I don't feel sorry for either. The Old Republic is super polished and a cut above most MMO's, but ultimately (very sadly) dull, because it plays so much like World of Warcraft (which the entire target demographic has already played to death). Voice overs are great, but they are the ONLY substantial unique selling point, and - it would seem - that's just not enough to keep a really big audience.
I'll probably pick it up and cancel it again a few times (hey, it's Star Wars!), but it's not /compelling/. Not without something unique gameplay wise, like player driven content (either ala SWG or STO) or space combat (to pick two obvious examples).
Studio 38 have never made an MMO, Project Copernicus was just vapourware (and the concept art was a REALLY shameless rip off of WoW) - you have to wonder what they were thinking if they thought that was ever going to float.
I do miss some of the "crummier" smaller MMO's (I like Earth and Beyond, for example) but the world doesn't need more WoW clones. I am sad SWTOR wasn't more unique though.
For all the rough edges and limitations of STO that I hate, I have to concede it's better (at least, more compelling) for going it's own way, I keep playing regularly after 2 years!
i dont want anyone to lose their jobs and i feel sorry for anyone who has, although honestly ive never even heard of studio 38, so its a little hard to get emotional over people i never knew existed 30 seconds ago but nonetheless i hope they can find jobs quickly. perhaps some will even come to cryptic for sto, co or neverwinter.
38 Studios is known for Kingdoms of Amalur which is a good fantasy single player game IMO. The only other thing it is known for is Project Copernicus which is a possible MMO for next year if things work out for them.
I doubt the Bioware thing was a surprise to anybody. I'm not convinced that even if TOR had taken off the way it was supposed to it would have made one jot of a difference.
The folks at Bio aren't stupid. I'm sure they started dusting off their resumes as soon as EA bought them out.
This is just what EA does. They buy great studios, absorb their IP into in-house game-mills, padlock the doors, and suck their new franchises dry by releasing crappy titles until the fanbase gets fed up and leaves. Look at Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3. Prime examples of EAification.
TOR is in the middle of the same cycle. It's only a matter of time before they take over TOR the same way and kick everyone else loose.
This is one of many reasons I fully support the boycott on EA products.
Look at Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3. Prime examples of EAification.
I actually liked the change in Dragon Age 2. It was an *entirely* different game, but I thought it was still fun. And more unique. DA1 just felt like another NWN to me. The DLC though, oh, the EA DLC I despise. I have zero motivation to replay because it gives me the feeling that I'm missing half the game.
I actually liked the change in Dragon Age 2. It was an *entirely* different game, but I thought it was still fun. And more unique. DA1 just felt like another NWN to me. The DLC though, oh, the EA DLC I despise. I have zero motivation to replay because it gives me the feeling that I'm missing half the game.
I disagree. They did not need to change what worked. ME3 was a great game until the horrifically written ending. SWTOR losing subscribers because of it. I do agree with DLC being a cheap thing.
If Bioware were doing amazingly well, they wouldn't have been bought out by EA. They would have just kept doing amazingly well.
It is a tough time to launch a MMO. Lots of competition, poor economy, and very high expectations.
From what I know is that EA buys promising companies and runs them into the ground, that has been their trend when they start losing money. EA on its own can't make enough to cover its expenses.
If Bioware were doing amazingly well, they wouldn't have been bought out by EA. They would have just kept doing amazingly well.
It is a tough time to launch a MMO. Lots of competition, poor economy, and very high expectations.
Bioware had always made well polished and fairly high quality games. They had a great reputation in the industry. But in the turbulent gaming industry being in such flux, they needed EA's really deep pockets to help development expenses to produce and market todays generation games.
To date EA-Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and EA-Bioware's SW:ToR have been two of the most, if not the most, expensive games developed in recent years. An undertaking in which neither company would have been remotely able to do on their own. But like other studios before them EA threw em a bunch of money and then redirected their in-house resources all over the place and commenced to go through several "lay-off" phases after the games were released. Thus effectively destroying the smaller companies that EA absorbed.
