Why does this guy constantly talk smack about the game I like so much?
By
Ad Astra,
Posted on: 2010-09-08 07:10 in Comic and Hero-Villain Culture
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Jack reminds me or Praetor Barry. He's constantly working on experiments, but when they don't pan out or he's tired with them, he disposes of them into the Underground. Sometimes those experiments get up and walk away.
CoH was one of those experiments lucky enough to walk away and stand up on its own.
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I think it's more a matter of him having to face the reality of the industry. In every MMO I have ever followed, there is that interview where Feature X is asked about, and the company says, "Oh, it won't be in launch, but it's coming after!" No MMO is ever going to be everything the developers want at launch. They'd never get released if that was the case.|
Originally Posted by Zombie Man
Case in point is the quote in the OP.
When his new MMO launched, it was missing a lot of systems that they promised would be added 'later.' Whether or not his point is valid, he couldn't live by the lesson he supposedly learn. And that is quintessential Jack Emmert. And that is why the usual derision. |
And really, the quote doesn't conflict with that. He's not necessarily saying a game should never add new features after launch, but that you can't do that and expect to change how the game is defined.
After all, there are reasons to add features to a game beyond just attracting new players. Keeping your current players happy is a fairly good reason, as it increases retention. And really, if inventions added 10,000 players for 3 months, that's $450,000 more they made in that period than they would've had normally. It's nothing to sneeze at.
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I honestly think to a certian extent, the developer was right. Though i know the basis of your complaints, this developer in particular spent alot of time especially up to the launch of his new game dissing on our game here as being some how incomplete or inferior to his new project. Yet we can all see how this worked out for him.|
Originally Posted by Medic_brietz
I am trying not to break any rules, so I wont mention any names of any competition who's name anacronym shares some letters with COH/V, but I was reading some articles about a certian past lead designer of City who uses this game and references it when it suits him, but then turns around and bashes it when it feels convienient....which is basicly in every article. I'll post a quote and let you all see what I mean. Really I just wanted to vent because this ticked me off. I am sure it is old news and if we were a football team this would be bullitin board material. To me, this is how NOT to handle yourself as a professional. I sure hope if the DEV's have read this garbage that they dont listen to him or take anything he has to say to heart.
"Coming out of City of Heroes we launched to great acclaim, we got a lot of publicity, everybody loved it, but we didn't have crafting and we didn't have PvP. All there was to do was fight. Over the years everybody pinged us on this. We added PvP and didn't really gain any subscribers. We added crafting and we gained roughly ten thousand subscribers for three months and then it went back down. So in the grand scheme of things, what I learned is, if you didn't have a feature at launch, you might as well never have it. Whatever you're going to have at launch defines you as a game." there are other quotes and links and such. just google the name and read. anyhow, i completly disagree with this line of thinking. On another note, wasnt there a list somewhere of things that would never happen in city made by someone a while back? how many of these things have happened over the years? |
But I think he was right in some ways. PVP in cox has never really achieved balance or wide popularity in part because powers were designed and used in order to give variety and such to power sets, where as in other hero games of late, all the powers might be better balanced for pvp but they are certian all bland and just variations on a theme with boring repetitive animations and effects.
It could also be said that in order to balance an invention system that COX had to bring everyone down a notch or two. And we got ED and GDN and such as a result. Though time wise they might have been widely spaced, we are led to believe by our devs that an invention system was being worked on for years to get it right. I personally cant help but think that those nerfs were the first step in balancing characters so that attributes could be added later that didnt put our powers way way over the top. Which has me worried about the coming incarnate system actually, but thats another post.
Essentially these comments by Statesman emeritus were not so much a slam on the game as a comment on what he felt he learned by developing this game. Though i dont agree with all his comments in reguards to this, and i am thankful for all the development that NC Soft has given this game, I do agree that no feature that has been added after the fact of release has really re-invigorated this game. Yes we see temporary boons to populations after a new feature is added, but we see also those numbers go down as the populations return to a "been there done that" mode.
I often wonder myself where this game would have been if many of these features added over time were in the original release. If we had factions of heroes and villians, crafting, pvp etc all on day one. Sure the game probably wouldhave released later, but when you look at the sucess of other games that have incorperated these features from day one it does beg the question of "what if".
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My negative attitude is based on his habit of lying in the faces of his playerbase and his "my way or the highway" design philosophy.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Now, I'm biased because I met the guy and found most peoples' negative attitudes based more on misreading or taking offense at one phrase/action instead of putting it in context, but here's my thoughts.
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Maybe he's a great guy in person. I don't know, and I don't care- I was playing his game, not sitting down with him at the dinner table. As a dev he was an unmitigated failure.
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Actually, that's EXACTLY what I want. |
Originally Posted by SynakulOne
and thinks all the players want is an "i win" button.
