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Hold the Presses! Sota Sold to Catnip Games

KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 43,505
edited October 2019 in The Pub at MMORPG.COM
According to story on MassivelyOP.

Well, really is just Garriott completing his exit stage right with Chris Spears assuming ownership.

My guess is the move is to help Richard protect his personal assets when this game finally bellies up.

They've amassed considerable debt and back taxes they'll never be able to cover.

https://massivelyop.com/2019/10/09/shroud-of-the-avatar-changes-hands-as-portalarium-transfers-assets-to-catnip-games/

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Comments

  • Slapshot1188Slapshot1188 Member LegendaryPosts: 16,985
    Does this mean I’m not getting episodes 2,3,4 and 5?

    All time classic  MY NEW FAVORITE POST!  (Keep laying those bricks)

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  • Hawkaya399Hawkaya399 Member RarePosts: 620
    edited October 2019
    Sad. But it's normal for things to change hands, so not unexpected. As for Sota, it's an interesting sandbox, but I was discouraged by the confusing, sometimes clumsy, skill/combat/ui combination, the SP/MP modes, the immersion-breaking overland travel, the zoned world, the lag from lots of player items, and the sense that it was already resorting to cheap gimmicks to keep players logging in and leveling. HOWEVER, I do plan on going back. I feel like this is an MMORPG that requires a lot of patience and investment of your energy to settle into it, but once you do it's enjoyable. This is why it's sad. The probelm is a lot of players are entrenched in other MMORPGs, or othe rgames, and it's difficult for them to make that jump. After several hour long sessions of fiddling with it and being frustrated, they just go back to what they're familiar with. This is why so many MMORPGs are copycats or will be--they know players leave for fickle reasons, so they try to make their game similar to what players are playing, and as mainstream as possible. Given SOTA's featureset is still fairly niche makes it even less likely anybody will play it, let alone adjust to its awkward/confusing systems.

    I think the sometimes expensive property is not the main reason it has a low population. A lot of people blamed that, or blamed its graphics, but I think what I described above is the main reason its population has suffered. In other words, this is what -I- experienced when I played it. I've probably played up to 40 hours total. Not much, but enough to get an idea why some people might leave early.

    My guess is Catnip Games will try to mainstream its featureset and declutter/streamline its ui/skill/combat systems so things will be smoother for transitioning players. However, I don't think this can fix what has happened, so it's merely a stopgap. Its population will always falter and dwindle. It's in life-support mode.

    With so many MMORPGs/games out there, players just aren't willing to go outside their comfort zone for long, and if they manage to, it's so exceedingly difficult to make it bearable. People are still playing emulated MMORPGs from 20 years ago. Entrenchment is extremely common. Sadly this means maverick MMORPGs are going to be rare, and successful ones so rare it'd be like seeing the face of god. It's not a mistake most of the big AAA MMORPGs are also fairly conservative, borrowing heavily from past MMORPGs and attempting to appeal to the mass market.

    The real money for maverick designers is to be made in new innovative technologies, like in the latest mobiles, VR, cloud computing and other cutting edge venues where there's not a lot of choices yet. Becaue there're fewer choices, there's also less entrenchment, meaning it's a lot easier to get and keep players.

    In convventional MMORPG business dealing, the success is probably in understanding the business and the audience to perfection. Delivering a product cheapgily and exceptionally. The key is to appeal to an exact audience and to provide exactly what they're familiar with, while introducing something new, something they can't find elsewhere. This isn't the realm of mavericks, but it's the realm of people who know their trade well.
    Post edited by Hawkaya399 on
  • TEKK3NTEKK3N Member RarePosts: 1,115
    ^^^
    But most importantly, most of us don’t want to get scammed.

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