Malazan Book of the Fallen MMO. That's not to say I don't like MP cRPGing, I do. But I don't want an MMO to do it. NWN Persistent Worlds worked perfectly well for that.

[Gfted1]

Isnt there a "grandfather clause" that allows Atari to still use E3.5?

[Darth InSidious]

Atari is bereft of ideas. Is anyone surprised?

Not really, I suppose, given that most of the industry seems to be bereft of ideas - or original ideas, anyway - and too afraid of failure to gamble on a new formula. So look forward to CoD 9, Medal of Honor (sic): Malay Melee, and Fable VIII: That Bit of the Regency with Magic Swords 'N' Stuff. Granted, things seem a little better than they were a while back, but still...

Edited June 10, 2009 by Darth InSidious

[Morgoth]

Atari already announced some time ago that they're aiming for online and casual in the future. They also bought Cryptic studios, so obviously they have big plans for MMOs. I'm just not convinced that they'll be actually successful with it though.

[Purkake]

Atari already announced some time ago that they're aiming for online and casual in the future. They also bought Cryptic studios, so obviously they have big plans for MMOs. I'm just not convinced that they'll be actually successful with it though.

 

Yay! More waggle!

[Hurlshort]

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.

[Jaesun]

SO... they tried D&D Online... which was FAIL (Peaked at around 90,000 subscribers then tumbled down to less than 45,000)... so now try a NWN Online.... profits?

[Hurlshort]

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.

Edited June 10, 2009 by Hurlshot

[Purkake]

I'd be surprised if anyone made another half-way successful MMO in the next year or two. It's pretty much the same stuff over and over again, AoC had pretty graphics but they will really need to do something different to get more/new people to play these days. It seems like it's the same group of MMO players who jump from WoW to a new MMO and then back after a month or so.

Edited June 10, 2009 by Purkake

[Monte Carlo]

WoW has Mister T and Ozzy Osbourne doing TV ads for it, which is cool. Not cool enough for me to try it out myself, but cool nonetheless.

 

MMOs = fail.

 

NWN3 is of marginal interest to me, but in the little online gaming I did with NWN it was kinda fun.

 

Cheers

MC

[Niten_Ryu]

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.

 

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. EVE has managed to grow almost exponentally after very slow start. They are full success in their budget range. EQ2 or CoH never really recovered from initial subscription losses. Thru hard work by Scott Hartsman, EQ2 managed to get some players back. If game is online long enough and have enough players, it might be profitable in the near future (or might even be right now). Problem comes from the fact that it took years to reach that profit. Sony can put all their MMOGs under station pass but I bet someone inside the organization had to explain the failure after the first waves of subscribers left the game. And they left for WoW

 

Of course MMOGs don't have to reach WoW numbers just like singleplayer games to have to reach Halo or GTA numbers. If you aim lower, you have to balance your budget lower too. Recent heavy hitters like LotR, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online targeted way too high with their big budgets. They didn't reach the goal (LotR almost got it). Success or failure is only tied to budget, not artistic merits or how good the game might be. I loved Asheron's Call but it took years and years to get profitable.

[Purkake]

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.

 

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. EVE has managed to grow almost exponentally after very slow start. They are full success in their budget range. EQ2 or CoH never really recovered from initial subscription losses. Thru hard work by Scott Hartsman, EQ2 managed to get some players back. If game is online long enough and have enough players, it might be profitable in the near future (or might even be right now). Problem comes from the fact that it took years to reach that profit. Sony can put all their MMOGs under station pass but I bet someone inside the organization had to explain the failure after the first waves of subscribers left the game. And they left for WoW

 

Of course MMOGs don't have to reach WoW numbers just like singleplayer games to have to reach Halo or GTA numbers. If you aim lower, you have to balance your budget lower too. Recent heavy hitters like LotR, Age of Conan and Warhammer Online targeted way too high with their big budgets. They didn't reach the goal (LotR almost got it). Success or failure is only tied to budget, not artistic merits or how good the game might be. I loved Asheron's Call but it took years and years to get profitable.

 

At least EVE does some interesting stuff like having almost everything player-run and it actually works.

[Niten_Ryu]

EVE is really great game. I tried it few times but found out that you'd need good corporation and a lot of time to really enjoy it. While I couldn't get into it, game has found nice niche in very saturated MMOG biz.

[taks]

Did the article actually say that NWN 3 is going to be a mmorpg?

nope. the article (uh, rumor posting) simply said someone was working on an NWN MMO.

 

Isnt there a "grandfather clause" that allows Atari to still use E3.5?

i wouldn't be surprised, particularly if work on something had started, or contracts were signed, before 4e was officially released. in the end, it all depends upon contract issues i'd guess.

 

taks

[Mamoulian War]

Did the article actually say that NWN 3 is going to be a mmorpg?

nope. the article (uh, rumor posting) simply said someone was working on an NWN MMO.

 

NWN MMO is NWN3 as much as SW:TOR is KotOR 3 unfortunately

[Morgoth]

I just made the NWN3 up in the title because I felt so nasty.

 

Of course this isn't NWN3, but NWN MMO, stupid.

[Gfted1]

Isnt there a "grandfather clause" that allows Atari to still use E3.5?

i wouldn't be surprised, particularly if work on something had started, or contracts were signed, before 4e was officially released. in the end, it all depends upon contract issues i'd guess.

 

taks

 

Well, and Maria Caliban has a good point:

 

It will be interesting to see Neverwinter Nights as a 4e property, especially as Neverwinter is gone in 4e 4gotten Realms.

 

Would be kinda hard to 'splain that in-game.

[Purkake]

I just made the NWN3 up in the title because I felt so nasty.

 

Of course this isn't NWN3, but NWN MMO, stupid.

 

Well ToR is supposed to be KotOR 3, 4, 5, 6 and 7. NWNO could just as well be a "continuation of the story" even if there really isn't one.

 

Well, and Maria Caliban has a good point:

 

It will be interesting to see Neverwinter Nights as a 4e property, especially as Neverwinter is gone in 4e 4gotten Realms.

 

Would be kinda hard to 'splain that in-game.

 

Then it would truly be Neverwinter Nights in name only

[Hurlshort]

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.

 

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.