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His initial goals were good.
Instancing common content to eliminate queuing at key quests found in sucessful MMOs at the time.
Letting players customize their characters appearance right away.
Shoot for a more relaxed casual play style by eliminating item based loot and try to prevent min/maxing by eliminating hard numbers.
Have a system to allow lower level players play with higher level players somewhat effectively.
Have a large complex zone environment that require very little memory and that was easy for the devs to create but the engine had to allow the players to explore them from all angles, not just from the ground. When I first played this game I had a system with 384MB of memory and the game played well with hundreds of players street sweeping in a zone.
And he's right about it being very tough to introduce new features like PvP and crafting into an already thriving game without breaking existing systems.
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Chase_Arcanum,
Your argument is flawed at it's core. While other developers and such have INPUT it is ultimately the the Lead's decision as to whether something goes in or not. It does not matter that this person or that person came up with the idea because the point of the lead designer is mainly to know when that idea is bad or good or works or doesn't work. And as that is the case the Lead ALWAYS takes the blame as they should.
This is the same in just about ever team effort and there is an understanding in sports that the Team wins and the Coach loses. This is because it's the coach's job to direct and guide the team into winning while the team itself can only do the best they can do individually. If someone on the team is tired and can't pitch anymore it's the coach's job to tell them to step down. If you need to call in the special whatever in football it's the coach's decision and while a player may make an error it's the coach's job to ensure that that has a very low likelyhood of happening.
I have always seen the antagonism that people read into jack's statements as people emotionally reading the words of someone who is not "one of us" he made good and bad decisions, so has posi, so will war witch, all three will also make unpopular good decisions and popular bad decisions. I have no malice for any of them, they made a game i play a lot, heck, jack has thus far made two games that i play, not a bad record for the guy. but i have had this discussion before with a poster who, humorously enough, later flipped and became a screeching fangirl for jacks new projects and a raging, spelling challenged harpy against coh..how times change, but as i said back then, i imagine that he still thinks about coh, you simply cant do something for this long without feeling some kind of attachment, no matter how much you move on.
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They do, it's just not very good.
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Originally Posted by Lord_Thanatos
Btw does cryptic have a PR section? If they did, they didnt do their jobs, and if not, they really need one.
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They already have one, it's called inviting me to your team heh.|
Originally Posted by Cowman
Actually, that's EXACTLY what I want.
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| So in the grand scheme of things, what I learned is, if you didn't have a feature at launch, you might as well never have it. Whatever you're going to have at launch defines you as a game." |
in the case of PVP in CoX, it was an after thought. The game wasn't based around it and it painfully showed when the arena arrived.(being a defender fighting perma 9th tier melee characters was not fun.) It basically was there for a novelty and had it never been added it probably wouldn't have made or broke the deal for most players. I'm glad it's there for the people who enjoy it of course, but the majority largely ignore it. It was never the hook for this game.
I've played other games where it was the hook, and was created as an intergral part of the game. All classes are geared with it in mind then. It's a very different experience. Not say balance has ever been realized in a MMO, as the balance of power shifted often with nerfing and buffing of sets. It was by far the best PVP experience of all games I've played because it was meant for it.
Now with all that said, Jack had some odd ideas and often forced his point of view on players without really listening to. Most the intial sets had powers with excessive drawbacks or were so situational they got replaced. (like the original telekinetics made a team mate fly.) He did ultimately lay the ground work for this game and I respect that. I also know It's better off without him. He's good at intial concepts but the finer details seem better left to others.
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I can't say anything about the guy personally, but every time I see any interview or decision he has made and reasons behind it he sounds like an idiot to me. He'd be a good PR guy though if he weren't overselling his product which makes him and his company look bad in the long run.|
Originally Posted by rian_frostdrake
I have always seen the antagonism that people read into jack's statements as people emotionally reading the words of someone who is not "one of us" he made good and bad decisions, so has posi, so will war witch, all three will also make unpopular good decisions and popular bad decisions. I have no malice for any of them, they made a game i play a lot, heck, jack has thus far made two games that i play, not a bad record for the guy. but i have had this discussion before with a poster who, humorously enough, later flipped and became a screeching fangirl for jacks new projects and a raging, spelling challenged harpy against coh..how times change, but as i said back then, i imagine that he still thinks about coh, you simply cant do something for this long without feeling some kind of attachment, no matter how much you move on.
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Also I wish that the Devs on CoH would play and mess with people like I've heard people say Jack used to, make GMs spawn and kill people and such... That's part of a game idea I've had, make the main villain a player of sorts that actually interacts... Imagine a Lord Recluse player that could run around Paragon City and spawn arachnos Soldiers or an archnos GM? That would be epic...
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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.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
To me, sounds like they ran out of their money and couldn't get a line of credit in the current market (as many can't) and sold away their coveted "employee-owned indie studio" status just to get enough cash to get their projects out the door.
