Uhm.
Okay?
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This is pitiful.
Obvious technical errors aside, there is *much* more to maintaining servers (emphasis on plural, no corporate MMOG relies on *one* machine to keep running) than just turning them on and letting them run. Stuff you need humans for. Trained humans. And humans require compensation. Trained humans, even more so. Even considering "just" maintenance, this is not an insignificant cost.
This...rant...also conveniently ignores the time and cost involved in producing new content, and the cost of efforts to attract new players, without which a game's player base will gradually erode.
As an aside, this was also posted here. I haven't found the original post yet. Edit: The original post appears to be here. Bottom of the page.
Edit: As an IT/IS professional, I manage servers as part of my job.
"If this is to be our end, then I would have them make such an end, as to be worthy of remembrance."
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Check it out: http://youtu.be/gAJlQ6o8p9g
what buisness isnt a money making scam?
It takes about 3 cents to produce a box of named brand ceral including the artwork, raw maertials and energy to turn it into a finished product. Yet, anyone would be hard pressed to find a box Of Kellogs below $3 if not into the upper end of $5. Pure profits.
It's just another type of service of someone seeing an opportunity where people are willing to pay and they are not willing to stop them.
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard.  Never change, E_L! |
Too WTF; didn't read.
Main Hero: Chad Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1396 Badges
Main Villain: Evil Gulzow-Man (Victory) 50, 1193 Badges
Mission Architect arcs: Doctor Brainstorm's An Experiment Gone Awry, Arc ID 2093
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Originally Posted by Nethergoat
it's NEVER too late to pad your /ignore list!
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Okay in the "smile and nod while slowly backing away" sense.|
Originally Posted by Hyperstrike
Uhm.
Okay? |
Completely bat$#!+ crazy in the business sense.
Like the people who think that if a shop is paying someone $15/hour to work on a project they should only be charged $15/hour for the work; completely ignoring the other expenses required to keep a shop open at all.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
Frankly, it's barely (if at all) relevant to a discussion of the profitability of Paragon Studios. The big cost is personnel (salaries, offices, insurance, benefits, etc).
Paragon City Search And Rescue
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I'm going to use that often in the future. Thanks.
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Originally Posted by Chad Gulzow-Man
Too WTF; didn't read.
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Be well, people of CoH.
This just in! Paying 2.50 to 3 bucks for a cupcake is a scam!
Cupcakes can be mass produced for pennies a piece, and yet they always charge easily ten times the price! Less costs more!
Wow. so silly.
"Most people that have no idea what they are doing have no idea that they don't know what they are doing." - John Cleese
@Ukase
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You've never run a business, have you?|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
what buisness isnt a money making scam?
It takes about 3 cents to produce a box of named brand ceral including the artwork, raw maertials and energy to turn it into a finished product. Yet, anyone would be hard pressed to find a box Of Kellogs below $3 if not into the upper end of $5. Pure profits. It's just another type of service of someone seeing an opportunity where people are willing to pay and they are not willing to stop them. |
Even if I accept your premise that there are three cents of material cost in a box of cereal - I don't, but let's start there anyway - you also have to pay for:
- All of the production and transportation costs involved in growing the grain, processing it, and moving it to the mills for production. This includes pay, benefits and so on for all the people involved.
- All of the production and transportation costs involved in producing packaging materials. This includes pay, benefits and so on for all the people involved.
- Fixed costs of the production facility - mortgage and interest costs on the physical plant, capital expenditures on equipment, maintenance costs, property taxes, various other local, state and Federal fees and levees.
- Payroll for your production staff, including benefits and insurance costs.
- Marketing, advertising, product research and new product development costs, including competition research.
Also, at some point you are going to have to show a profit. That's what companies are there to do. Their purpose is not to provide you with yummy goodies for breakfast out of the goodness of their hearts; they are there to return a profit to their shareholders.
So, no, it does not cost three cents a box to manufacture cereal. General Mills, a freaking enormous manufacturer of breakfast cereals as well as many other comestibles, right now is returning a profit margin of 13.55%. That's really not very good. It's a lot lower than the profit margin of companies like Apple at 25.19%.
Please read before making silly statements like this.
I used to fiddle with my back feet music for a black onyx. My entire room absorbed every echo. The music was . . . thud like. The music was . . . thud like. I usually played such things as rough-neck and thug. Opaque melodies that would bug most people. Music from the other side of the fence.
