The design and business of gaming from the perspective of an experienced developer
There are rumors and whispers that Battlestar Galactica Online is in the works, being put together by Vivendi.
Whether or not it is an MMO or a lighter online experience remains to be seen, although early indication is that it will be an XBox 360 exclusive. That being said, Scott’s talked in the past about why Battlestar Galactica would be hard to develop as a classic MMO, and I’d tend to agree with him down the line.
As we enter the new year, it’s worthwhile to talk about where we came from, and how it will affect things moving forward.
In many ways, 2006 was good for me, at least personally. I got married, which I should definitely mention in the ‘good’ category. Also, I got the best job I’ve ever had, and am in the midst now of developing some of the core gameplay systems for a very cool game. It’s always a pleasure to wake up looking forward to work. Continue reading
WoW is advertising on the front page of the Daily Kos, shrill liberal blog extraordinaire.
Tragically, I don’t know enough right-wing blogs to see if the justice is even-handed, or if liberals are more likely to be locked in their mom’s basement, shouting ‘Leeeeroy’ at the top of their lungs.
The 60-minute documentary will chronicle Scott’s only NASCAR victory, at Jacksonville Speedway in 1963, and his positive impact on the bond, but they get distance in their communication.
Apparently someone in China’s Ministry of Culture got tired of gold farmers in the Plaguelands, because it looks like they are considering banning virtual item trading in the Land of the Rising Sun Communists. Continue reading
Buried in the comments on Yet Another Second Life Post on Raph’s blog, Raph says the following:
I am glad you think of me as enlightened.
We will be announcing our startup in the next couple of days, and when we do, believe it or not, I hope you’re among those who are interested.
In the midst of a Second Life article that picks on the Linden boys for glibly announcing they’ve reached 2 million accounts (including the mysterious fact that they’ve gotten 1 million new accounts in the last 2 months, but still seem to average 14K players a night), Van Hemlock makes the following observation:
Residents Logged in in the Last 60 Days: 809,960
(From http://secondlife.com/whatis/economy_stats.php)Accounts signed up in the last 58 Days: 1,000,000
Add two days’s worth (34,482, from above): 1,034,482 signups in 60 days
Soooo:
1,034,482 – 809,960 = 224,522
I might be getting confused with definitions here, but doesn’t that mean 224,522 people have made a Second Life account, but have never used it to log in even once, not even to have a look for an hour and get bored? How does that work? It gets worse if you take into account that many of the 809,960 logins are existing residents who had signed up prior to the one million mark, and are still logging in. That can’t be right – more than 12.5% of all SL Residents have NEVER logged in EVER?
Yeah, that’s about right. ALL MMOs get this – it’s one of the more mysterious things about the industry. I’ve seen one standard MMO quote that roughly 10% of the people who buy boxes for their game never log in, and another 5% create an account but never log into a game – the percentages vary from game to game, but are never insubstantial. In a pay-for subscription model, the latter group would be considered by cynics to be ‘the perfect customers’.
Linden Labs’ 12% makes sense when you consider that its a free trial. There’s no financial incentive to play. Probably a bunch of people got distracted between the time they created their account, and the time they downloaded the game. Perhaps they even got distracted by a story about how their credit card information isn’t safe.
Too bad. InterPlay is already making one (Search for ‘Fallout MMO’). Yes, that Interplay. And they seem to be ready to spend about, ohhh, $75M on the title. That’s a lot of coin from a company that was rumored to be practically insolvent just a couple years ago.
Could Fallout succeed? Possibly. Post-apocalyptic is deceptively difficult to build an MMO around – players are choosing to live in your online world, and the end-times generally do not provide an inviting experience. That being said, the Fallout universe sidesteps that with charm and wry humor, and most importantly by not taking itself too seriously.
So I have comparatively high hopes, provided they realize that’s where the magic lies. I’d give it at least better odds than the Firefly incursion.
… that I’ve had my blog up all this time, and have never linked to Fansy the Bard.
Multiverse has announced that they’ve managed to snag the rights to the Firefly license. Oooooh, shiny, even if it’s more niche than us fanboys want to admit. However, here’s the interesting part of the article, to me:
Bringing those environments and character types to life as an online game will be a challenge: Multiverse is not a game developer, but rather a platform provider whose product is still in beta. Instead of making the game itself, the company will hire a development team that will craft the virtual galaxy using Multiverse tools.
WoW is now posting up-to-date information on most lethal monsters, most auctioned items, Here, take a look.
Interesting note: right at the top of the list of Most Dangerous Creatures, along with stalwarts like Onyxia and Drek’Thar, we find…. Defias Pillager, scourge of the noob. Which sums up why I as a designer love data mining so much – it helps you actually identify the lumps in the carpet that need whackin’.
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