WAR rolled over and flopped within its first year. Most of Mythics 5 star talent had already left the company for one reason or another when EA acquired them well before WAR. The result was a half cocked game with beautiful character modeling and artwork crammed on an outdated engine and the fundamental core was broken. But instead of even trying to fixing the game, EA moved almost all of Mythics resources over to Bioware to develop and finish ToR. Total shame too cause I really like the Warhammer IP. Thus WAR went into life support mode.
SW:ToR quite frankly is a really good game.......a really good SINGLE PLAYER game. The story arcs are good, most of the stuff is well drawn out. But there is no endgame once your done with the PvE side of it. . No large scale Open PvP that tens of thousands of players wanted and by bottlenecking all the PvP'rs into lame arena style instances, players are done with it and leaving ToR in droves.
All MMO's that EA has/had acquired and/or controlled inevitably went into a downward spiral. They seem to approach MMO's with the same logic as their Sports and other games. Which is develop it, produce it, market it and forget about it. MMOs have to evolve over time and constantly require attention and innovative ways to keep it attractive.... none of EA's controlled MMOs has, nor likely ever will.
All MMO's that EA has/had acquired and/or controlled inevitably went into a downward spiral. They seem to approach MMO's with the same logic as their Sports and other games. Which is develop it, produce it, market it and forget about it. MMOs have to evolve over time and constantly require attention and innovative ways to keep it attractive.... none of EA's controlled MMOs has, nor likely ever will.
I've boycotted anything with the EA logo on it soon after Need for Speed: Carbon.
Basically what they have been doing in NFS for many years is release the same game over and over again with minimal improvements besides the graphical engine, with gameplay getting worse with each iteration of the game. With each half-baked release (with less than 8 hours of enjoyable gameplay) they retail it for the full price of a new game.
There are now arcade racing games that are not only fun to play but have surprisingly realistic racing and driving dynamics as well. NFS has none of either.
I really hate that for both companies, but mainly BW. I would love to play SW:TOR (i am a huge fan of swkotor I and II), but refuse to play any game with a paid sub model. When they go f2p, i will probably spend more time there than here or my other mmo. (and it's almost inevitable for them to go f2p)
I really wish more companies would follow the GuildWars model of mmo's. I love Gw, and have purchased all 3 of them plus the expansion, and will be getting gw2 before release. I personally think they got it right with their model. I have no problem buying a game, but i will not subscribe to one that has a 15$/mnth price tag attached to it. And yes, i know that if you add up everything i spent in gw buying the 3 games, the expansion, several char slots, and several bank slots, it comes close to what a sub would be for 3 years. The main diff to me is as long as i am not paying a monthly fee, i dont feel obligated to play. Same with STO. Like the game, but would not even think about playing until it went f2p.
Bioware had always made well polished and fairly high quality games. They had a great reputation in the industry. But in the turbulent gaming industry being in such flux, they needed EA's really deep pockets to help development expenses to produce and market todays generation games.
To date EA-Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and EA-Bioware's SW:ToR have been two of the most, if not the most, expensive games developed in recent years. An undertaking in which neither company would have been remotely able to do on their own. But like other studios before them EA threw em a bunch of money and then redirected their in-house resources all over the place and commenced to go through several "lay-off" phases after the games were released. Thus effectively destroying the smaller companies that EA absorbed.
WAR rolled over and flopped within its first year. Most of Mythics 5 star talent had already left the company for one reason or another when EA acquired them well before WAR. The result was a half cocked game with beautiful character modeling and artwork crammed on an outdated engine and the fundamental core was broken. But instead of even trying to fixing the game, EA moved almost all of Mythics resources over to Bioware to develop and finish ToR. Total shame too cause I really like the Warhammer IP. Thus WAR went into life support mode.
SW:ToR quite frankly is a really good game.......a really good SINGLE PLAYER game. The story arcs are good, most of the stuff is well drawn out. But there is no endgame once your done with the PvE side of it. . No large scale Open PvP that tens of thousands of players wanted and by bottlenecking all the PvP'rs into lame arena style instances, players are done with it and leaving ToR in droves.
