Curse

Clawdius_Talonious · Aug 31, 2006, 03:34 PM // 15:34

I am sick of people complaining constantly about ArenaNet's 6 month release plan. They announced this concept before Guild Wars was even out. If you don't like it, go play something else.

Omega X · Aug 31, 2006, 04:08 PM // 16:08

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

Everybody has the right to start a topic because in that way we can see the opinion of the forumers. In this particular case no one has supported the opinion that the excess of add ons are a bad thing; on the contrary all forumers have posted their agreement with the 2 per year chapter politics.

Of course. People love the game and they want more of it sooner than later. Otherwise, people just get bored with what they have and move on to something new.

In order to keep interests high, ANET has to keep it coming or they will suffer another slump like the end of 2005.

MMOs like WoW and CoH were born big, so it takes longer for people to get bored with. Its also why it takes longer to make patches and expansions for them. Guild Wars at the time of their launch was only a fraction of the size of normal MMOs at the time. Within ONE year, they are managing to catch up to the size of other MMOs. By the end of 2007, they should have finally caught up to the rest of the MMO world. And then they could try changing their plans for expansions.

But for now, players welcome the 2x releases.

Cynn Evennia · Aug 31, 2006, 04:11 PM // 16:11

Quote:

Originally Posted by Loviatar

i think the lack of tolerance is due to the simple fact that most (not all) would be happy getting even more content to choose from and somebody suggests that even less content should be offered

"I disagree with what you have to say but will fight to the death to protect your right to say it." Voltaire.

"Just 'cause you're right - that don't mean I'm wrong." The Outfield

Choose your favorite quote, lol

Dear Ashantara, your topic backfired you, im sorry, but at least it showed the eagerness of players to more and more content.

"My momma always said, 'Life is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get'." Forrest Gump.

My opinion: 6 months chapter release FTW, 2 new professions each chapter FTL.

Clawdius_Talonious · Aug 31, 2006, 04:18 PM // 16:18

Quote:

Originally Posted by Cynn Evennia

2 new professions each chapter FTL.

Wow, are you psychic? It must be nice, can I get you to buy me a winning lottery ticket?

Adding DIVERSITY isn't a bad thing, as long as they keep the game balanced there won't be issues with the number of potential professions. Skill combinations and strategies were why they made this game in the first place, correct me of I'm wrong.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega X

Within ONE year, they are managing to catch up to the size of other MMOs. By the end of 2007, they should have finally caught up to the rest of the MMO world. And then they could try changing their plans for expansions.

But for now, players welcome the 2x releases.

I'm sorry, I believe the correct term for Guild Wars is Competitive Online Role Playing Game

Omega X · Aug 31, 2006, 06:28 PM // 18:28

Quote:

Originally Posted by Clawdius_Talonious

I'm sorry, I believe the correct term for Guild Wars is Competitive Online Role Playing Game

I'm sorry, the technical term for Guild Wars is Massive Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.

CORPG was coined by the devs to try to separate their product from the criticisms of the traditional MMO because the areas in the game was instanced.

Massive amounts of people play the game at the same time. So it is still considered a MMOG.

When they stop making the PvE side of the game, then COG would be correct.

Relambrien · Aug 31, 2006, 08:50 PM // 20:50

Yay, time for some definitions!

CORPG - Competitive Online Role-Playing Game (also Cooperative Online Role-Playing Game)

MMORPG - Massively-Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game

Is Guild Wars competitive and cooperative? Yes.
Is Guild Wars online? Yes.
Is Guild Wars a Role-Playing Game? Yes.
Is Guild Wars Massively-Multiplayer? Yes. 2 million accounts would *definitely* count as massive.

Thus, Guild Wars is both a CORPG and MMORPG. However, Anet called it a CORPG because of what people associate with MMORPG's, namely spawn camping, rarely instanced, etc. Guild Wars was very different, so they called it something different. However, it fits the definitions of both.

And on-topic, I love the 6-month release plan. I can't stand to play through the entire PvE story more than once, but I love the variations brought to PvP. The only problem I see is how Anet is going to handle balancing the two new professions from each chapter with all the other professions, but I believe they can get it done. That's what beta events are for.

aeroclown · Sep 03, 2006, 04:47 AM // 04:47

Quote:

Originally Posted by Dougal Kronik

Can you justify that statement?

2 million copies of Factions at $50 is $100 million. I have no idea what servers cost to run for one year, or what the annual salary of all Anet's employees, but I think $100 million would cover it.

Mmm, I think you might be surprised by the cost of maintaining multiple Data centers and continued development, with the level of traffic and data transfer that occurs over the active users.

When you have time you might look up some of the higher end connections that a data center might use like an OC or fiber and see what the rate is and the transfer limit. The real catch with large pipes is not so much the seemingly cheap rate that exists for a few GigaBytes but the cost of overages once you exceed your normal bandwidth provisions. It has been quite a while since I looked in to these mind you, but if anything the shear volume of bandwidth in use might well exceed the 6 figure sum per month. That would exclude the repair of hardware failure which we all know has occured and I'm sure always will, thats just the way things seem to work for now.

