Curse

karen the healer · Nov 13, 2008, 09:17 PM // 21:17

Its a shame Tabula Rasa is not doing so well. The dev team has made great strides in the game and the game has gotten so much better. I have been playing it off and on the last few months and I have really enjoyed it. I quit subscribing a few days back only because I will be playing some new games and the clan I was in had lost many of its members.

On another note I would like to ask if I remember this right. But did not Richard Garriott say some bad things about Guild Wars a few years back? I might be wrong, but seemed like he did not think much of the game.

Guild Wars is still my favorite game.

Paloma Song · Nov 13, 2008, 09:31 PM // 21:31

Quote:

Originally Posted by Zinger314

He was fired. No one "exits" a business.

You don't fire someone like Richard Garriott; he fires you. The man uses money for toilet paper. People throw money at him to work on their projects. He wasn't just some throw-away studio scapegoat. Good grief.

His comments in the linked article make it pretty clear that he wanted to move onto something else, as as someone else above noted, he probably would have done that no matter how well TR did. Anyone who's been following TR since it was first announced knows how dramatically different the final game was from his first vision of it (pew pew androgynous anime fan-dancing sonic outerspace bards!) and it's the rare person who returns from a pioneering journey like a space flight without a life-changing impulse.

But I realize truth doesn't make for as interesting a thread.

Cobalt · Nov 13, 2008, 09:34 PM // 21:34

The MMOG market is a tough business due mostly to WOW's firm grip on the lion share of it. Even GW would have been no more than a blip on the radar had it been pay to play or had WOW been free to play.

isildorbiafra · Nov 13, 2008, 09:40 PM // 21:40

So what! Sales on subscription games drop....OMFG we are in a resession last time i checked. They could have better hired the staff at NcSoft to manage the financial crisis rather than the harvard chimps in suits that fu the world economy.

Oh and for those of you that didnt know....households go bust in situations like this. No! You cant renew your subscription to TR, GW, WHol! We need to make ends meet. So go to your room and do your homework! Slap!@#@!

Scythe O F Glory · Nov 13, 2008, 11:02 PM // 23:02

Profits plummeted because new people read these forums and decided not to buy GW.
Also cause of tabula rasa.

seut · Nov 22, 2008, 07:56 AM // 07:56

http://www.rgtr.com/news/latest_news...la_rasa_t.html
http://kotaku.com/5095941/tabula-ras...it-by-lay-offs

Quote:

Tabula Rasa Shutting Down, Team Hit by Lay Offs
By Brian Crecente, 11:30 AM on Fri Nov 21 2008, 8,265 views

With NCSoft slowing sinking, teams being laid off, Richard Garriott himself exiting the company, it should come as no surprise that another round of lay-offs have rippled through the company.

Sources tell us that today many of the Tabula Rasa team were let go. The plug has also been pulled on the game, according to both our sources and the official Tabula Rasa website:

To the Tabula Rasa Community,

Last November we launched what we hoped would be a ground breaking sci-fi MMO. In many ways, we think we've achieved that goal. Tabula Rasa has some unique features that make it fun and very different from every other MMO out there. Unfortunately, the fact is that the game hasn't performed as expected. The development team has worked hard to improve the game since launch, but the game never achieved the player population we hoped for.

So it is with regret that we must announce that Tabula Rasa will end live service on February 28, 2009.

Before we end the service, we'll make Tabula Rasa servers free to play starting on January 10, 2009.

We can assure you that through the next couple of months we'll be doing some really fun things in Tabula Rasa, and we plan to make staying on a little longer worth your while. For more details about what we are doing for Tabula Rasa players, please click here.

Stay tuned for more information. We thank you for your loyal support of the game and encourage you to take us up on the benefits we're offering Tabula Rasa players.

The Tabula Rasa Team

Our sources tell us that only a handful of people from the original Tabula Rasa team will be sticking around to maintain the game until it is shut down.

Update: NCsoft spokesman David Swofford confirmed to Kotaku that the game has been shut down and that there will be lay-offs.

