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StarVault CEO opens the door to selling MO to an established publisher
Slapshot1188
Member LegendaryPosts: 16,983
He also talks about promising to add 8 players to the next "test" as proof that they actually test their patches...
Today, 11:29 |
#30 (permalink) |
CEO  Join Date: Apr 2008 Posts: 718 Rep Power: 15  |
 Even though most people would think this is obvious, it is not for most. And in many cases it may be hard to understand what “the hell” we are doing and why we do it this way.. If it was as easy as lack of leadership or similar in our case, we could just increase our leadership experience by adding whats needed. But unfortunately that’s not the case here. Pretty much everyone agrees to and know what feature needs most attention in MO at this point. It is just like OP says, lack of resources, you are spot on, with more resources we could of course work faster and more effective. It also takes time to “learn” how to work in the MO dev enviroment. As with the small team we are, we are only working longer and harder to fulfill our dream and vision. I have to say that with Dawn, we see a positive trend when it comes to active players, increased accounts and population in the game which gives us energy to continue to work very hard. But in the end it comes down to a balance on how much hard work we put into this and the rewards. Someone said we are not testing, we have never tested as much as with Dawn since the beginning of Mortal. And just for the sake, we are going to see if we can invite you top 8, that someone suggested that would remove the bugs we had in Dawn release. Just to show, that it is not enough. Of course we have more than top 10 active players testing Dawn and a huge schedule on what to test and how to report the bugs, but its still not enough to find everything when we go live. If we were to invite you “8” active players I guess you can inform the rest that, “yes indeed we tested it nonstop, very hard and we nailed out the bugs we could find, but damn where did that x bug come from when we went live...” To improve this, we need a lot more testers, more time, and more resources which we sadly don’t have at the moment, we are slowly getting closer and we hope to be able to build on this as well as soon as it is possible. I’m not here to try to convince someone to follow OPs suggestion, I just wanted to express the devs and my voice in the matter. That it is indeed all about resources at this point and there is nothing else we can do but continue to work hard in a small team as we cannot expand yet. In the end it is indeed about new players trying the game and staying, which we do see at the moment which is great. And of course your support do matter as well, as we don’t need many players to change our resources. Some hundreds are doing a huge difference actually.. We will continue this as long as we are able to, and have the energy to do it. We have worked pretty much nonstop with Dawn till now, and vacation is hard for us to get as well. (Heck I have not had a vacation for 2 years now) If there is not enough resources we will have to adapt and see what options we have. Mortal is 8 years of work for me personally, and 6 years of hard work within the core team. We do this because we think it is fun, and Mortal have a very interesting future, you have shown there is a huge interest in the game, and your response makes us continue. If that stops, we are of course forced to listen on the major companies demands and see what kind of road that leads us to. There are plenty of major companies that have their eyes on Mortal, and have had so since the beginning. They know exactly what is needed to develop and release a game such Mortal on your own, and that alone is a huge accomplishment which we are proud for. They know its almost impossible to develop a large scale such MO with such small team and they are very eager to get their hands on both the game and the team. They know that with more resources and faster MO can get very far. If they share the exact same vision with full loot, full pvp, monthly payment however is another question. Which I guess why most of us is here, us the devs as well, but if it means that if some of those core features changes when a company have the rights for it and it gives a bigger player base then that’s what they will go for most likely. We will continue our development as long as we can make a living on this and as long as its enjoyable that’s pretty simple. Lately we have been playing more in the game as well, and we really enjoy playing MO. It's a blast playing with you, sometime you even have to “remind” us how some things works since we don’t cover all the “areas” after this long time of development and without asking each others, the game have gone very far since the beginning. The game have become the mmo we wanted to play since after UO and we want to continue doing so. Thank you all! __________________  |
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
Comments
Populistic drivel. Its so thick its not even funny. I sincerely hope noone buys into this.
would be very interesting so MO with some AA backing, then we might actually see an awesome sandbox, heres one for hoping
If they fire hendric i am all for it.
Would be nice, MO has some major potential, just need a dev team that isn't half retarded and it would be set.
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I am all for them selling to a more competant and more funded company. They need to shit can Henrik as part of the deal tho.
Really not? Because that's what the entire rest of this massive posting looks like. Combined with the fact that he posted just in THAT thread.. .
Else I don't really get the point of his posting. So they're hard-working and staying true to their vision blah blah, I've heard it all before. What core features could a major company possibly take away from Mortal? The messed up horses maybe. And the empty senseless desert between the places.
The rest, combat and thievery mainly, are already massively lacking in content. And the crafting system..meh.
EDIT: The amount of incompetence that is mirrored alone in this one posting is just too hilarious.
- "We have never tested as much before!"
- the subtle thread that he might just wreck it all if they don't get enough money
- the focus of his attention (He has time to reply to a fart like that but he doesn't have time to write about the promised compensation for the downtime?)
