Pebblebrook

Ah thanks. Hopefully removing that level restriction is next for them to consider since they got one barrier down hehe.

Hmm, i thought they removed the level restriction in RWZ. Not sure about FBZ though.

That's not really much of a conspiracy theory, it's just what players have come to expect in an era of microtransactions.

But how's this for a conspiracy theory:

/tinfoilhat on

They were working on these auras intending to be in a future pack. But the flood of negativity with the party pack prompted marketing to do some damage control so they decided to put it into a free issue instead.

However, they can't wait on that damage control until the issue is released, so they decided to "leak" whatever they have developed already so they can come out as a hero for listening to the player's concerns.

/tinfoilhat off

How's that?

Whipping out a credit then entering the costume editor doesn't quite engender a sense of accomplishment as getting it through gameplay.

But with that said, i agree the way they've set unlockable costumes is annoying.

I would rather prefer to get the devs to change the unlockable scenario.

- Make it account wide not per alt.

- Have alternate means of getting seasonal pieces out of season. (Market? Something akin to a tip drop that triggers the seasonal mission to get the costume?)

- Don't tie it to group content. It's your costume, you should be able to get it yourself. Maybe reward after a long story arc that's tagged as "solo-only" mission now that they have that tech.

However they do it, it should give a feeling of accomplishment because that means i'm actually playing the game and not just throwing cash at the costume editor.

That is actually one of the fears from the negative camp, not necessarily this particular pack specifically but that it might represent the future of boosters.

Of course now with these concerns generating lots of negative posts, there might be hope it won't.

Unfortunately i can now easily see them making small packs of alternate animations for power customizations or something similar.

Objectively speaking, we wouldn't really know if they were wrong without knowing what their goal was for this pack.

If (simplified for discussion's sake) they only needed to sell 10 packs to make a profit and they sold 15...then they weren't wrong. If they were expecting to sell 100 then they're wrong.

However, i think it might be ok to say they were wrong from a PR standpoint, since i wouldn't expect them to intentionally want negative "press" as it were for their product releases.

Yes, i believe that's why companies that can, jump on the microtransaction bandwagon.

If they divide it into a small enough purchase, people are more likely to justify over paying, whether they realize it or not.

For me, i have difficulty with that because when i visualize combining the features of any 4 of the boosters ($40) worth and comparing that to another $40 purchase say GR complete (retail box) with the 30days free, i get a nasty twinge in my wallet.

( Actually it was $30 for me, took advantage of the BestBuy.com $10 discount )

Overall however, not sure how much of an impact these packs are having to sales. At most it might just minimize the drop.

[edit] Not sure about GR yet, have to wait till 3Q numbers are out then wait till February for 4Q to see if it has any lasting effects. [/edit]

I get that impression as well.

I'll have a better idea once the 3Q numbers are released to see what impact GR had on sales but it does seem like they were scrambling for more revenue but didn't have anything well thought out to release so they just grabbed what they could and tried to shoehorn it into a theme.

The fact that it's $2 less than the usual pack suggests they already know it doesn't have the same value as a normal booster.

Ah sorry, for some reason i thought we went to how NCSoft/PS should work things here.

Sounds like we're coming from the same place just ending differently. I do believe they want to constantly make new games. I just add that to do that, they release quickly with a very low targeted initial budget. But with the apparent sacrifice of the consumer gaming experience, though that last part is not their intent, just the result.

[edit] (speculation to follow)
That is a possible factor why 2K games stopped being CO's publisher when Atari showed up. Jack mentioned that Atari had a lot of IPs that he could see them developing for.
[/edit]

Or the alleged Cryptic option.

Budget for 2 years or less, to minimize dev cost...release what you can...expect box sales to pay off that initial dev cost or close to it. Then let the subs pay for the rest of the development you skimped on.

That might be working for them since it doesn't look like they're changing that strategy. Though, it might be at the expense of the consumer gaming experience, at least initially.


(Heh, trying to steer back to the subject of Jack/Cryptic)

In a subscription based game, the subs is where it's expected to get funding for future development. One person paying $15/mo is not enough to pay for development, that's why your goal is to have more people paying that instead of asking that one person to pay extra.

Which is what microtransactions eventually "feel" like.

If subs drop to the point that it's no longer adequate to fund development, that's still a bad sign for the consumer.

But either way, of course there's always some that would not like having to pay more but if expansions are infrequent and contain a substantial amount of features, it wouldn't be received as badly.

Back in my EQ days they had expansions like once a year there abouts, but i didn't mind them because each of those felt like they had several months or more of things to do and explore.

That doesn't seem to be the case in recent times except for a couple of games' expansions.

If GR had Praetoria as a full 1-40 level content (subsequently going to 50) in the next issue, then i think it would've been fine for the most part.

[edit] By "fine" i mean player reception. I think the sales of GR did well since they said about 75% of the active playerbase bought it, which should result in a spike in this quarter's sales figure. Which this year's was down to maybe half of what the normal sales was in past years.[/edit]

NCSoft's sales more than doubled for the quarter that CoV was released.

Quarter Sales
Sep-2005 6,412
Dec-2005 15,706 (CoV)
Mar-2006 6,523

CO was already viewed as extremely lacking in content at launch which included a large content hole which Vibora bay filled except Cryptic tried to ask for more money for it. (Trying not to delve into Cryptic's MT tactics hehe)

That's true. But not sure where it was said that MS wanted WoW level subs. When Shane Kim of MS explained why MUO was cancelled, he did mentioned that he looked at sub-based MMOs and only saw one that was successful, but didn't specifically say he wanted 1mil+ subs though.