"We’re going to be scaling down the TR team in preparation for the end of live service. But for now Brian, we currently don’t know how many people will be affected by that."

Horrible times. Horrible times.

aapo · Nov 22, 2008, 11:00 AM // 11:00

Quote:

Originally Posted by NassauBob

Exactly. I waited and waited for Tabula Rasa, only to blech upon seeing the $40-some-odd price tag, PLUS the monthly fee. The lack of a fee is what got me into Guild Wars in the first place (after the woeful Savage flopped).

- Yes. Why does it seem like every MMO software company thinks they can milk 15 bucks a month + game price for anything they release? When that price can get you game by the most successful company in market, why settle for anything less? There's more bad games full of grind, repetion, dullness and failed quality assurance than I can list. Not only that, but what happened to innovations that took computer gaming forward? It's truly a beautiful sight when the game is designed unrestricted by previous conceptions. Guild Wars' design still lugs experience points and character levels - elements of past RPG games - even though it has been ANET's ideal that such things shouldn't matter. Thus we have meaningless rewards for quest completion.

Numa Pompilius · Nov 22, 2008, 11:06 AM // 11:06

Quote:

Originally Posted by draxynnic

The problem, as I've said before, with profitability in NCSoft's line is that they tend to be competing not just with WoW, but with themselves.

Hell yes. And IMO they're doing the same thing AGAIN with Aion.

Also: Yes of course he was fired/terminated. His project, which cost on the order of 100 million dollars, tanked. Badly.
I can see why they hired him in the first place, with the relative popularity of the various Ultimas and his perceived following of fans, but NCSoft would have to be mad to keep him on after Tabula Rasa crashed.

EDIT: And $40 + $15/month is proven to be acceptable for MMORPGs. That's not why TR failed. It failed because there were similar but cheaper or better alternatives, and because MMORPGs sell on their own success - the more successful a MMORPG is the more it sells, because it's all about socializing.

Abedeus · Nov 22, 2008, 11:09 AM // 11:09

At least subscribers got kewl refund.

3 months of CoH (awesome game), Lineage 2 (meh), Aion beta, Aion pre-order launch and 1 month of retail version along with digital download. Nice.

And if someone has subscription ending after February 28th, they'll get a refund.

Zorgy · Nov 22, 2008, 11:22 AM // 11:22

Wrong place for this topic....Please move it to OFF-TOPIC!!!!!!!!!!!

tmr819 · Nov 22, 2008, 11:52 AM // 11:52

If TR had been structured and presented as a "Guild Wars in space"-type game, i.e., (1) buy it once and play for free thereafter, (2) keep the persistent world, but (3) offer an AI assistance option to players for the instanced content, it would have stood a much better chance of success (or at least not tanking). Charging a hefty subscription is what killed TR.

MMO developers see those lucrative subs/bucks that Blizzard is raking in and they want a piece of that -- forgetting that WoW earned that money by offering a quality product that umpty-million players actually felt was *worth* the $15/month subscription fee. Other MMOs had better wise up and offer tiered subscriptions or alternative (and more reasonable) payment models (such as Guild Wars has done) if they want to be competitive, imo. In LotRO, for example, you pay $10/month (if you sub for 3 months), which is a far better deal (and for a better game, too

) than what TR had to offer. (LotRO is "tiding me over" at the moment until something better comes along.)

I would love to see TR reworked to be more like Guild Wars (or even offered as a single-player RPG). It seems a shame to lose all of that work, creature and world design, etc.

Darkobra · Nov 23, 2008, 05:06 AM // 05:06

I'd be willing to bet that if they made it free to play, more people would be buying it and that would get more money flowing in. But greed blinds the weak.

maraxusofk · Nov 23, 2008, 05:39 AM // 05:39

Quote:

Originally Posted by Jiao Yang

He actually sold his shares in the company ages ago.. so he practically exited then. That's how he afforded the $20 million space flight.

nice. he must be laughing his way to the bank.

