[MUD-Dev] Total Annilation of Downtime

[Jessica Mulligan]

At 12:06 AM 12/10/2002 -0800, Raph Koster wrote:

> However, I am more interested in finding out the reasons for the
> buzz behind games that don't have such huge legs up. Neocron is
> one interesting one, because despite the lack of general knowledge
> about it, it's where many of the hardcore MMORPG players, the most
> cynical, jaded, and bitter players, the canaries in the coalmine
> so to speak, have gone right now.

Actually, Neocron has been well-known in the community for at least
two years. Reakktor has been getting plenty of play in the game
media and has been building an online community for that time.
They've been holding dev chats since July, 2000, for example and
cdmag.com first mentioned it in April of 2000.  Gamespot previewed
it in Februrary, 2002.  Since it looked to be another EQ clone with
a sci-fi theme, no one in the industry gave it much thought as a
competitor.

I think the launch delays until early 2003 for SWG, Dragon Empires
and Shadowbane, and the fact that AC2 looks to be closer to a
casual, Socializer primary model than to a hard-core Achiever model,
are 2 reasons for the audience going to Reakktor; they want
something to play right now and Neocron is an interface and play
model quite familiar to the communiuty.  They also hired The Themis
Group (Conflict Alert! I'm still on the Board at Themis) to help
construct a marketing approach to the US players.  You should also
note that Anarchy Online is seeing some resurgence in subscriptions
with the issue of The Notum Wars, probably somewhat for the same
reasons.

I'm not saying those are the only reasons, but in my opinion, I
think they are significant reasons.

-Jessica Mulligan



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