[MUD-Dev] LTM article

[Trump]

This was posted on Lumthemad.net I thought it might be of interest
to everyone here, I'm sure I'm not the only one who was both amused
and apalled by this.

A few comments.

  1) The first time I thought of the idea of a 3D massively
  multiplayer online RPG/empire building PVP game was in the mid
  80's when I was playing with my brand new copy of SSI's Fantasy
  Empires.  Thought process went as follows: Hey, this would be cool
  to play agaisnt other peolple over a big network.  What if you
  could play it like an RPG until the point where you built up
  enough resources to start a fledgling empire.  Or you could just
  keep playing as an RPG if you wanted too.  In empire mode you
  could look top down at the map, in RPG mode it could be like DOOM.
  That would be neat.  Maybe you could even lead your own armies
  like with AD&D's Battlesystem(TM).

  I'm not going to demand royalties for you using my idea, because
  I'm sure there were 100s of people who thought of it before I did.
  The lines between Strategy and RPG game are already blurred by
  games like Birthright and Heros of Might and Magic.  Making a
  MMORPG with strategy elements is not innovation, it is evolution.
  Shadowbane is only the first to announce this AND have a serious
  chance to making it to market.

  2) Thinking of PvP as a niche concept really shows a total denial
  of history. Many of the early graphical MUDs like NWN, DSO, M59,
  Yserbious, etc had PvP, as well as many muds.  In games where you
  could get to max level quickly and there was little content PvP
  was the only thing that kept these games from being chatrooms.
  Many NWN veterans still cant be convinced that you can have an
  endgame without PvP.
  
  There were many people who thought there was no way EQ could work
  becasue there was no PvP.  How do you keep the players happy
  without constantly bumping up the level cap and adding more and
  more content?  Well, that's exactly what they've had to do.  They
  are already on the 3rd major expansion pack.

Implying that Mythic is encroaching on YOUR niche pure comedy.   Darkness 
Falls (MUD from Mythic) + Magestorm (Team based 3D PvP game from Mythic) + 
current technology = DaoC

Entire text of original article follows.

--<cut>--
And now, a rant from Todd "Warden" Coleman, a Shadowbane dev, on
searching for the PvP niche in second generation MMOGs.

------ 

Okay, now, I know that, in the past, we at Wolfpack have had a
tendency to leap at shadows and think that every idea that comes
down the pipe was "ours first."  And yes, we might have been a bit
snaphappy to assume that (1) we're always first to come up with a
good idea, and (2) other people had to TAKE the idea from us, they
couldn't possibly have come up with it on their own.  Paranoid?
Yeah, we are. Guilty as charge.  And, looking back, I'm more than
happy to admit that the use of the EQ word "disciplines" had nothing
to do with SB.  Nor was DAoC's "rock troll" lifted from our "stone
dwarves" -- these are smart teams with innovative ideas drawing from
the same knowledge base (ie mythology) and it's a compliment to all
of us that we see as many design intersections as we do.

That said, not everything in this industry is can necessarily be
chalked up to innocent coicidence.  Sometimes even our staunchest
critics may occasionally blink their eyes, grin, and say, "well,
yeah, okay, maybe we'll give this one to you."

  http://www.bluesnews.com/cgi-bin/articles.pl?show=196

Coincidence?  Maybe.  It would be kind of hard for Codemasters to
claim they *didn't* know about SB, especially since I met with them
back in Sept of 99 in London when we first went looking for a
publisher.

My favorite line from the press release:

  "Dragon Empires breaks the mould with the importance of player to
  player combat to the game - it's open season on all the other
  players all the time - and introduces the concept of player clans
  ruling sprawling cities within the game's world."

Oh come on, now -- If you want to claim to do it, that's one
thing... but to claim to _introduce the concept_?  Two years later?

Like I said, maybe it is innocent.  Hell, it might not have anything
to do with us at all; they might have gotten the concept from these
guys. Anyway, though, I digress.  The real question I wanted to ask
was, regardless of where the ideas come from.. why all the sudden
interest in PvP?  As many of your readers are so quick to point out,
PvP isn't exactly the "most popular" feature of EQ, UO or AC.  I
love engaging PvP combat myself.  I think it provides a really good
sense of realism and hightened competition... but I also recognize
that I'm part of a niche market segment.  When we set out to create
Shadowbane, we decided to specifically target a niche group of
players who weren't being given an offering suited to their tastes;
to provide interesting strategic and tactical combat to a market
segment that wasn't being satisfied by the existing "big three"
titles.  Our secondary goal was, in choosing a niche, to remain
under the other games' radars by targeting a small enough player
base that they wouldn't bother to try and compete with us on a
feature-by-feature basis. This might have worked, btw -- except that
SB picked up a lot more marketing momentum then we ever expected
(especially with the cancellation of UO2 and AD&D online, something
we certainly never saw coming.)

So.. why is it now that everyone is flocking to our niche?  Doesn't
that kind of fly in the face of the entire "niche marketing"
concept?  I mean, a PvP-centered MMOG is good idea, but it's hardly
the ONLY idea out there.  Hell, if I started a new game today I
might well concentrate 100% on tradeskills and economy.  Why?
Because no one else is doing it!  How did we go from "no one cares
about the PvPers, in fact let's ban em all!" to _everyone_ competing
for the same (completely unknown!) cache of PvP dollars -- in spite
of the fact that no one is positive that the PvP market can support
one good title, much less half a dozen.  Now it seems like no one is
concentrating on the trade skills and cooperative play; what the
hell is up with that?  It's the proven market!  Hell, Shadowbane
looks to have a much stronger economic model than most of these new
offerings, and that was supposed to be our weak spot.

I swear I don't understand this industry some times.  I don't buy
the idea that the right way to make money is to repeat the same
ideas over and over and over until everyone is blue in the face.  I
always thought, as an entertainment medium, we were supposed to walk
that fine line between art & business -- too much art and you
produce something unplayable (quick *nod* to jess on that one), but
too much business and you end up with a bookcase full of
undistiguishable Quake clones.

  1.  Look at the Market.  (What offerings are out there?)

  2.  Find an interesting area that no one else is doing.  (What
  customers aren't being satisfied?)

  3. Innovate (What unique features/services/support can I offer
  these specific customers?)

  4. Deliver (Follow through with a quality product, quality
  service, and quality support)

Step four is supposed to be the hard one, folks.  Comparitively
speaking, one through three are a walk in the park. 

Warden, Wolfpack
--<cut>--






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