As I recall back around 2000-2001 I read that the raw materials that go into making the cereal itself ran about 15 cents per box. However the packaging, shipping, sales, promotion and advertising total 48 percent of the price of a box of cereal.
People always focus on the cost of the raw material and ignore all the other costs.
Now if you want to talk about people getting scammed on food talk about bottled water.
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Ok then, "buisnesses are our best friends and out to look out for us and our well being." Now, is that better for you, "Mr miss the entire point to focus on one little niggle"
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Originally Posted by PSLAnimal
You've never run a business, have you?
Even if I accept your premise that there are three cents of material cost in a box of cereal - I don't, but let's start there anyway - you also have to pay for: - All of the production and transportation costs involved in growing the grain, processing it, and moving it to the mills for production. This includes pay, benefits and so on for all the people involved. - All of the production and transportation costs involved in producing packaging materials. This includes pay, benefits and so on for all the people involved. - Fixed costs of the production facility - mortgage and interest costs on the physical plant, capital expenditures on equipment, maintenance costs, property taxes, various other local, state and Federal fees and levees. - Payroll for your production staff, including benefits and insurance costs. - Marketing, advertising, product research and new product development costs, including competition research. Also, at some point you are going to have to show a profit. That's what companies are there to do. Their purpose is not to provide you with yummy goodies for breakfast out of the goodness of their hearts; they are there to return a profit to their shareholders. So, no, it does not cost three cents a box to manufacture cereal. General Mills, a freaking enormous manufacturer of breakfast cereals as well as many other comestibles, right now is returning a profit margin of 13.55%. That's really not very good. It's a lot lower than the profit margin of companies like Apple at 25.19%. Please read before making silly statements like this. |
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
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yea one of the biggest scams out there.
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Originally Posted by Forbin_Project
As I recall back around 2000-2001 I read that the raw materials that go into making the cereal itself ran about 15 cents per box. However the packaging, shipping, sales, promotion and advertising total 48 percent of the price of a box of cereal.
People always focus on the cost of the raw material and ignore all the other costs. Now if you want to talk about people getting scammed on food talk about bottled water. |
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
Quote:
Little niggle? That's a niggle the size of the Hoover dam.|
Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
Ok then, "buisnesses are our best friends and out to look out for us and our well being." Now, is that better for you, "Mr miss the entire point to focus on one little niggle"
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You're wrong on this. Get over it.
I used to fiddle with my back feet music for a black onyx. My entire room absorbed every echo. The music was . . . thud like. The music was . . . thud like. I usually played such things as rough-neck and thug. Opaque melodies that would bug most people. Music from the other side of the fence.
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WTFE. You get over it. Even if it was $1 to make a box of ceral that sells for $5, still a scam and lot of money brought in per unit. And you still missed the entire point over a little niggle. If you missed the point, then that's on you. No sense in starting something over it. It's a little niggle that you are tryign to make a big deal over it. If you think it's a big deal, then YOU think it's a big deal. Dont try to make it my problem. I suggest that you leave it alone. I have nothing else to say on that matter as I can see that all you want to do is start an arguement over something that is not even worth argueing about. Argue by yourself as I'm not falling for it. Good day to you.
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Originally Posted by PSLAnimal
Little niggle? That's a niggle the size of the Hoover dam.
You're wrong on this. Get over it. |
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
The human body has about two bucks of chemical elements, but they get rented out at many dollars an hour. That is such a scam.
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i know. Even worse, if you dry them out, pulverize them, and shape them into polyhedrons for easy transport you can't even make back the processing costs. (Ignoring the small segment that actually offer ridiculous sums for the powdered version. Freaks.) Star Trek lied to me!|
Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The human body has about two bucks of chemical elements, but they get rented out at many dollars an hour. That is such a scam.
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To be fair, i should have been suspicious when they did it in an instant instead of requiring many hours. And that reconstituting thing that looked so easy in the episode? Still haven't gotten that to work yet.
Dr. Todt's theme.
i make stuff...
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I think we cost more than that because we are ugly bags of mostly Poland Spring.
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Originally Posted by Arcanaville
The human body has about two bucks of chemical elements, but they get rented out at many dollars an hour. That is such a scam.
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Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
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Save your time and effort. Responses like these should be reserved for someone who will make use of them.
