All of their target audience is already backing the Repopulation from the look of it, or invested in EQN.
It looks bad for them considering the failed Kickstarter and all.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
1. It's Brad. The man who made the epic disaster that was Vanguard, and he has done nothing to earn the public's trust since then. Why would I send money to a guy who screwed up his last game so badly?
2. The game is targeted at the Hardcore Old School crowd. The kind of people who are into Project 1999 and Pre-Tram UO. The people rejected a mentoring system, claiming it was too modern. These people have their Rose Colored Glasses welded on so tightly that they were actively driving away people who might have been interested despite Brad's track record. As long as these people have such tight control of the game's direction (they are funding it after all), you will never get this game to sell to the general public.
I know I might be hitting a sore spot with that last one, but as much as you guys have the right to love Old UO and EQ, the rest of the world has moved on.
You can't use today's numbers to argue that Everquest was never popular in the first place. You're effectively saying that nothing can ever be popular if something else like it will be significantly more popular in the future. It follows that almost nothing was ever popular in the past, since we can point to similar modern activities that are more popular.
We'd then also have to suspend judgement and stop calling LoL and WoW popular, since we might eventually be proven wrong by a new title popping up in the future that pulls much higher numbers.
I'm really not all that interested in discussing EQ's influence, I just wanted to point out your poor reasoning skills.
I said that EQ was the most popular game for a while. But as soon as more games arrived (especially WoW), it's popularity went out the window. If customers only have 1-2 options to choose from, of course they will be the most popular. Add in 10 more options and you start seeing a different picture. Looking at today's market with a huge number of games out there, there are still hugely popular games that overshadow everything else.
I loved EQ, don't get me wrong, but I think Pantheon's attempt to basically clone it is a huge mistake. It would of been great 10+ years ago and would of been better alternative then Project 99, but I don't see it making it very far now. If they are really going for a small niche game with a relatively small pop, they might have a shot, but I highly doubt any big time funders (not just a few thousand fans) are going to back it in anyway. CU and PFO both look more interesting to me and neither has funding raining down from the sky. KS and the potential (Star Citizen) are great, but sometimes it takes more than a good idea.
I said that EQ was the most popular game for a while. But as soon as more games arrived (especially WoW), it's popularity went out the window.
I don`t think that is entirely true. I am not sure if you played everquest back in the beginning but after scars of velious, the quality of the expansions went downhill fast. The worse the expansions got the more people left. I remember the player base coming together to boycott the gates of discord expansion.
A similar thing is happening with wow at the moment. An MMO is only as good as its last expansion.
You can't use today's numbers to argue that Everquest was never popular in the first place. You're effectively saying that nothing can ever be popular if something else like it will be significantly more popular in the future. It follows that almost nothing was ever popular in the past, since we can point to similar modern activities that are more popular.
We'd then also have to suspend judgement and stop calling LoL and WoW popular, since we might eventually be proven wrong by a new title popping up in the future that pulls much higher numbers.
I'm really not all that interested in discussing EQ's influence, I just wanted to point out your poor reasoning skills.
I said that EQ was the most popular game for a while. But as soon as more games arrived (especially WoW), it's popularity went out the window. If customers only have 1-2 options to choose from, of course they will be the most popular. Add in 10 more options and you start seeing a different picture. Looking at today's market with a huge number of games out there, there are still hugely popular games that overshadow everything else.
I loved EQ, don't get me wrong, but I think Pantheon's attempt to basically clone it is a huge mistake. It would of been great 10+ years ago and would of been better alternative then Project 99, but I don't see it making it very far now. If they are really going for a small niche game with a relatively small pop, they might have a shot, but I highly doubt any big time funders (not just a few thousand fans) are going to back it in anyway. CU and PFO both look more interesting to me and neither has funding raining down from the sky. KS and the potential (Star Citizen) are great, but sometimes it takes more than a good idea.
Indeed you did -- after I corrected you.
As for Pantheon I think the fact that it's an 800k Kickstarter MMORPG is much more important to explain its failure than the details of the game. There's already a major case of Kickstarter fatigue going around and they have (from what I, and therefore most people checking their page, could tell) almost nothing to show. Promises, concept art and developers mucking about in unity seemed to be it.
I've already had it with dissappointing MMORPG releases from established, competent studios. Now you're asking me to give you money just to show publishers that there's interest, so that you can have a go at making a game that might not even be completed, and could very well turn out to be horrible in the end. And to top it off, you're doing it at the height of ESO and Wildstar hype, which shows extremely poor business sense.