Red Sonya · Nov 23, 2008, 09:08 AM // 09:08

The real problem with MMO's and MMORPG's is there is such a GLUT of them nowadays that many people have hard choices and don't know which one to play and most of them want to play with their friends as well. That's where WOW rules them all. It's been around a long time now and 11 million people subscribe to it. That's subscriptions folks not just sales. GW on the other had has had 5.69million SALES, but, hardly that many people PLAYING it still.

I do agree though the only way to compete with WOW is to make more no monthly fee games like GW in other genre's like Sci-Fi (starship troopers type). If you notice Anarchy Online is still going strong while offering no monthly fees to the origional and Notum wars expansion and only charging for the more recent expansions a monthly fee if players CHOOSE to play it.

Also those that do require payment if they aren't WOW need to lower their monthly fees. If I have to pay $15 a month I'm certainly going where the crowd is because that means more people to play with, more things maintain a value and more fun all around. They all are TIME CONSUMERS so it really doesn't matter the scene you choose as much as it matters the population you choose to play in and the phat loot and levels that are allowed in the game.

I believe the only game that will defeat/kill WOW will be a WOWlike NO MONTHLY FEE game with better graphics, lots of phat loot and UNLIMITED LEVELING or POWERSURGE. Games like GW will end because there's no material goals to go for. No Phat loot, no powergoals, nothing but relentless repetitiveness going for the SAME items/loot over and over with NO LEVEL ADVANCEMENT. WOW proves the majority of people like to see themselves grow and expand in the gaming community. The people like to be separated by power and material things as well as have fun together in battles and quests. So, all that's really needed for GW is to bring that SAME TYPE of GAMEPLAY from WOW WITHOUT any monthy fees.

I'm hoping GW2 will be along these lines. If they make weapons and armor have a limited combat value again GW2 will not be a WOW killer.

Numa Pompilius · Nov 23, 2008, 09:42 AM // 09:42

You're advocating going head to head with WoW on WoW's home turf with only the advantage of lower monthly fee.

I'd say that's a fatal mistake, because, like WoW has proven, MMORPGs don't sell on quality or graphics or gameplay or low cost, they sell on socializing, the ability to mingle with RL friends and to make new friends, and in that regard WoW wins by default simply because it's so big.

One way to actually get an edge over WoW where it matters, and a feature I suspect whichever game eventually kills WoW will have, is to use a flat server model like Guild Wars does: it is entirely possible for a MMORPG to have more people online than there are on any individual WoW-server and hence offer as good or better socializing. In other words, to offer a single unified world instead of the fragmented server-wide worlds of WoW.
Yeah, sure, server bandwidth - but that's a technical issue, and technical issues can be solved.

It is probably also possible to perhaps not beat but at least carve a niche alongside WoW by catering to a different crowd. It is, for instance, very easy to provide much better graphics, physics, and game mechanics than WoW has, and that would attract hardcore gamers - a much smaller and more fickle market than the non-gamer market which is the base of WoW, but possibly sufficient to be profitable. Arguably this is what GW aimed for, and also arguably succeeded in doing.

Fril Estelin · Nov 23, 2008, 10:44 AM // 10:44

Numa, you're right, except that WoW has much more than a socialising power, it now has a "society power" given how it's been quite deep into the fabrics of our societies. You see it on TV, politicians organise meetings in it, studies have shown that it actually improves the communication skills of children, etc.

No MMO can beat that, except maybe in countries like China, Korea, where there are other companies doing the same stuff. On the other hand, as Red Sonya suggests, never underestimate the power of addiction, social networking websites (e.g. facebook) and virtual worlds (MMOs, Second Life) are rapidly becoming the new "drugs"...

Regarding TR, it's really a shame but I did get the feeling it was a sort of "GW in space with a monthly fee". But Stargate may be his successor and it certainly builds on the big reputation of the TV show (something that MMO companies will have to do at one point to survive: blend into society, with TV shows, songs, etc.)

Alreya · Nov 23, 2008, 01:01 PM // 13:01

The real issue in the market for anyone other than Blizzard is how to participate in the MMO market given WoW's overwhelming position currently.

