[MUD-Dev] Re: MMO Communities

[Brendan O'Brien]

Brad McQuaid wrote:
> Brendan O'Brien wrote:

>> But the -entire- purpose of the design of EQ is to make money. I
>> don't see how it can be a business success and not a design
>> success.

> I gauge it's success on sales and retention numbers -- when I left
> there were over 400,000 subscribers and we had about 60% of the
> people who'd ever tried the game still playing.  That's what I'm
> very proud of.  The money was great, but as mentioned above, came
> as a surprise (and, certainly, a pleasant one).  But it wasn't
> what drove us to make EQ, at least at my personal level, or at the
> development team's level.  With Vanguard, our next project, I
> think we do have different expectations -- we know that if we can
> make another hit, that there will be the potential of some serious
> profit.  I'd still argue that's not why most of us are working on
> the game, or at least not the primary reason -- there are probably
> easier ways to make a buck, but we love making massively
> multiplayer games.  I guess, bottom line, a love for making these
> games and a desire to also make money are not mutually exclusive.

Just to clarify, the above quote referenced is from Matt Mihaly,
while the below quote is from me.  Nonetheless, what you say is very
much what I had expected, especially considering the time frame when
EQ was developed.  With the success of EQ, today's developers are
far more likely to consider the profit potential of the games during
development, even moreso since their investors are likely to also
have very high expectations.  Of course, I would still say that the
vast majority of people developing games do so out of love for the
genre.  Call me an idealist, but I think the reason most of us are
on this list is because we want to make and play better games, not
just make more money.  Profit is still very important in making a
successful commercial game, but it's certainly not the only
motivating factor.

> Matt Mihaly wrote:

>> I seriously doubt the truth of this statement.  I can't speak for
>> Brad McQuaid or anyone else on the design team that developed EQ,
>> but I have to believe they were trying to do more than just make
>> a quick buck with the game.  I know it has received a lot of
>> criticism for the way it fosters "addictive" behavior
>> (Evercrack?), but do you really think that they sat down at each
>> meeting to figure out the best way to turn a profit with every
>> design decision?  At some point, they must have considered things
>> like the "fun factor" and ways to advance the genre.  Besides, I
>> seriously doubt the idea of "multi-boxing" was expected to become
>> much of a factor at the time.

> Very true.  We tried to capture what made the MUDs we played so
> compelling.  And I think we succeeded, and Sigil intends to use
> the same core principles to build upon with Vanguard.  And no,
> multi-boxing wasn't really anticipated -- probably because it
> wasn't allowed in the MUDs we played and we weren't thinking about
> the scale of EQ and how policing something like that wouldn't be
> realistic.

You definitely did a good job capturing many of the strong MUD
aspects and transferring them to a graphical, mass market game.  For
all of my current complaints about things that could be improved
upon from EQ's design, there is no arguing its overall success or
impact it has had on the entire market.  I am intrigued to see what
you and your team manage with your next project.  :)

-  Brendan
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