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Community Backed MMO?
Manmadegod
Member Posts: 501
I would like to put together a development team for the purpose of creating a new MMO. An MMO that would be built by the community, for the community so to speak. If I were to set up a paypal donation pot to fund this endeavor how many would be willing to chip in? If I get a good enough response I'll go through with it and begin campaigning for our cause on all of the major gaming sites.
I mean honestly, if we aren't willing to try ourselves and expect someone else to do it - Who is to blame for the poor products that come to market and the stagnation thereof?
Comments
I put down 5-10 in the other thread but the more I think of it the more I think I'd put in.
Not because I would play it. I may play it.
But quite frankly, I'm pretty sick of seeing people cry and complain when it comes to other people's money.
People want games with skill based advancement that have a bit of risk?
Well then, put your money where your mouth is. I think people will find that this is probably harder than they imagine.
But I hope it works. Or fails. Just so the lesson can be learned.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
I wouldnt mind throwing some cash your way... but only once I see you had a team and what not in place.
Im currently working on a series of games as I learn that will end up in a MMO, but I dont think I would take donations or any form of payment personally for quite some time. Why? Well mainly cause once money is given people want to see something in return, and it might be a bit before I had anything to personally show for it.
In your situation Id aim for finding a coder, a modeler, and a web guy. Once you have that basic set up you would need an idea, some concept art, and preferably some form of working prototype.
At that point, it might be conceivable to start looking for money.
Otherwise... not sure how effective it will be, and most will just flame you as a scam artist.
I wouldn't even go that far.
I would find a game that is already being developed. One where they have their act together. Then I would contact them, see if they would be interested in having a segment of the community invest in their game. Come up with some reasonable terms. I'm sure they are not going to want to have to alter their designs because of the community.
Or would they?
Tha'ts the lesson here. I think the community will learn just how hard it is to make one of these games.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Well, I obviously wouldn't take any donations or a link even for it until I had seen if people were even remotely interested. This isn't to get the idea off the ground at the moment but more of a way to test the community for ideas and to see if they would be willing to help front one. I wouldn't mind attempting this as I have some close friends that I could call on for a little labor of love to show a little something but honestly I think gamers are understanding just how difficult a t ask is for a game - doubly so for a MMO which is at the programming pinnacle of difficulty.
Anyways, just drop a vote one way or the other... This is just to see if it's feasible at all, or worth even taking a look at.
Oh, I think it's more than feasible. but given how hard it is to create the game I would come up with some guidlines. Visit a lawyer. Yes, there are lawyrs who will do work for free for the community.
I would then create the stipulations... skill based, blah blah blah, whatever. Some won't want another fantasy game and will want a sci-fi game.
I would then present this as a contest of sorts to small game developers. "A chance for community investment".
There of course would be rules so that the community doesn't wreck it (this will be the most interesting part I can tell ya
)
I would then come up with a vote for people who wanted to invest as to the game they prefer.
Once you have a winner I would collect the investments.
This is an interesting experiment because of the rather vocal community that thinks the game industry has gone awry and that someone who undertands what "really" needs to be created should create it.
Well who better to back this then the people who want a different type of game.
Starting from scratch is too risky. I wonder how many ventures fail before anything can actually happen? Or they start diving into creating assets without a plan in place.
Find small companies that already have their act together but who need investment.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Oh, I think it's more than feasible. but given how hard it is to create the game I would come up with some guidlines. Visit a lawyer. Yes, there are lawyrs who will do work for free for the community.
I would then create the stipulations... skill based, blah blah blah, whatever. Some won't want another fantasy game and will want a sci-fi game.
I would then present this as a contest of sorts to small game developers. "A chance for community investment".
There of course would be rules so that the community doesn't wreck it (this will be the most interesting part I can tell ya
)
I would then come up with a vote for people who wanted to invest as to the game they prefer.
Once you have a winner I would collect the investments.
This is an interesting experiment because of the rather vocal community that thinks the game industry has gone awry and that someone who undertands what "really" needs to be created should create it.
Well who better to back this then the people who want a different type of game.
Starting from scratch is too risky. I wonder how many ventures fail before anything can actually happen? Or they start diving into creating assets without a plan in place.
Find small companies that already have their act together but who need investment.
Interesting, maybe I'll go this route and let the vocal community put it's money where it's mouth is. I am sure that there would be a group of developers out there that would be willing to go through with this for capital to help them create their game and in turn give us the ability to have the game that we "want".