*leans back and watches*
Sounds like they are in financial trouble and if nobody buys it, then poof another poorly done mmo goes away.
But but didn't you read? The active subscriptions are increasing etc blahblah.
Yeah I just do not get that thread. If a game is good and people enjoy it, people will buy and sub to it. You do not need to pander to the low pop and ask them to buy more subs and copies. There was a huge following behind MO if they kept the huge guilds that backed the game during beta and were there after release I am sure the money problems would not be there. But they all left because the game is not done and every patch that comes down the pike fubars the game for weeks. From readng a lot of threads latley over there it just seems people are paying a subscription as an investment. They are paying for the game to be good one day. I am sorry but I pay to play and have fun, I do not pay to hope one day there may be a good game. It is a year after release. And they still have the same old recurring bugs and the game is still empty. I do not know why people want to put the game in a sandbox catagory. It really does not have what I would call sandbox tools. It may be lurching that way but it is not there.
So, basically, the guy is trying to lure Smedley into buying his game?
Yes I read the thread. What I read is we got more players playing, but we have a lack of resources. Well if you got more players playing, then why do you have a lack of resources. It was all double talk. So something about that entire letter sounded like bs. I read OK we been busting our buns, and our users love us. We are working hard, and you love us so much were getting more players. However we don't have the resources needed to have a good dev staff, or work on stuff like we need too. I'm like somebody is mismanaging the company then, or am I wrong.
It kind of sounded like a desperate attempt to clam folks down, and re-assure them everything is fine.
Actually your and other people's lack of reading skill is more or less sad, than funny ;(
Really? Please read the section here:
And just for the sake, we are going to see if we can invite you top 8, that someone suggested that would remove the bugs we had in Dawn release. Just to show, that it is not enough. Of course we have more than top 10 active players testing Dawn and a huge schedule on what to test and how to report the bugs, but its still not enough to find everything when we go live. If we were to invite you “8” active players I guess you can inform the rest that, “yes indeed we tested it nonstop, very hard and we nailed out the bugs we could find, but damn where did that x bug come from when we went live...”
So.. I'm pretty sure my "reading skill" is just fine.
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
With some AA backing MO, they would turn it to a standard themepark MMO to get more subscriptions. Simple as that
Lol, is this the Sandbox game Smedley is super duper excited about?
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I don't see anyone in their right mind buying this game. Any decent developer could write what Starvault has written in less time and fewer fiascoes. Cryptic could probably bang out a cr@ppy, but still more functional version in about a year.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
So OP of that post is basically asking us to do charity. I just don't understand such people. I could see his logic if game was new, but SV have already proven they don't have skill to deliver a product, and we are supposed to continue support them?
There's not a big enough potential playerbase for the AAA houses to risk investing in full loot open PvP sandbox games. if it doesn't stand a chance against WoW (read: make lots of $$), then they aren't interested.
In case you people haven't noticed, the MMO gaming trend is to suck wallets dry, not provide entertainment.
Has to be the smartest person playing MO.
psychobilly
Member
Join Date: Nov 2009
Posts: 383
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom
If it was as easy as lack of leadership or similar in our case, we could just increase our leadership experience by adding whats needed. But unfortunately that’s not the case here. Pretty much everyone agrees to and know what feature needs most attention in MO at this point.
No Henrik, there seems to be massive disagreement within the community regarding what features need most attention. We can all agree that the list is long, however, and the 7 pages of bugs in the tracker are a testament to this. The leadership part comes into play with determining what the true priorities are. If there is a choice between breaking a core system like mounted combat or archery, and releasing a new cooking system - I would suggest keeping the core systems intact and functional.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom
But in the end it comes down to a balance on how much hard work we put into this and the rewards.
While this is an honest and candid statement, a CEO should never say something like this. If you succeed as a business the rewards will come. If you have a marvelous vision with a failed implementation, the rewards will never come.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom
Someone said we are not testing, we have never tested as much as with Dawn since the beginning of Mortal.
I said it. It was me. How could you possibly say you tested the archery system? How could you possibly say you tested mounted combat? How could you say you tested all the magic spells? How could you say you tested refining? How could you say you tested AI and creature control? If you did test them and found no problems... then you need to fire your test team right now. Because there are massive and obvious problems that anyone can see... and your bug tracker lists them so you have no ground to stand on.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom
And just for the sake, we are going to see if we can invite you top 8, that someone suggested that would remove the bugs we had in Dawn release.
I said top 10.... but 8, fine, whatever.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom
Just to show, that it is not enough. Of course we have more than top 10 active players testing Dawn.
I said top 10 active contributors to the bug tracker... yes there are some very active players, but active bug posters are less common. And quality of the bug posts should come into your choice as well.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom
and a huge schedule on what to test and how to report the bugs, but its still not enough to find everything when we go live. If we were to invite you “8” active players I guess you can inform the rest that, “yes indeed we tested it nonstop, very hard and we nailed out the bugs we could find, but damn where did that x bug come from when we went live...”