I would also wager that out of ~2 million users less than or equal to about hald of those are first time users, while we know there are ~2 million registered accounts we don't know the number of active and continuing players. So to assume that the exsisting accounts would again all purchase the expansion and provide a new equal some of profit would be a slide of hand more then something factual. At best you can say ~1 million new accounts since chapter 2. So only half of the budget you projected would be available if that much. Less publisher fees, Royalties, etc.

The cost of game development can be quite high even on seemingly exsisting structures. I am interning at a game studio now as an animator and the unreal engine alone excluding the cost of multiple licenses of Soft Image (~$7,000 per license for adv series 32 bit (Though I'm not sure on the cost of a site license for it.)) cost a little over ~$1.2 million. Keeping in mind that this is only the engine and not the fun stuff like PR, Marketing, Sales, Wages, Insurance, Re-Devlopment, Support, Conceptual Design and Artist, Project Managment, Game coders, Code Troubleshooting, Graphic Issue resolution, Development workstations and Enviroment cost, Physical Building Cost, Bug Squashing, Character Design, Story Development . . . . err you get the idea I suppose. Keeping in mind some of the stuff is probably a one time purchase though some of it would fall under consumeables. Not that I am implying that you could exceed a ~$50 million dollar budget but I sure wouldn't consider it an impossibility.

Relambrien · Sep 03, 2006, 06:46 AM // 06:46

Also, don't forget retail mark-ups.

Between all the stages of buying and selling that occur, remember that the price gets marked up each time. Therefore, what costs $50 at the store, Anet probably sold for $15-20. The online store is a way for them to glean more profit.

Now, let's see. Assuming 1.5 million people buy each new chapter, that's 3 million chapters bought a year. At $20 per chapter, that's $60 million per year that Anet makes. Now, bandwidth fees, employee salary, PR, marketing, advertising, and all the other events and such that Anet has going on take up most of this. Therefore, Anet doesn't really make that much of a profit. If they went to one game a year, their profit would be cut in half, possibly not being enough to keep the company afloat. That said, I'm all for two chapters a year.

Note: I seem to remember someone saying something like this somewhere in this thread, but for some reason I can't seem to find it. So sorry if I repeated anything :P

Omega X · Sep 03, 2006, 09:04 AM // 09:04

Quote:

Originally Posted by aeroclown

Mmm, I think you might be surprised by the cost of maintaining multiple Data centers and continued development, with the level of traffic and data transfer that occurs over the active users.

When you have time you might look up some of the higher end connections that a data center might use like an OC or fiber and see what the rate is and the transfer limit. The real catch with large pipes is not so much the seemingly cheap rate that exists for a few GigaBytes but the cost of overages once you exceed your normal bandwidth provisions. It has been quite a while since I looked in to these mind you, but if anything the shear volume of bandwidth in use might well exceed the 6 figure sum per month. That would exclude the repair of hardware failure which we all know has occured and I'm sure always will, thats just the way things seem to work for now.

I would also wager that out of ~2 million users less than or equal to about hald of those are first time users, while we know there are ~2 million registered accounts we don't know the number of active and continuing players. So to assume that the exsisting accounts would again all purchase the expansion and provide a new equal some of profit would be a slide of hand more then something factual. At best you can say ~1 million new accounts since chapter 2. So only half of the budget you projected would be available if that much. Less publisher fees, Royalties, etc.

The cost of game development can be quite high even on seemingly exsisting structures. I am interning at a game studio now as an animator and the unreal engine alone excluding the cost of multiple licenses of Soft Image (~$7,000 per license for adv series 32 bit (Though I'm not sure on the cost of a site license for it.)) cost a little over ~$1.2 million. Keeping in mind that this is only the engine and not the fun stuff like PR, Marketing, Sales, Wages, Insurance, Re-Devlopment, Support, Conceptual Design and Artist, Project Managment, Game coders, Code Troubleshooting, Graphic Issue resolution, Development workstations and Enviroment cost, Physical Building Cost, Bug Squashing, Character Design, Story Development . . . . err you get the idea I suppose. Keeping in mind some of the stuff is probably a one time purchase though some of it would fall under consumeables. Not that I am implying that you could exceed a ~$50 million dollar budget but I sure wouldn't consider it an impossibility.

Those software licenses seem inflated for a veteran Publisher like NC Soft. The deals with the tier 1 ISP for service, PLUS the knowledge of Battle.net it might not cost as much as you think. Jeff Strain has actually stated that in an interview. Their bandwidth costs are significantly lower that the traditional MMO. Also, NC Soft knows a thing or two about maintaining data centers since they house about 4 other MMOs to begin with.

But since there is no evidence of GW using the Unreal Engine or Softimage. It could most likely be Maya which really came down in price to compete some time ago. And of course, all evidence I've seen so far points to a custom game engine.