All MMO's that EA has/had acquired and/or controlled inevitably went into a downward spiral. They seem to approach MMO's with the same logic as their Sports and other games. Which is develop it, produce it, market it and forget about it. MMOs have to evolve over time and constantly require attention and innovative ways to keep it attractive.... none of EA's controlled MMOs has, nor likely ever will.
How much of that is EA though and how much of that is the simple fact that making a successful MMO is easier said than done? SoE did well with Everquest, but there was next to no competition back then. Nothing they have done since has really been spectacular.
WoW is still doing ok, but even it is suffering a net player loss.
Entertaining literal armies of people is not an easy task.
If Bioware were doing amazingly well, they wouldn't have been bought out by EA. They would have just kept doing amazingly well.
What a shockingly naive thing to say.
That's actually just not true. Successful companies get bought out just as often as bargain basement failures. Bio was doing fine. It had made a few gaffs with their cash, but they were hardly struggling. I'll spare you the wall of text, but the Bio buy-out was a pretty complicated one. In a nutshell, though, it had nothing to do with Bio having money problems.
The MMO market has been stale for the last 4 to 5 years. Nothing new, just rehash of the WoW formula for most cases.
STO has added some new things, but still there is some things are are clearly inspired from WOW gameplay-wise (at least when the game got out, now is a bit different)
The only MMO in the near future that might include a lot of things that could be considered new is Guild Wars II, and that one i'm actually planning to buy
SW:ToR quite frankly is a really good game.......a really good SINGLE PLAYER game. The story arcs are good, most of the stuff is well drawn out. But there is no endgame once your done with the PvE side of it. . No large scale Open PvP that tens of thousands of players wanted and by bottlenecking all the PvP'rs into lame arena style instances, players are done with it and leaving ToR in droves.
This is the main problem, as I see it, with just about all MMOs out there. Once you hit the endgame you can...?
The standard MMO model gives endgame players raids and small-scale PVP. The raids are fun, but ultimately they're just a hard PVE quest that you do over and over and over. Once I've done one a couple of times, the only thing that gets me to repeat is the social aspect of raiding with friends. Likewise, PVP is fun for a while, but I eventually get turned off by how little it matters.
In my personal opinion, meaningful PVP is the best thing that a MMO can offer, both in the endgame and before. "Meaningful" describing PVP that actually affects things. In Eve Online, for instance, there is a core of space controlled by NPC factions surrounded by a gigantic ring of uncontrolled space (which is also where most of the wealth in the game is). Everything that happens out in this ring of space happens because of what the players do. They form their own alliances and lay claim to space and develop it, or they invade someone else's space and try to take it, or any number of things. The economy in Eve also follows a PVP model - everything better than the very basic gear is made by players out of materials mined by players and the market is entirely player-driven - but that's really just an extension of the meaningful PVP principle.
Most MMOs don't offer meaningful PVP mainly because they use a sharded server model - the LOTRO Landroval server has to match the experience of the Nimrodel server, so you can't allow folks on Landroval to clear out Moria, for instance. STO notably doesn't follow this model. Certainly there are instances, which prevent truly large-scale PVP, but that could be worked around. Likewise, the ratio between Fed and Klink players could also be dealt with:
Imagine something like a no-mans land between Klingon and Federation space. The "standard" PVE missions wouldn't take anyone here, but there would be PVP missions there. Imagine if the result of these PVP missions determined which faction controls which parts of this space. Something like the population of active Fed players in this space could be compared to the population of active Klink players in this space to scale things. You'd want to give some sort of benefit to controlling space, too, which would probably be the harder thing to do.
Comments
I believe he is talking about layoffs. BW = Bioware. 38 = I dunno
http://pc.gamespy.com/pc/bioware-mmo-project/1224848p1.html
EDIT: 38 Studios
http://www.bostonherald.com/business/technology/general/view.bg?articleid=1061134310
Probably the collapse of 38 Studios. Not sure what BW is meant to be....