Interesting to think about eh, community?
Oh, I think it's more than feasible. but given how hard it is to create the game I would come up with some guidlines. Visit a lawyer. Yes, there are lawyrs who will do work for free for the community.
I would then create the stipulations... skill based, blah blah blah, whatever. Some won't want another fantasy game and will want a sci-fi game.
I would then present this as a contest of sorts to small game developers. "A chance for community investment".
There of course would be rules so that the community doesn't wreck it (this will be the most interesting part I can tell ya
)
I would then come up with a vote for people who wanted to invest as to the game they prefer.
Once you have a winner I would collect the investments.
This is an interesting experiment because of the rather vocal community that thinks the game industry has gone awry and that someone who undertands what "really" needs to be created should create it.
Well who better to back this then the people who want a different type of game.
Starting from scratch is too risky. I wonder how many ventures fail before anything can actually happen? Or they start diving into creating assets without a plan in place.
Find small companies that already have their act together but who need investment.
Interesting, maybe I'll go this route and let the vocal community put it's money where it's mouth is. I am sure that there would be a group of developers out there that would be willing to go through with this for capital to help them create their game and in turn give us the ability to have the game that we "want".
Interesting to think about eh, community?
Exactly!
And again, because it is an investment and because of the nature of the investment, there would be a certain level of transparency as well. This way people don't feel they've given 5 dollars to purchase someone's new car!
Everything should be done legally and above board. People will also be made to understand that it is a risky venture and that things can go wrong. All will be made clear in the agreement they sign when they invest.
As I said, I'm happy playing the games out there because to me they are games. Just fun diversions. I don't require such things as skill based leveling or whatever the community is alway demanding.
And yet, I still will give money. If this comes to the stage where it is an actual game that can be invested in, with all the legal papers done, etc, then I will give the 200 dollars I had originally promised to the Ryzom project when the players tried to buy it.
Just because it's a worthy cause.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
It's not surprising that some folks wouldn't want to donate to maintain a project, but I think it's only reflective of the younger age demographic that the site tends to have from my personal experience. I'd much rather have programmers, artists, and webmasters donate time to a project like an MMO than money. Money isn't bad, but managing money is probably harder to do than managing a team of your peers to work on such a project like an MMO. It's not so much the legal wrangling that is the problem, rather how much is needed to get what sort of teams together? 100K USD? 1 Million USD? It gets to be a problem when you go that route than the other I suggested prior. I would only suggest the donation method for when you have servers running your MMO, as for actual design and product: donation of skill and time is worth more than any pile of cash.
-- Brede
You come up with a plan to bitch slap SOE,take SWG from them,fix the damn game like should have been done pre-cuin the first place,add about 20% more content,that actually works.
Now that I would gladly comtribute to.
Yes, but the problem is that when you have people who are donating their time, their will eventually come events that will draw them away.
i compose music.
I have friends that are musicians. They used to play my music for free. They donated their time to rehearsals and concerts. However, I had noticed that they were also turning down real gigs in order to play our concerts. Though none of them really complained I could tell that it was hard for them to do this.
Solution? I pay them the going rate. This way they don't have to be stressed about turning down a real paying gig and I get musicians who are also more invested in my music because they are friends.
This is why I think that getting a studio that is small, already under way and worlking on a project would be a smart idea. They will already be managing the money because they are managing the money. All they will have to do for the investors is be transparent with what they do with it.
However, in the end, I really don't care as all I am willing to do is to donate for the sake of donation.
It is my idea that this type of project is much harder because quite frankly, I don't believe players are really cognizant of the difficulties of pulling it off. And pulling it off with their own money.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Sorry I'm a bit busy working on my own MMO, inspired by Dungeon keeper. Where people can play as a hero or Dungeon Master.
I would only do so for Ryzom.
-----------
In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on August 13, 2008.
Hasn't this already been mentioned quite many times and the conclusion has been reached that it's extremely expensive to develop MMOs. What "we" would manage to achieve wouldn't be close to the MMORPG of our dreams, but rather a crappy Runescape ripoff.
Oh, I think it's more than feasible. but given how hard it is to create the game I would come up with some guidlines. Visit a lawyer. Yes, there are lawyrs who will do work for free for the community.
I would then create the stipulations... skill based, blah blah blah, whatever. Some won't want another fantasy game and will want a sci-fi game.
I would then present this as a contest of sorts to small game developers. "A chance for community investment".