Quote:

ArenaNet built its own proprietary graphics engine for the game, written by cofounder and programmer Mike O'Brien, who previously worked on Warcraft III and World of Warcraft. http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/guild...w_6095131.html

Now I'm not disputing your claim that game production costs some investment. But just not as lavish since every project has its own production system which varies greatly in cost and production time. The 6 month releases only proves that they have a pretty efficient system on top of an already established platform.

aeroclown · Sep 03, 2006, 05:43 PM // 17:43

Quote:

Originally Posted by Omega X

Those software licenses seem inflated for a veteran Publisher like NC Soft. The deals with the tier 1 ISP for service, PLUS the knowledge of Battle.net it might not cost as much as you think. Jeff Strain has actually stated that in an interview. Their bandwidth costs are significantly lower that the traditional MMO. Also, NC Soft knows a thing or two about maintaining data centers since they house about 4 other MMOs to begin with.

But since there is no evidence of GW using the Unreal Engine or Softimage. It could most likely be Maya which really came down in price to compete some time ago. And of course, all evidence I've seen so far points to a custom game engine.

Now I'm not disputing your claim that game production costs some investment. But just not as lavish since every project has its own production system which varies greatly in cost and production time. The 6 month releases only proves that they have a pretty efficient system on top of an already established platform.

While I understand this to be true, my main aim was actually to point out that even seemingly Large profits can be dwarfed by development and run time cost. I wasn't entirely clear in my statement about the game engine I suppose, this was only an example as well. Keeping in mind that building and maintaining your own engine is not always the cheapest route either though no doubt you do get away from the over inflated licenseing fees.

Btw Maya has not really droped in price all that much even after autodesk bought it out last year. If you are using maya in a development enviroment then you most noteably will be using Maya Unlimted and Not Maya Complete, which still cost around $7000 for a license. These licenses usually do not extend through versions, and usually must be renewed on a subscription basis. That is verifiable on the autodesk website if you need a look.

SoftImage is not the only 3d modeling and animating application I have used thus far. In fact with the addition of version 8 I will probably no longer touch maya as autodesk has begun to add and move features of 3DStudio max over to it, which they promised not to do. I personally am not a fan of 3D Studio Max and of the 3 Max would probably be the cheapest in overall price margins for runtime in most cases. So if anything if we are looking at the cheaper route they might well be using 3D Studio Max. The Complete and personal editions of Maya and Softimage are not really designed for Development in a studio enviroment, but more so toward development by an individual, though I am sure in some cases they are used anyway.

As for bandwidth cost you may be entirely correct on this one. I couldn't begin to speculate on the actual cost of running the data centers themselves but I do know that bandwidth can eat a chunk of change if your not careful and Hardware replacement is just the same.

Non-the less my idea here was to provide a little evidence that even seemingly large profits can be small once you start taking a look at where all those profits go, as you well stated that most projects have thier own runtime tallies and needs. There for the cost will change to some degree.

elLOCOmutha · Sep 03, 2006, 09:45 PM // 21:45

Why should a person feel they need to create characters PVP or PVP with every new chapter? Is it a case of keeping up with the jonses?

I have a Warrior from beta prophecies and a monk PvE...I would go nuts if I felt like I needed to create a character and do everything over and over an over again with every chapter.

I kind of wish I had rolled a Ranger also in PvE beta but havent talked myself into creating one because I play a ranger secondary on my warrior anyways.

So what im saying is I'm glad Anet is continuing the series and creating new things to help keep this game alive, I just dont pressure myself into thinking I need to create new characters with every chapter. I dont need one of everything to get my enjoyment out of these games.

You go Anet, and dont stop pumping out the new material...then players that say "i'm bored I dont have anything to do" don't have anything to complain about...ever!

I will purchase every CE edition that you guys pump out :P

LadyNilene · Sep 03, 2006, 10:39 PM // 22:39

Add Ons = Money.

Do you really believe in their free online play policy? Its a bunch of bullcrap. I'm still new to the mmorpg scene, but I don't think it takes a genuis to figure it out. I play both Final Fantasy XI and Guild Wars. FFXI charges about 12 dollars a week, and 1 dollar for every other character added to the account. They provide many free updates, one recently being the Chocobo Raising/Quests/Artifacts/Missions/Etc. Expansions are roughly 30. Guild Wars 6 Month release plan is pretty much us paying for our online play....think about it, 50 dollars for each new arc, 10 for a new character slot(and I know many have bought more than one)....for six months...that pretty much covers for about 10 dollars a month....which is a bit less than Final Fantasy, but clearly is not up to par as FFXI is...these new arcs that are costing us 50 dollars are pretty much to the standards of the free updates I get in FFXI, in terms of new items/armor/areas/missions...

Dont get me wrong, Im not bashing Anet, I enjoy playing Guild Wars, but if people cant see why they are doing this 6 month release policy, then that is my two cents on the matter.

Bane of Mortality · Sep 04, 2006, 02:06 AM // 02:06

I agree with the Topic Creator that they should slow down add ons. Sure, they wouldn't get as much money, but there are other things that they could work on that would make them a great deal amount of money. Get a team to start working on Account Merging during downtime and offer to merge accounts for $50 a merge. Many people have multiple accounts and this would make them almost as much money as an expansion.

I personally am not going to buy NIghtfall once it comes out for other reasons too. My computer broke down for the first three months after Factions came out. Now I'm WAAAY behind and am trying to catch up.