[MUD-Dev] business models

[Koster]

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Vincent Archer
> Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2001 9:34 AM
> To: mud-dev at kanga.nu
> Subject: Re: [MUD-Dev] business models

> According to Koster, Raph:
 
>> Er, by definition on day one you get near 100% of active
>> subscribers logging in, no matter where they are. Everyone who buys
>> the game on day one logs in on day one... You can spread the time
>> peak around, certainly, but over the course of the 24 hours, it's
>> still going to be close to every single purchaser.

> Yes, but you do not need to have your server able to handle
> simultaneously all active subscribers, because they're going to come
> and go at staggered intervals. That's what I was trying to say:
> spread release allows you to have more subscribers than you have
> peak players.

Very true. Though, tie ratio (the number we're talking about here) is
usually measured per day in my experience. Probably because it's used
to estimate bandwidth cost, among other things.

> (which is where I think the EQ/AC schemes of non localised servers
> vs UO's time-zoned servers is better - from a business PoV, that is)

There's a lot of other factors, though, and they can all affect your
bottom line. Co-located servers also increases customer service cost
and makes it harder to do stuff like hardware upgrades, and routine
maintenance. Not having co-located servers means single point of
failure for connectivity (cf what bit EQ during initial
launch). Players not geographically nearby tend to pick a given server
anyway (eg, in UO prior to launch of Korean shards or Japanese shards,
there were servers clearly identifiable as "the Japanese shard" among
the shards located in the US). No co-located servers curtails your
ability to target specific content or gameplay towards specific
audiences. And so on... lots of tradeoffs going both ways.

As a side note--I was handed the June 2001 issue of Login magazine
(from Japan) while at E3, and UO: Third Dawn is currently the #2
bestseller there.  I'd argue that local servers, customer support, and
a localized client and server are a big part of why.

-Raph
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