There of course would be rules so that the community doesn't wreck it (this will be the most interesting part I can tell ya
)
I would then come up with a vote for people who wanted to invest as to the game they prefer.
Once you have a winner I would collect the investments.
This is an interesting experiment because of the rather vocal community that thinks the game industry has gone awry and that someone who undertands what "really" needs to be created should create it.
Well who better to back this then the people who want a different type of game.
Starting from scratch is too risky. I wonder how many ventures fail before anything can actually happen? Or they start diving into creating assets without a plan in place.
Find small companies that already have their act together but who need investment.
Interesting, maybe I'll go this route and let the vocal community put it's money where it's mouth is. I am sure that there would be a group of developers out there that would be willing to go through with this for capital to help them create their game and in turn give us the ability to have the game that we "want".
Interesting to think about eh, community?
A couple ideas for you might be W.E.L.L. online or Earthrise. Both are very different from what is currently out there. I for one am very anxious to see both of those games. I would also be willing to do a community donation to either one.
I don't see how this can work given developing a MMO RPG Is a monumental effort.
AAA ones cost $50-60M. Let say you only need a very very niche one costing *only* $1M and everyone working on it takes a pay cut.
To get $1M, you need 100k people donating $10 each. Trying get $1M off a donation scheme is a pipe dream. Anything less won't be able to produce any amount of reasonable content.
If you ask people to donate their time, how can you ensure that they will be on the project for good? If a key programmer leaves, you will be back to square one. Open source development is GREAT when only incremental effort is needed. When you are doing a huge inter-connected piece of software with consistent content (i.e. MMORPG), this kind of distributed model just won't work.
Actually, I don't think getting 100k people from all over the world to donate 5 to 10 dollars would be that big a deal.
However, here is the lesson... we keep seeing people complaining about how there are only "cookie cutter" mmo's being made.
However, the reality is that companies are not going to put money into games that don't look modern and aren't pretty much gauranteed to make money.
I just love it how players bitch and moan because game companies aren't willing to spend money on the games they want yet I don't really see players going for anything other than larger AAA titles. Players want games with great graphics, new gameplay, skill based systems sand box... etc, etc. but I highly doubt that many of them would go for the smaller games that smaller dev's are creating.
I fully believe you can get the funds to help an already exisitng project to get finished. I also don't believe that in the end players will do it because in the end they aren't willing to back up their words.
5 dollars? 10 dollars? come on! Most of us piss that much if not more without even noticing it. And as I've said, I'm willing to give 200.00 and I don't really care about having a skill based sandbox game.
I'd love to see the complaining playerbase put their money where their mouths are. I highly doubt they will. All talk and all. It's always easier to spend other people's money it seems.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Pissing money away is not a good practice.
Donating money to a project such as this is a bad idea for a few reasons:
- There is no guarantee on where the money is going
- There is no guarantee the project will be completed
- There is no guarantee that if the project is completed, it will be what we wanted when donating the money.
There is an extremely high chance, that if this project were to begin, that it will not be finished. (even full fledging game companies go bust, and you expect a mob of people organised over the internet to complete one!) You should really think about this more
Exactly. do you see the point?
Making games is hard. Raising funds is difficult, completing games is also hard.
Yet month after month, players bitch and moan because games aren't being made that they want. Yet they expect OTHER people to put up their hard earned cash, take the risk only to have the players bitch and complain again.
In any case... as I suggested before, whoever was interested (and I presume it's the OP) in having a community backed MMO would find a project that was already being managed and that was already in production. Should that project desire investment, all sorts of legalities would be look into so that people would invest just like any other business venture.
Just like all the other games that we play that have some sort of investment. Whether they be small game companies or stock holders for larger companies.
And no, I don't expect a mob of people to do this. I expect the OP to find a project that resembles what many players want, perhaps even open it up to some sort of poll. And afterwards, after all the appropriate papers have been drawn up, people can give 5 dollars or so. There is no difference between investing in this project or any other small company. Not if the OP, if he really wants to do this, looks into all the appropriate paperwork. Heck, all he would be doing is being the facilitator in getting money to a project that other mmo players would want.
But again, I find it funny how many players complain and complain when other people's money is on the line. Interesting isn't it?
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Your looking at it the wrong way. The game company is investing in their game when they development. We, the community, are trying to tell them how to better their investment by making a god darn decent game. We aren't making the game company put up their hard earned cash, as they had already decided they were going to make a game.