Yeah....no, I'll just keep my money for now. Maybe if they come back a little smarter and with more to show I'll reconsider.
I said that EQ was the most popular game for a while. But as soon as more games arrived (especially WoW), it's popularity went out the window.
I don`t think that is entirely true. I am not sure if you played everquest back in the beginning but after scars of velious, the quality of the expansions went downhill fast. The worse the expansions got the more people left. I remember the player base coming together to boycott the gates of discord expansion.
A similar thing is happening with wow at the moment. An MMO is only as good as its last expansion.
You can find graphs that show very clearly how EQ declined during WoW's first year. Those don't prove anything, but considering how heavily vanilla WoW took from EQ it seems likely that it was the main cause of decline. EQ players were most likely unhappy with recent expansions and moved on to what (at the time) appeared to be EQ's natural successor.
The way Allein phrased it though you'd think that EQ was garbage that we got rid of the moment we got more options to choose from. This is not the case, since we DID have options. Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, Earth & Beyond, Final Fantasy XI, Planetside and Eve Online were all fairly popular before WoW's release (and I know for a fact that all of them, except for E&B which I know nothing about, are games that many people loved), and none of them killed Everquest.
We have also established the value of nostalgia... It is 400K-ish. I guess his mistake was to not sell overpriced digital spaceships. =P
I guess he is going to have to try and find REAL investors now.
Well, I'd hate to say it since it certainly turned me off from donating, but the $15 a month subscription to the forums is working out for them. I think they have roughly 300 subscribed accounts at $15 a month (or at least in on a $300 backer level) so that's $4500 a month just from that forum subscription level not including the $5 level and that doesn't include the non-sub backer levels of which I'd make the assumption it's about 500 people at $150 on average (based on the Kickstarter) so that's about $75,000 upfront money. Split amongst 20 or so developers that isn't livable wages, but assuming these people were really willing to work pro-bono and use their own savings to make the game I do think it's possible - though this obviously isn't the case.
Plenty of income which will likely increase slightly to make an MMO over the course of 3 years with a small team; however considering they want to back pay employees at "industry standard" and open up a studio there is still a good chance this won't be made without a publisher, especially if their employees continue to expect pay at industry standard which is ~$40k for a game designer, ~$50k for an artist, and ~$60k for a programmer (per year) something that would be impossible to sustain even if they received a ridiculous amount more funding that my estimates.
Originally posted by Caldicot I just don't understand how Mark Jacobs got 2 million for a pvp focused game when Brad cant even get 500 k for a pve mmo.
Because he came to his Kickstarter, did his research, was prepared, and had a plan. He and his team interacted with backers and potential backers on a daily basis. He and his team busted their butt the whole Kickstarter and you could see that every single day. Where with Brad and his team, they were barely around. You got the sense they felt they were too good to interact with the community much, and not even a week into the Kickstarter it looked like they had given up already. Even their backers were concerned and voiced that concern about how little info and how little interaction they were given in their comment section.
I mean come on, the opening video they had for Pantheon was pathetic, scripted, and had no enthusiasm whatsoever (they did change it a few weeks in, and that was the smartest thing they did the whole kickstarter). First impressions matter, and Brad and team's Kickstarter was a complete disaster and a joke from the start. People were on the fence just waiting for a reason to back it, and that moment never came.
Do I think there's a market for that type of mmo? Sure, I'm betting anywhere from 50K-150k people would like a game like that. It's a niche game and it wouldn't be in the millions of people interested but it would be profitable for a small company for sure. I just don't think Brad and team are the ones to do it. People know that and they did not back Pantheon.
You can't use today's numbers to argue that Everquest was never popular in the first place. You're effectively saying that nothing can ever be popular if something else like it will be significantly more popular in the future. It follows that almost nothing was ever popular in the past, since we can point to similar modern activities that are more popular.
We'd then also have to suspend judgement and stop calling LoL and WoW popular, since we might eventually be proven wrong by a new title popping up in the future that pulls much higher numbers.
I'm really not all that interested in discussing EQ's influence, I just wanted to point out your poor reasoning skills.
I said that EQ was the most popular game for a while.
Indeed you did -- after I corrected you.
Yeah....no, I'll just keep my money for now. Maybe if they come back a little smarter and with more to show I'll reconsider.