I can sort of understand what he's saying since at the time, WoW's subs was increasing regularly for years until it plateaued recently, while most others tend to have an initial spike then trail off. How fast and hard it falls varies per game but still have a downward trend even if it's taking years.

Or maybe among other things, MS just had a lot of other games queued at the same time?
It's not like Microsoft is desperate for a game release or anything.

Microsoft's Shane Kim On 'Fable 2,' Why Marvel MMO Was Canceled And More

Yes, i'm sure upgraded but not the same, however, not sure what sparked your reply unless it was the "from scratch" context again. To clarify that was going from MUO assests to CO assets...i did say except for the engine i believe.

Can't find specific records of the events leading to Cryptic's departure so can't really comment on that much but player counts were a matter of public record back then.

When CoV launched it had the highest monthly server access numbers to date (of course not sure about GR's effects since they stopped publishing numbers) but it was even higher than at CoH's launch.

It did last about a year though before it dropped below CoH's launch numbers. Maybe perhaps because of the same reasons the red side is not favored today...not sure.

That lowest point in 4Q 2004 coincides with WoW's launch in october.

[edit]

By lowest/highest, i mean up until the time they stopped publishing numbers, obviously. The last number they published for 3Q 2008 of 124,939 was close to the lowest so not sure if it went lower after that.

[/edit]

NCSoft IR Quarterly Reports

Quarter Monthly Server Access Issue Issue Release
Jun-2004 169,925 1 June 29, 2004
Sep-2004 163,053 *2 September 16, 2004
Dec-2004 124,435
Mar-2005 140,481 3 January 4, 2005
Jun-2005 162,922 4 May 4, 2005
Sep-2005 150,068 5 August 31, 2005
Dec-2005 194,000 **6 October 27, 2005
Mar-2006 171,951
Jun-2006 171,000
Sep-2006 172,420 7 June 6, 2006
Dec-2006 154,953 8 November 28, 2006

Yeah, i know they used the same engine for both. That's where one of the fears from the boards that STO was just Champions with a trek skin came from.

If you recheck that part you quoted from me, i mentioned "from scratch" in the context of them going from MUO to CO, guessing that most of the other assets except for the engine is tied to Marvel.

On the other part, i think they did get the rights and assets from Perpetual but i remember Jack saying they didn't use much or any of it (probably didn't fit with their engine...another guess).

I can't remember where i heard that though...maybe it was a video interview or in the STO alpha boards. If i find it i'll edit it in.



[edit]
Still can't find that quote (this will drive me nuts all day...thanks for that) but here's something similar.

Game Reactor interview with STO associate producer Andy Velasquez
[/edit]

Heh, can't really say anything about Jack's memory but he must still have the project files and timelines somewhere. And until i see another dev quote refuting them, i have to go with it.

However, it does somewhat track...not sure about CoH's history...i'm fuzzy on that. And i know there was a setback when the MUO deal fell through. If MUO launched, that that would've been another game Cryptic can claim credit for quick release from the time they announced MUO development to the time they announced CO development was 2 years (2006-2008).

My guess is that except for the engine, they had to start from scratch on CO from 2008 to its release in 2009. For STO, they got the rights in 2008 and release in 2010. Infogrames/Atari getting into the picture about 6 months after Cryptic acquired the rights, so if his number is right...Cryptic was around halfway finished with STO by then.

[edit] And from their next game's announcedment (Neverwinter) last month, they're anticipating launch in 2011. [/edit]

[References]
Microsoft, Marvel and Cryptic Studios Unveil "Marvel Universe Online"
Cryptic Studios Announces Champions Online
Cryptic Studios Licenses Rights to Produce Star Trek Online
Infogrames to Aquire Cryptic Studios, A Leading MMO Games Developer, Publisher and Operator
Atari and Cryptic Studios Announce Neverwinter Coming in 2011 for PC

Without having concrete evidence, i'm not denying the possibilty of financial difficulties. I was saying i doubt the under 2 year development trend they have is strictly because of financial reasons.

Wasn't NCSoft funding CoV, and Infogrames funding Neverwinter...yet the quick release is still there.

In regards to their launch dates and short dev cycles for their games, i'm not entirely convinced it's because they're struggling financially.

In a recent jack interview it sounded like he was touting how fast and efficient they are at creating games since they made CoH in 1.5 years, CoV in 9months, CO in 2 years and STO in 1.5 years.

That's 4 games under 2 different publishers but all having under 2 years of development. Seems to me the common denominator is Cryptic.

If they were/are struggling with finances, then it seems weird they would undertake 3 games in such a short time span.

He also said in that interview that "super-fast isn't always super-good" but that interview was about the announcement of their next game Neverwinter which is slated to launch next year. Either he hasn't learned from previous lessons or he doesn't think that a short dev cycle is a mistake.

What i think is, they set their bar low enough in the hope that they can break even, or relatively close to it, with just the box sales and anything extra like subscriptions would almost go straight as profit.

He has said "you are what you launch" and he has learned that if you don't have a feature at launch, you might as wel"l never have it" and yet STO came launched without klingon PVE that they are now adding among other things that were lacking.

If i were to express a simplified view of their plan, it is that they plan their budget on making half a game, enough to launch then have their customers pay for development of the other half in some sort of paid live beta. And in order to stay within that budget they release early with whatever they have ready. And everybody will just attribute the addition of missing/lacking features to the ever-updating nature of the genre.

And once their in the black, they can repeat with the next one.

Of course that's all just wild speculation and not sure if i can believe it completely since that doesn't seem sustainable, but that's the impression i'm getting from them so far.

http://www.massively.com/2010/08/23/...rwinter-and-a/

For alts with flight, they probably 3 slotted swift also to make that 4 slots.