Indeed.
...
I don't feel sorry for either. The Old Republic is super polished and a cut above most MMO's, but ultimately (very sadly) dull, because it plays so much like World of Warcraft (which the entire target demographic has already played to death). Voice overs are great, but they are the ONLY substantial unique selling point, and - it would seem - that's just not enough to keep a really big audience.
I'll probably pick it up and cancel it again a few times (hey, it's Star Wars!), but it's not /compelling/. Not without something unique gameplay wise, like player driven content (either ala SWG or STO) or space combat (to pick two obvious examples).
Studio 38 have never made an MMO, Project Copernicus was just vapourware (and the concept art was a REALLY shameless rip off of WoW) - you have to wonder what they were thinking if they thought that was ever going to float.
I do miss some of the "crummier" smaller MMO's (I like Earth and Beyond, for example) but the world doesn't need more WoW clones. I am sad SWTOR wasn't more unique though.
For all the rough edges and limitations of STO that I hate, I have to concede it's better (at least, more compelling) for going it's own way, I keep playing regularly after 2 years!
38 Studios, best-known to be owned by former pitching great, Curt Schilling, laid off everybody today.
Employees from both studios have been encouraged to send their CVs to Cryptic, which is hiring.
The folks at Bio aren't stupid. I'm sure they started dusting off their resumes as soon as EA bought them out.
This is just what EA does. They buy great studios, absorb their IP into in-house game-mills, padlock the doors, and suck their new franchises dry by releasing crappy titles until the fanbase gets fed up and leaves. Look at Dragon Age 2 and Mass Effect 3. Prime examples of EAification.
TOR is in the middle of the same cycle. It's only a matter of time before they take over TOR the same way and kick everyone else loose.
This is one of many reasons I fully support the boycott on EA products.
I actually liked the change in Dragon Age 2. It was an *entirely* different game, but I thought it was still fun. And more unique. DA1 just felt like another NWN to me. The DLC though, oh, the EA DLC I despise. I have zero motivation to replay because it gives me the feeling that I'm missing half the game.
I disagree. They did not need to change what worked. ME3 was a great game until the horrifically written ending. SWTOR losing subscribers because of it. I do agree with DLC being a cheap thing.
It is a tough time to launch a MMO. Lots of competition, poor economy, and very high expectations.
From what I know is that EA buys promising companies and runs them into the ground, that has been their trend when they start losing money. EA on its own can't make enough to cover its expenses.
Bioware had always made well polished and fairly high quality games. They had a great reputation in the industry. But in the turbulent gaming industry being in such flux, they needed EA's really deep pockets to help development expenses to produce and market todays generation games.
To date EA-Mythic's Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning and EA-Bioware's SW:ToR have been two of the most, if not the most, expensive games developed in recent years. An undertaking in which neither company would have been remotely able to do on their own. But like other studios before them EA threw em a bunch of money and then redirected their in-house resources all over the place and commenced to go through several "lay-off" phases after the games were released. Thus effectively destroying the smaller companies that EA absorbed.
WAR rolled over and flopped within its first year. Most of Mythics 5 star talent had already left the company for one reason or another when EA acquired them well before WAR. The result was a half cocked game with beautiful character modeling and artwork crammed on an outdated engine and the fundamental core was broken. But instead of even trying to fixing the game, EA moved almost all of Mythics resources over to Bioware to develop and finish ToR. Total shame too cause I really like the Warhammer IP. Thus WAR went into life support mode.
SW:ToR quite frankly is a really good game.......a really good SINGLE PLAYER game. The story arcs are good, most of the stuff is well drawn out. But there is no endgame once your done with the PvE side of it. . No large scale Open PvP that tens of thousands of players wanted and by bottlenecking all the PvP'rs into lame arena style instances, players are done with it and leaving ToR in droves.