If this actually happens then I applaud you. But please stop deleting confirmed bugs from the bug tracker every patch. Keep the known bugs listed until they are truly confirmed closed. What's more: maintain a known bugs list in a stickied thread on your forums.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Henrik Nystrom
That it is indeed all about resources at this point and there is nothing else we can do but continue to work hard in a small team as we cannot expand yet. In the end it is indeed about new players trying the game and staying, which we do see at the moment which is great.
It isn't about resources, it is about leadership. You have a talented team that is overworked and trying to do too much at once instead of doing a few things very well.
Let me give you an example: the patch process. Right now your patches are doing byte-by-byte comparisons of files. The result is that it takes a new customer more than one day to freshly install Mortal. Do you think there is any other game out there that takes this long to install the game and patch up to date? No. There is not. This is because other companies have snapshot releases which allow you to download a fully compressed version of the game installation at major releases. When there is a patch, the installer only needs to download the patch and unzip it, not go through a complex byte comparison of each file. It's simple things like this that show a lack of business leadership. Making things easy for new customers should be top priority.
The quality assurance process is another example. You should have a standard list of core systems to test at each patch release. If this was in place you would have caught the issues in the bug tracker because the majority of the bugs involve systems that were already in place pre-dawn.
The public relations process is another example. You had downtime this weekend for a hardware failure you told us nothing about. Why weren't there service level agreements with your hardware vendors to ensure speedy replacement of hardware parts if a failure occurs? Any 24/7 online business has these, regardless of the industry. If you want to make your customers feel important and valued, explain to them what went wrong and why it took so long to fix it. Even if the answer is a bad one, you can explain how you will do it better in the future.
We know MO is understaffed, but many of the core issues that are going wrong involve leadership, experience, and prioritization. Henrik you may be a good CEO, but you need a chief operations officer that can nail down the issues I mention. I don't think you have that now.
The CEO has a new reply to the above quoted post:
http://www.mortalonline.com/forums/63558-lets-help-starvault-they-need-resources-get-second-account-2.html#post1168369
All time classic MY NEW FAVORITE POST! (Keep laying those bricks)
"I should point out that no other company has shipped out a beta on a disc before this." - Official Mortal Online Lead Community Moderator
Proudly wearing the Harbinger badge since Dec 23, 2017.
Coined the phrase "Role-Playing a Development Team" January 2018
"Oddly Slap is the main reason I stay in these forums." - Mystichaze April 9th 2018
This!!! and lol
I win!!! LOL@U
Despite the fact this game had some bugs, despite the fact I had to restart my pc once in a while, despite the fact that i couldnt always login, despite the fact this game burnt my video card, desite the fact that i ran it on like ~30fps i had one of the best times when i played it in beta.
I knew it will fail because of the rushed realease. Rushed release means the company is low on cash and deffintely they couldn't make cash with unfinished game.
If some company buys the game I really hope they hire the original game designers or at least to continue develop the game in the current spirit.
Good luck Mortal Online!
Hmmm youre missing it actually. What Henrik is doing is fear-mongering to the existing playerbase to scare them away from unsubscribing from the game.
"If you unsubscribe we will have to sell MO and then they'll make it into a WoW clone and it will be the DEATH OF ALL SANDBOX GAMES FOR ALL TIMES!"
if any major company buys this game the first thing they will remove is the full loot pvp. that will be a sad day for MO. however, i would rather play a lame, care bear, watered down version of MO then have the game shut down for ever.
Henrik is lost.
He cannot even see, nor understand what "leadership" is? Henrik seems to think that if his people are working, then their doing something worthwhile..? He has no clue that the direction they work in is guided internally by him. He is the one who directs StarVault's resources.
The very fact Henrik has though up "Dawn" illustrates he is incompetent. Mortal Online does not exist! There is not one fundmental aspect of this game, therefore there is no game.. just a project.
ie: There is no basic systems in place, no perceivable balance in anything. An ongoing example of this, is how something as simple as, (& as important to the type of character build u want to make) as your character's run speed. Which has been changed numerous times since the release of the game...
Not only has that^^ a simple fundmental aspect of the game (running speed), been changed a dozen + times.. ... Yet, StarVault is still unable to answer what character speed is even based on..! (ie: Henrik is still deciding)
All of that should've been in the design doc before the game was even developed. Swimming? Diving..? Those will all takes years to flush out... if Henrik cannot even get the most basic movement alogrithms to balance properly. Which is just #'s & differential equations, which nearly anyone could do it in one day. Clothing? How come we don't have silk gowns, Hats, capes, pantaloons, or any mutitude of cotten (or patchwork) clothing..? Along with banded, scaled, studded, etc types of leather..? ??
No clothing in the game... but we have horse breeding and Guild emblems. Good job Henrik! (<-- ignorant)
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
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