(I also recall that the Atari buyout included additional money contingent on the studio meeting certain revenue numbers. Trying to meet those numbers may have also affected their decision-making on launch dates, and features-at-launch. It shouldn't, but there are plently of examples of financial considerations affecting artistic expression...) |
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/
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There is already an I win button ingame, but it is only available for devs and GMs.
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Originally Posted by SynakulOne
thinks all the players want is an "i win" button.
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The first step in being sane is to admit that you are insane.
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You're misunderstanding the financial side. Game developers- like most businesses- take out lines of credit all the time. They invest SOME of their own money, but borrow the rest.|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
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. |
In this case, after they committed to those fast production schedules, we had the financial meltdown and... well, if you listen to the news, you've heard that there's a BIG problem in getting banks to lend to even credit-worthy businesses... crushing a great deal of potential business development and job growth.
Cryptic got caught at a bad time- it had projects going full-swing, it had credit owed, and it had no existing subscription game to leverage (if they'd still owned CoH, they might've pushed a promotion of "pay for 12 months now get 2 more free" to give them the cash at hand they needed to get through to at least one launch.)
At that point, they couldn't scale back production- they needed launches to make the money to pay their existing debt-- but they couldn't keep paying salaries without a line of credit... so they started looking for someone to buy them... someone with enough money to pay their way to launch. Atari
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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.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
At that point, they couldn't scale back production- they needed launches to make the money to pay their existing debt-- but they couldn't keep paying salaries without a line of credit... so they started looking for someone to buy them... someone with enough money to pay their way to launch. Atari
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Wasn't NCSoft funding CoV, and Infogrames funding Neverwinter...yet the quick release is still there.
I will agree that if a game is incomplete at launch, it is very likely doomed. There will be so much bad press about it that only a major expansion can save the game. Without a decent start, a game can trundle on in obscurity, but never really regain it's initial population. CoH, Vanguard, CO, and many other MMOs confirm this.
To put it bluntly, if your game isn't at least close in content to what other MMOs that have been around for years is now, you are screwed.
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The credit crunch should definitely be considered a factor in independent gaming studios' recent struggles (some of which have been lost). Consider how 38 Studios has recently been pursuing alternative forms of investment, e.g. the development loan from the state of Rhode Island to relocate there, while they prepare to launch their first MMO in the fall of next year.
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Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
You're misunderstanding the financial side. Game developers- like most businesses- take out lines of credit all the time. They invest SOME of their own money, but borrow the rest.
In this case, after they committed to those fast production schedules, we had the financial meltdown and... well, if you listen to the news, you've heard that there's a BIG problem in getting banks to lend to even credit-worthy businesses... crushing a great deal of potential business development and job growth. |
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CoH had a great start. At the time it was one of the smoothest launches any MMOG ever had. |
Originally Posted by dbuter
I will agree that if a game is incomplete at launch, it is very likely doomed. There will be so much bad press about it that only a major expansion can save the game. Without a decent start, a game can trundle on in obscurity, but never really regain it's initial population. CoH, Vanguard, CO, and many other MMOs confirm this.
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| To put it bluntly, if your game isn't at least close in content to what WoW or EVE is now, you are screwed. |
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His history of "fast production cycles" doesn't add up. Jack's recap of CoH's development schedule is a bit... quirky. I'm not sure where he's starting with his CoH date side of things-- the DNS record for the name goes back to 15 May 2000, and if you look at actual accounts of its development history from news articles, then count backward his count of months from the CoH release date... you have a great deal unaccounted for. Does he not count in the conceptualization and design documentation and planning side and, heck, concept prototyping of things into this schedule, maybe?|
Originally Posted by Pebblebrook
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. |
We usually talk about more than half a product's time being spent in planning, designing, and tool selection/development before actual product development begins. Jack spoke about the "City of Villains" before CoH was out the door... so some thought preceded it. It used the engine, the game mechanics, design principles, and the production tools all developed for CoH and came out a year and a half later. To compare that to an normal from-scratch MMO that spends 4-6 years from conceptualization through planning, tool development, product development, and launch is... well... ridiculous.
There are plenty of examples where developers will make expansions / add-ons / sequels using the same core engine, mechanics, etc and get it out there in a fraction of the time. In good product development, you often spend more time in the planning/preparation than in the actual assembly of the product. By using much of what you've already got, you get better schedules.
So it wasn't that the production schedules were faster than a traditional MMO. They brought a lot in-- For the parts they had to work on, they had about as much time as a similar scratchbuilt would have on those parts.
The thing is, though, the PUNDITS latched on to the quick development time for New MMOs. They questioned it... and when the product released somewhat content-light, they reveled in being right! "STO was... anemic in content... because it was very quickly produced."