All MMO's that EA has/had acquired and/or controlled inevitably went into a downward spiral. They seem to approach MMO's with the same logic as their Sports and other games. Which is develop it, produce it, market it and forget about it. MMOs have to evolve over time and constantly require attention and innovative ways to keep it attractive.... none of EA's controlled MMOs has, nor likely ever will.
I've boycotted anything with the EA logo on it soon after Need for Speed: Carbon.
Basically what they have been doing in NFS for many years is release the same game over and over again with minimal improvements besides the graphical engine, with gameplay getting worse with each iteration of the game. With each half-baked release (with less than 8 hours of enjoyable gameplay) they retail it for the full price of a new game.
There are now arcade racing games that are not only fun to play but have surprisingly realistic racing and driving dynamics as well. NFS has none of either.
I really wish more companies would follow the GuildWars model of mmo's. I love Gw, and have purchased all 3 of them plus the expansion, and will be getting gw2 before release. I personally think they got it right with their model. I have no problem buying a game, but i will not subscribe to one that has a 15$/mnth price tag attached to it. And yes, i know that if you add up everything i spent in gw buying the 3 games, the expansion, several char slots, and several bank slots, it comes close to what a sub would be for 3 years. The main diff to me is as long as i am not paying a monthly fee, i dont feel obligated to play. Same with STO. Like the game, but would not even think about playing until it went f2p.
How much of that is EA though and how much of that is the simple fact that making a successful MMO is easier said than done? SoE did well with Everquest, but there was next to no competition back then. Nothing they have done since has really been spectacular.
WoW is still doing ok, but even it is suffering a net player loss.
Entertaining literal armies of people is not an easy task.
That's actually just not true. Successful companies get bought out just as often as bargain basement failures. Bio was doing fine. It had made a few gaffs with their cash, but they were hardly struggling. I'll spare you the wall of text, but the Bio buy-out was a pretty complicated one. In a nutshell, though, it had nothing to do with Bio having money problems.
STO has added some new things, but still there is some things are are clearly inspired from WOW gameplay-wise (at least when the game got out, now is a bit different)
The only MMO in the near future that might include a lot of things that could be considered new is Guild Wars II, and that one i'm actually planning to buy
This is the main problem, as I see it, with just about all MMOs out there. Once you hit the endgame you can...?
The standard MMO model gives endgame players raids and small-scale PVP. The raids are fun, but ultimately they're just a hard PVE quest that you do over and over and over. Once I've done one a couple of times, the only thing that gets me to repeat is the social aspect of raiding with friends. Likewise, PVP is fun for a while, but I eventually get turned off by how little it matters.
In my personal opinion, meaningful PVP is the best thing that a MMO can offer, both in the endgame and before. "Meaningful" describing PVP that actually affects things. In Eve Online, for instance, there is a core of space controlled by NPC factions surrounded by a gigantic ring of uncontrolled space (which is also where most of the wealth in the game is). Everything that happens out in this ring of space happens because of what the players do. They form their own alliances and lay claim to space and develop it, or they invade someone else's space and try to take it, or any number of things. The economy in Eve also follows a PVP model - everything better than the very basic gear is made by players out of materials mined by players and the market is entirely player-driven - but that's really just an extension of the meaningful PVP principle.
Most MMOs don't offer meaningful PVP mainly because they use a sharded server model - the LOTRO Landroval server has to match the experience of the Nimrodel server, so you can't allow folks on Landroval to clear out Moria, for instance. STO notably doesn't follow this model. Certainly there are instances, which prevent truly large-scale PVP, but that could be worked around. Likewise, the ratio between Fed and Klink players could also be dealt with:
Imagine something like a no-mans land between Klingon and Federation space. The "standard" PVE missions wouldn't take anyone here, but there would be PVP missions there. Imagine if the result of these PVP missions determined which faction controls which parts of this space. Something like the population of active Fed players in this space could be compared to the population of active Klink players in this space to scale things. You'd want to give some sort of benefit to controlling space, too, which would probably be the harder thing to do.
But it would be a fun game to play.