If a game company doesn't have the brains (or balls) to actually listen and think, then they deserve to fail.
Just my closing thoughts on the OP's idea. No it wouldn't work. It simply wouldn't. If you had 5 years, and managed to pull in 10+ million, then maybe you could produce something decent. If your REALLY desperate to help out the MMORPG, jump on board Darkfall and get it moving.
Your looking at it the wrong way. The game company is investing in their game when they development. We, the community, are trying to tell them how to better their investment by making a god darn decent game. We aren't making the game company put up their hard earned cash, as they had already decided they were going to make a game.
If a game company doesn't have the brains (or balls) to actually listen and think, then they deserve to fail.
Just my closing thoughts on the OP's idea. No it wouldn't work. It simply wouldn't. If you had 5 years, and managed to pull in 10+ million, then maybe you could produce something decent. If your REALLY desperate to help out the MMORPG, jump on board Darkfall and get it moving.
Or you can change your paradigm and think about it that it is very possible that the gaming community can have an active part in what is being created.
In any case, it is not the gaming company that is investing in the project. Not in all cases. It's investment companies (such as the one that invested in Turbine) or stock holders or just about anyone.
That's how movies are made, theater is made, etc. Oftentimes you do have individual investors.
And also, "something decent" is subjective. Quite frankly I don't think millions could be raised by the community. the only way that the OP's idea (in my opinion) could be realized is a small game. Something that didn't have cutting edge graphics.
Again, I really think people need to broaden their minds a bit. If I wanted to I could personally go, find a small game company and if they were amenable, invest in their product.
This can be done. not an issue. Really.
However, what if I got 5 people to do it? 25? 100? 5000? Get it?
Just like the players of Ryzom got a large amount of promised money to buy their game so could a section of the community do the same.
I hardly believe it's going to be something on AOC's scale. But there seem to be a good number of people who claim they don't need cutting edge graphics. They just want something skill based that is a sandbox.
So, why not get a section of the commuinity to invest in something that is already in the works. I don't see the issue. Not when one investor can do it. People would just have to know what they were getting into. Just like any other investor.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
You do realize you are going about this the wrong way before you try to look at funding you should have a detailed plan and information about different aspects of the game. Will it be RvR, PvP, FFA PvP or PvE based game? How will you handle game progression? How will you handle skills? How will you handle levels? Will it be class based, flat skills or a skill tree and the more information on those the better? What type of controls? What type of Setting? Those are just some examples of questions you should answer before you start.
A good plan and outline will atleast help you connect more with people who would be willing to support your ideas.
Let 'em dream. There hasn't been a good "Let's make a <something>" movie since the '40's with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. They're just reliving history. This is today's version of those old movies.
Let 'em dream. There hasn't been a good "Let's make a <something>" movie since the '40's with Judy Garland and Mickey Rooney. They're just reliving history. This is today's version of those old movies.
The problem is that people are thinking "let's make AOC!... we'll get the community and raise millions of dollars" etc, etc.
I have no idea as to the scope of the OP's project. I do know that there are small dev's who are making games that some of you might be interested in. They might be very worthwhile projects. So what? give 5 dollars to see if they can finish it? They won't be cutting edge graphics or anything like that.
However, seeing the scope of such things as the programmers who devote their time to writing software for Linux or the amount of people who contribute to Wikipedia, I completely think you can get 60k people or so investing (or donating? Dare to throw caution to the wind?) a few dollars to a worthwhile game.
I completely don't care except I like to see community projects come to fruition. This type of thing is done with theater all the time. Sorry but it's true. Also small movies. Well, perhaps not on the scale of people that might invest a few dollars (as a project like this will require 50-60k people giving a few dollars) but individual investment is done all the time in the arts.
But whatever, perhaps that answers the OP's question, that most people wouldn't give a dollar or two or five for a project that seemed intersting. I mean, heck, you guy must piss away a fiver on some drink or cigarettes or renting a bad movie or even giving to the homeless (which of course is a more worthy use of money in my opinion) or the lottery.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
If you really think that, good luck in getting it going. For me, I wouldn't waste my time nor money on something I highly doubt will work.
I highly doubt you can coordinate a 25 people team completely on an amateur basis.
However, you probably won't believe me. So do try to prove me wrong. Spend your time to get it going. Personally, I won't spend so much effort & potential aggravation on something that is just entertainment. However, that is just me.