They gave Jack an easy scapegoat. He has to build player excitement for his next game, and to do that, he has to ease concerns that he's repeating previous problems. Rather than air any real dirty laundry, he picks up the issue that all the pundits already latched onto for his most recent game-- and does some creative counting on the previous projects to illustrate a TREND.
"Yes, we rushed things too fast. Yes we learned from that. We're still using a tight timetable, but we're narrowing our focus. That will make things better. Next?"
Sure, it doesn't match with the actual researchable numbers, but the pundits don't care-- they were blaming this particular boogyman for months already. They just feel happy for being validated. It proves that they've known all along- that they're smarter game developers than... y'know... the people developing games.
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Exactly,|
Originally Posted by TrueGentleman
The credit crunch should definitely be considered a factor in independent gaming studios' recent struggles (some of which have been lost). Consider how 38 Studios has recently been pursuing alternative forms of investment, e.g. the development loan from the state of Rhode Island to relocate there, while they prepare to launch their first MMO in the fall of next year.
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Also go back over the past year. Look at the existing MMO titles that ran promotions for very early preorders, "yearly subscriptions" or even some "lifetime account" plans. The existing titles sought more advance $$ from their playerbase to finance their expansions & new games... probably because credit was so lean elsewhere.
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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.|
Originally Posted by Chase_Arcanum
Also, his history of "fast production cycles" doesn't add up. Jack's recap of CoH's development schedule is a bit... quirky. I'm not sure where he's starting with his CoH date side of things-- the DNS record for the name goes back to 15 May 2000, and if you look at actual accounts of its development history from news articles, then count backward his count of months from the CoH release date... you have a great deal unaccounted for. Does he not count in the conceptualization and design documentation and planning side and, heck, concept prototyping of things into this schedule, maybe?
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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
Part main problem with MMOs is content creation. It takes a lot longer to create than it takes to consume.
Take a TV show. Takes a long time to film a season but limiting the viewers to one episode a week is hopefully enough to keep them coming back. MMO content is a lot like season DVD box sets, someone can set down one rainy weekend and blow through an entire season. Months and months of work, consumed in only a few days. This makes it hard to rationalize a subscription.
Same model applies to premium movie channels like HBO. When I got cable at my first apartment in the mid 80s I went nuts over HBO and Showtime. Watched tons of movies I wanted to see or simply see again. But after a few months I've seen everything that I wanted to see the 4-6 new movies per month, only a few I care about watching, weren't enough to encourage me to keep the subscriptions.
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at the same time, imho, using the example of hbo and showtime as early cable offerings it was a pretty empty place too. hbo, etc, didn't have much to compete against as the pie was big enough enough for everyone, and the novelty factor was very high. after a while more cable channels appeared, semi cable channels that had a smaller niche such as all golf all the time, and *shudder* the shopping channel. all sharing a marginally increased number of eyes. |
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
Part main problem with MMOs is content creation. It takes a lot longer to create than it takes to consume.
Take a TV show. Takes a long time to film a season but limiting the viewers to one episode a week is hopefully enough to keep them coming back. MMO content is a lot like season DVD box sets, someone can set down one rainy weekend and blow through an entire season. Months and months of work, consumed in only a few days. This makes it hard to rationalize a subscription. Same model applies to premium movie channels like HBO. When I got cable at my first apartment in the mid 80s I went nuts over HBO and Showtime. Watched tons of movies I wanted to see or simply see again. But after a few months I've seen everything that I wanted to see the 4-6 new movies per month, only a few I care about watching, weren't enough to encourage me to keep the subscriptions. |
if i had the time (and honestly, the sincere motivation) it would be interesting to see if sub numbers suggested a particular churn of a few months here, a few months there centered around fresh content offerings. i might seem like a potentially obvious thing, but for some mmo's the flow could be business model breaking and difficult to plan for the long term when content releases end up needing to be put out at a higher rate with potentially less of a chance to recoup.
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I think his comment about crafting is someone disingenuous. Crafting may not bring in new customers, but it seems to me it adds to subscriber retention. Some players now continue to play their character after reaching the level cap to purple it out with IOs.
He's right about PvP. If you want to attract PvP gamers you build the game with PvP in mind at launch. Shoehorning PvP in later in limited venues like arenas and battleground will never attract a large PvP crowd.
Well, Jack got very, very lucky with City of Heroes and he still doesn't recognize how. CoH was successful IN SPITE of many of Jack's decisions, not because of them. Many of the design decisions he championed (no real numbers, loot, and others) have been changed in CoH. And in almost every case the game has been better for it.
I have no quarrel with Mr. Emmert. I just don't happen to agree with his philosophy of game design. I tried a few of his new design creations in open beta and found it unbearably dull. So while I admire his passion for his game and his willingness to engage with players, I just don't care for his design decisions.
well said !!!
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