NC Soft has taken the approach of trying to nibble around the edges .. make games that are in some ways different from WoW, while being similar in core ways. Examples are AA and TR. GW is also an example. One of these succeeded whereas the other two failed. Notably, the one that succeeded is the one without a subscription fee.

Games that charge a fee are having a hard time because WoW owns that space to an almost total degree. In part that has to do with socialization, in part it has to do with the reach of the game (everyone from 12 to 85 seems to play it), in part it has to do with the fact that now most players have level capped characters and don't want to "do it all over again" in another level-based game, and in part it has to do with the fact that noone else in the market can create a game out of the box that is as polished or has as much content as WoW does. WoW has basically taken the air almost completely out of the subscription MMORPG market, really. It *is* that market, more or less. Every game that tries to compete head on with it ends with very mixed results because it's pretty much impossible to compete against it effectively.

What that leaves are openings in the market for (1) well made, western-oriented, free to play games like GW or hopefully GW2 and (2) well-done but lower budgeted "niche" games that aim to have 100-200k subs max, and are not designed like WoW or aiming to take many of WoW's core gamers. But trying to compete against WoW in its own space (subscription based, leveling based game) is going to yield poor results for the most part. WoW owns that market.

Striken7 · Nov 23, 2008, 06:05 PM // 18:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by HawkofStorms

Really, I just can't believe how dumb your logic was when you said that 5.69 million HAS to include buddy keys since GW hasn't sold 6 million copies. That just doesn't even make sense. Last I checked, 5 < 5.69 < 6. That works.

Wow, can you really not tell the difference between copies sold and accounts created?

Guild Wars has sold less 6 million copies. We know most of those copies are bought by people who already have an account. That means based on copies sold alone, there are probably only between 2-4 million unique accounts (compared to WoW's 11 million unique accounts that each pay a monthly fee).

And yet they are reporting 5.59 million accounts created. If this didn't include buddy keys and free trials, it would mean every single copy sold was used to create a brand new account... Did you make a new account every time you bought a new chapter?

Red Sonya · Nov 23, 2008, 07:45 PM // 19:45

Yep Striken is right it's not taking into account many of us have bought all 3 chapters and the expansion which is 4 sales from ONE person such as myself. So, my thinking is GW's barely has a little over 1-1/2 million initial customers and only half of those are still playing as many have left for other games now. Whereas a game like Diablo 2 + expansion had over 5 millions SALES and 2/3rds CUSTOMERS because it was only ONE chapter and ONE expansion. So really D2 had a larger CUSTOMER base than GW has had. I had some numbers up on this awhile back and it was 4 millions sales of D2 and 1 millions sales of the Expansion. Now if you take into account all the sales of the origional Diablo and it's expansion and D2 and it's expansion you have around 8 million copies sold of that series. Thus even the Diablo series has proven better than GW.

Found the numbers:

Quote:

Guild Wars (5 million in North America, Europe, and Asia; includes Factions, Nightfall, and Eye of the North)[207]
Counter-Strike (4.2 million,[20] may include Xbox version)
Cossacks: European Wars (4 million)[208]
Diablo II (4 million)[209]
Diablo II: Lord of Destruction [expansion pack] (1 million;[209] 2 million shipped)[209]

Notice GW needed 3 chapters and 1 expansion plus all the pvp paks etc to reach those numbers.

Also to D2's credit:

Quote:

ScapesWednesday, June 21, 2006, 05:27 PM
Diablo II was awarded a spot in the Guinness Book of World Records "2000 Edition" for being the fastest-selling computer game ever sold, with more than 1 million units sold in the first two weeks of availability
And then Blizzard deleted hundreds of thousands of Battle.net accounts over the course of the game's life.
-- Scaper-X

Winterclaw · Nov 23, 2008, 08:05 PM // 20:05

Quote:

Originally Posted by Alreya

The real issue in the market for anyone other than Blizzard is how to participate in the MMO market given WoW's overwhelming position currently.

When you can't beat them fair and square, beat them in court: sue blizzard for being a monopoly and break them up.