My post that you quoted started with "It was the most popular game for a while after it overtook UO", so no I didn't say it after you corrected me. I played EQ in 99 and am very clear what was popular when. When I said it wasn't that popular, I meant in general or relatively. 500k was a lot back then, no doubt, but you have to take the market and competition into consideration. EQ didn't really have any big names to compete against in the early stages of the genre. It was the big kid on the block and D&D, MUD fans fit in naturally to the world.
Compared to WoW's explosion only a few years later, it wasn't that amazing. EQ opened the door and WoW rushed right in knocking EQ down. Gamers could of tried EQ if they wanted, but the Warcraft IP was already popular by WoW's release and people were growing tired of all the other games out. It provided a higher quality experience for many and just went up hill from there.
I agree though about Pantheon and Kickstarter mmos in general. I think crowd funding is a great idea for some products, but for large scale mmos, a much higher quality of presentation is needed. Star Citizen should be the model followed, not whatever the heck Pantheon was trying. Millions are needed for a high quality product, expecting even a fraction of that from fans is a lot to hope for without a fairly fleshed out presentation to start with. I'm honestly surprised Camelot Unchained has raised so much, even though I would love to see it become a reality.
Perhaps brads game didnt make it because consumers are getting an ounce of morality with their purchasing and refuse to allow a known destroyer of games to screw them over again.
If you have failed your clients, you have no right to ever think you should be successful again. IDC what brads intentions were with the Vanguard debacle, I care what the results were.
I dont think his KS failed due to saturation, or lack of disposable income are anything other than people are fed up with supporting developers that have fooked them over before, and that is a good thing.
Comments
All of their target audience is already backing the Repopulation from the look of it, or invested in EQN.
It looks bad for them considering the failed Kickstarter and all.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
There are 2 main reasons this kickstarter failed:
1. It's Brad. The man who made the epic disaster that was Vanguard, and he has done nothing to earn the public's trust since then. Why would I send money to a guy who screwed up his last game so badly?
2. The game is targeted at the Hardcore Old School crowd. The kind of people who are into Project 1999 and Pre-Tram UO. The people rejected a mentoring system, claiming it was too modern. These people have their Rose Colored Glasses welded on so tightly that they were actively driving away people who might have been interested despite Brad's track record. As long as these people have such tight control of the game's direction (they are funding it after all), you will never get this game to sell to the general public.
I know I might be hitting a sore spot with that last one, but as much as you guys have the right to love Old UO and EQ, the rest of the world has moved on.
I said that EQ was the most popular game for a while. But as soon as more games arrived (especially WoW), it's popularity went out the window. If customers only have 1-2 options to choose from, of course they will be the most popular. Add in 10 more options and you start seeing a different picture. Looking at today's market with a huge number of games out there, there are still hugely popular games that overshadow everything else.
I loved EQ, don't get me wrong, but I think Pantheon's attempt to basically clone it is a huge mistake. It would of been great 10+ years ago and would of been better alternative then Project 99, but I don't see it making it very far now. If they are really going for a small niche game with a relatively small pop, they might have a shot, but I highly doubt any big time funders (not just a few thousand fans) are going to back it in anyway. CU and PFO both look more interesting to me and neither has funding raining down from the sky. KS and the potential (Star Citizen) are great, but sometimes it takes more than a good idea.
I don`t think that is entirely true. I am not sure if you played everquest back in the beginning but after scars of velious, the quality of the expansions went downhill fast. The worse the expansions got the more people left. I remember the player base coming together to boycott the gates of discord expansion.
A similar thing is happening with wow at the moment. An MMO is only as good as its last expansion.
Indeed you did -- after I corrected you.
As for Pantheon I think the fact that it's an 800k Kickstarter MMORPG is much more important to explain its failure than the details of the game. There's already a major case of Kickstarter fatigue going around and they have (from what I, and therefore most people checking their page, could tell) almost nothing to show. Promises, concept art and developers mucking about in unity seemed to be it.
I've already had it with dissappointing MMORPG releases from established, competent studios. Now you're asking me to give you money just to show publishers that there's interest, so that you can have a go at making a game that might not even be completed, and could very well turn out to be horrible in the end. And to top it off, you're doing it at the height of ESO and Wildstar hype, which shows extremely poor business sense.
Yeah....no, I'll just keep my money for now. Maybe if they come back a little smarter and with more to show I'll reconsider.
You can find graphs that show very clearly how EQ declined during WoW's first year. Those don't prove anything, but considering how heavily vanilla WoW took from EQ it seems likely that it was the main cause of decline. EQ players were most likely unhappy with recent expansions and moved on to what (at the time) appeared to be EQ's natural successor.