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Originally Posted by PSLAnimal
You've never run a business, have you?
*succinct and well-formed argument demonstrating Evil_Legacy is wrong* Please read before making silly statements like this. |
"If this is to be our end, then I would have them make such an end, as to be worthy of remembrance."
In-game at @AYB
Check it out: http://youtu.be/gAJlQ6o8p9g
Quote:
I love how you completely ignore labor costs. You know, stuff like paying the employees.
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Originally Posted by Evil_Legacy
WTFE. You get over it. Even if it was $1 to make a box of ceral that sells for $5, still a scam and lot of money brought in per unit. And you still missed the entire point over a little niggle. If you missed the point, then that's on you. No sense in starting something over it. It's a little niggle that you are tryign to make a big deal over it. If you think it's a big deal, then YOU think it's a big deal. Dont try to make it my problem. I suggest that you leave it alone. I have nothing else to say on that matter as I can see that all you want to do is start an arguement over something that is not even worth argueing about. Argue by yourself as I'm not falling for it. Good day to you.
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Originally Posted by Back Alley Brawler
Did you just use "casual gamer" and "purpled-out warshade" in the same sentence?
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As well as including the various markups for wholesalers and the supermarket itself.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
$725 and $1350 parts lists --- My guide to computer components
Tempus unum hominem manet
This just in: companies exist to make money. More at 11.
Moscow in flames, missiles headed toward New York. Film at 11.
Father Xmas - Level 50 Ice/Ice Tanker - Victory
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Tempus unum hominem manet
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And the Supermarkets that sell generic brands are packaging the exact same product as the name brand which they bought from the same manufacturer only packaged under a generic name.|
Originally Posted by Father Xmas
As well as including the various markups for wholesalers and the supermarket itself.
|
Talk about a scam.
Another big scam on consumers is what hospitals charge for things like aspirin.
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Ok, when I write details, people call it wall of text. when I keep it short, they point out every little detail that is missing. Which do you want? Cant have both. I can go into every little nook and cranny about ceral production but that would take about 3,000 or so words or can try to keep it short and sweet and let people miss the entire point to point as minor things. Hell, people complain when the post is only 900 words. |
Originally Posted by ArcticFahx
I love how you completely ignore labor costs. You know, stuff like paying the employees.
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If buisness is your friend then fine. If you thinks it's fair al lthe time then why are you crying over the death of this game. That was a buisness decision. Funny how you can point out every little working of a buisness but cant grasp why they killed this game.
The way I figure people like you will complain and find something to complain about either way no matter what. So it is what it is. If that detail important to you, then you figure it out. I made the point the point is there, get aroudn to reading the entire point one day as it's only a few sentences. If you never get around to it, then that is your worry not mine.
Next subject. Thanks, have a nice day.
-Female Player-
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Originally Posted by mauk2
Evil_Legacy became one of my favorite posters with two words.
"Kick Rocks." I laffed so hard. Never change, E_L! |
Posted by someone else, somewere else. but very informative. It kills the "game is not profitable, so we need to sunset it" crap.
If a developer optimizes gamecode, one can bitstream a lot of code.
Bitstreaming means that you make a program consume more client side
processor resources in order to turn questions the server ask the client into
"Yes" or "No" questions. The placeholder for YES is 1 and for NO is 0 in binary.
Bitstreaming is about asking questions, organizing the bits together....and
sending them as a packet. YES also means (TRUE) and NO also means (FALSE).
Suppose your connection uses 7,000 bytes per second. One bit equals eight
bytes. So we have 56,000 bits per second.This was the definition of 56K. The
truth is that when one used dialup (56K), it wasn't 100% 56K and it by the
time you did reach the server, you would only have around 1,000 bytes left in the server. (8K)
What efficient netcoding does is allow more data to be send in less packets.
Ok, now we go into servers. As a person who modded RYL for netcoding and
even ran my own MMORPG server for three years that had over 8000 accounts
registered, we can have a discussion.
The number of accounts in an MMO is irrelevent. 12 million Worlds of Warcraft
accounts, or 5 million Guild Wars accounts means nothing to the server world
outside of bragging rights. What matters is the total amount of players logged
into the server at any given time. You will never have 12 million WoW players
or 5 Million GW players logged in at the same time.
As far as bandwtih goes, every player has a MAX CLIENT RATE. This is the
maximum amount of bandwith a server gives to a client (one of us playing the game).
LOTS OF CLIENT-SCAMS exist....A Good max client rate helps with framerate and ping.
Suppose I have a 100 mbps Upload/Download Connection.Given a Max Client Rate
of 7,000, how many players can play simultaneously? The answer is
100,000/56 = 1785.71. In server bandwith you do not ROUND UP, since you
will RUN OUT. The answer is always an Integer.....1785. Then there is the fact
I need to keep the connection alive....and use some bandwith for the
databases...Thanks to multicore computers I can use LESS computers to hold
the game world. What it means is that the connection can support 1785 players
before everyone gets disconnected from lack of bandwith.
Client rate really means if you have 56K upload on your connection, I have to
use 56K upload on my connection to give to you.If you have a Connection with
2mbps upload, tough luck. Im limiting you to 56K but its not like dialup since its
continuous and not 1K out of 7K. 7KB in pure text editing....is enough to write
56,000 characters....you can write a book per second!
RYL had five maps....Human Map 1, Human Map 2, Akkan Map 1, Akkan Map 2,
Caernevoron (the main battle/neutral map split evenly between the two).I
used to use one computer to run Caernevoron and another computer to run the
other four maps....with databases accessed from a third computer. Thanks to
Technology....I was able to actually reach a point I Could build One computer
and run the entire server with all the maps without it lagging from processing.
Suppose I installed a monthly fee, you know to preserve the connection
strength of the server....and I decided to charge everyone $10/month. (Yes, im
getting into Client-Rate Scamming which many companies do)...
It means that since the average amount of people who play in my server would
be around 1000...I would still collect money from all subscribed...So 8,000 x
10 = $80,000 monthly. Due to the fact a SERVER does not need a video card,
as its really pure processing.., One can make a well cooled server and put
in a well cooled room....
Client-Rate scamming is something that many companies do.
A lot of companies will say "WE JUST UPDATED OUR SERVERS TO PROVIDE MORE ROOM FOR
PLAYERS!!!! LOG IN AND HAVE FUN" and you log into the server and find you
have more lag, and see more players and crowdedness....
The truth is they DID NOT UPDATE ANYTHING...what they did was lower the
client rate, so everyone else gets less bandwith.Everyone gets worse
performance and higher ping due to the crowdedness and the parent company
makes more money from SUBSCRIPTION FEES. Of course its nice to feel you
are loved since it helps people undergo a nice placebo effect.
It requires less than 1% of all the money collected monthly to maintain an
MMORPG server.Most processes are automated... The first 1 million Guild
Wars players paid full price for three games + expansion. That is $200. This
means $200 million dollars....and that along with promotions and their in-game
store which gives you more options without having a gameplay advantage (like
more character slots (I have 12) and more storage panels (I have max), really
did a lot for the game. Before the In-game store came, people had to BUY 2
copies of Guild Wars, make 2 accounts, unlock everything on both and trade
between accounts. It was a pain in the ***...Today one can just buy Guild Wars
trilogy for a second account.
The point is that thanks to technologies today...Today a Server Computer can
hold 16 - 24 cores and requires less power to run than servers back then
that were on one core. You can use one computer with instances of the server
running on different cores to control different parts of the world and the Entire
15 server Ragnarok Online world with 50,000 server population can be done
with one of those server machines and reach near 100,000 people per server
with no problems.
In short....any MMORPG that takes 1 month of Fees, has enough money to
actually keep the servers alive for 8 - 10 years....1 million subscribers who pay
$50 for the base game and 15 for the first month is 65 million dollars. A year of
fees..is enough to keep a server running for a lifetime. In short, MMORPGs are
just moneymaking scams for the most part....to convince you that you SHOULD
PAY TO PLAY and then make you FEEL GOOD that you are PART OF SOMETHING.
Before GW 1 came out, everyone said that YOU HAVE TO PAY TO PLAY
AN MMORPG OR IT WILL DIE. After GW1 came out, everyone said "OH GW IS NOT
PERSISTENT.SO IT DOESNT COUNT" but Instanced Games take more
bandwtih to actually run than non-instanced games.....so when GW II
is released and you have a full persistent game...if it succeeds...
The world no longer has an EXCUSE to hide behind. No longer will anyone be
able to defend why a game needs monthly fees to survive.
This is why I want GUILD WARS 2 to succeed.