The way Allein phrased it though you'd think that EQ was garbage that we got rid of the moment we got more options to choose from. This is not the case, since we DID have options. Ultima Online, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Shadowbane, Earth & Beyond, Final Fantasy XI, Planetside and Eve Online were all fairly popular before WoW's release (and I know for a fact that all of them, except for E&B which I know nothing about, are games that many people loved), and none of them killed Everquest.
I guess reality intercepted their ball.
We have also established the value of nostalgia... It is 400K-ish. I guess his mistake was to not sell overpriced digital spaceships. =P
I guess he is going to have to try and find REAL investors now.
This have been a good conversation
Well, I'd hate to say it since it certainly turned me off from donating, but the $15 a month subscription to the forums is working out for them. I think they have roughly 300 subscribed accounts at $15 a month (or at least in on a $300 backer level) so that's $4500 a month just from that forum subscription level not including the $5 level and that doesn't include the non-sub backer levels of which I'd make the assumption it's about 500 people at $150 on average (based on the Kickstarter) so that's about $75,000 upfront money. Split amongst 20 or so developers that isn't livable wages, but assuming these people were really willing to work pro-bono and use their own savings to make the game I do think it's possible - though this obviously isn't the case.
Plenty of income which will likely increase slightly to make an MMO over the course of 3 years with a small team; however considering they want to back pay employees at "industry standard" and open up a studio there is still a good chance this won't be made without a publisher, especially if their employees continue to expect pay at industry standard which is ~$40k for a game designer, ~$50k for an artist, and ~$60k for a programmer (per year) something that would be impossible to sustain even if they received a ridiculous amount more funding that my estimates.
Because he came to his Kickstarter, did his research, was prepared, and had a plan. He and his team interacted with backers and potential backers on a daily basis. He and his team busted their butt the whole Kickstarter and you could see that every single day. Where with Brad and his team, they were barely around. You got the sense they felt they were too good to interact with the community much, and not even a week into the Kickstarter it looked like they had given up already. Even their backers were concerned and voiced that concern about how little info and how little interaction they were given in their comment section.
I mean come on, the opening video they had for Pantheon was pathetic, scripted, and had no enthusiasm whatsoever (they did change it a few weeks in, and that was the smartest thing they did the whole kickstarter). First impressions matter, and Brad and team's Kickstarter was a complete disaster and a joke from the start. People were on the fence just waiting for a reason to back it, and that moment never came.
Do I think there's a market for that type of mmo? Sure, I'm betting anywhere from 50K-150k people would like a game like that. It's a niche game and it wouldn't be in the millions of people interested but it would be profitable for a small company for sure. I just don't think Brad and team are the ones to do it. People know that and they did not back Pantheon.
What happens when you log off your characters????.....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GFQhfhnjYMk
Dark Age of Camelot
My post that you quoted started with "It was the most popular game for a while after it overtook UO", so no I didn't say it after you corrected me. I played EQ in 99 and am very clear what was popular when. When I said it wasn't that popular, I meant in general or relatively. 500k was a lot back then, no doubt, but you have to take the market and competition into consideration. EQ didn't really have any big names to compete against in the early stages of the genre. It was the big kid on the block and D&D, MUD fans fit in naturally to the world.
Compared to WoW's explosion only a few years later, it wasn't that amazing. EQ opened the door and WoW rushed right in knocking EQ down. Gamers could of tried EQ if they wanted, but the Warcraft IP was already popular by WoW's release and people were growing tired of all the other games out. It provided a higher quality experience for many and just went up hill from there.
I agree though about Pantheon and Kickstarter mmos in general. I think crowd funding is a great idea for some products, but for large scale mmos, a much higher quality of presentation is needed. Star Citizen should be the model followed, not whatever the heck Pantheon was trying. Millions are needed for a high quality product, expecting even a fraction of that from fans is a lot to hope for without a fairly fleshed out presentation to start with. I'm honestly surprised Camelot Unchained has raised so much, even though I would love to see it become a reality.
Perhaps brads game didnt make it because consumers are getting an ounce of morality with their purchasing and refuse to allow a known destroyer of games to screw them over again.
If you have failed your clients, you have no right to ever think you should be successful again. IDC what brads intentions were with the Vanguard debacle, I care what the results were.
I dont think his KS failed due to saturation, or lack of disposable income are anything other than people are fed up with supporting developers that have fooked them over before, and that is a good thing.