[MUD-Dev] MMORPG Cancellations: The sky is falling?

[Threshold RPG]

On 4 Jul 2004, at 14:33, Par Winzell wrote:

> So... These games "clearly" show a lack of development time? If
> E&B had been cooking for another pre-launch year, behind close
> doors, I doubt it'd have fared better. Is there any information to
> suggest the opposite?

Absolutely. Take one of its main USPs: the "three kinds of exp."

This was a very interesting and unique idea. But wait a
second... ooops... To do many important things, like many ship
upgrades, your TOTAL level is what mattered. Thus, the whole concept
of habing explore, trade, and combat xp/levels totally broke
down. If you wanted to upgrade your ship and you were a combat
player, it soon became a lot easier to gain a few trade levels
(since they were lower) instead of combat levels.

That's the kind of screw up that comes from losing your focus and
from not having enough playtesting.

> I don't think lack of content did E&B in.

I don't either, and fortunately I never said it did. The game was
shallow. There was no depth behind the extremely gorgeous
graphics. It was the shell of a good game idea that wasn't fully
realized. It had some very nice ideas and USPs that ended up tossed
together at random like a salad rather put together intricately like
a gourmet meal.

They didn't take the time to develop a game universe that made
sense. What was with the "space monsters" floating in the vaccum of
space spewing out blood when they got shot? Come on!

The very existence of these weirdly incongruous space monsters is
especially indicative of this lack of patience. It just screams
PANIC. I can picture the meeting now:

  "OH MY GOD! ALL WE HAVE FOR PEOPLE TO KILL ARE SPACE PIRATES? WHAT
  ARE WE GUNNA DO?"

  "HOW ABOUT MONSTERS IN SPACE?"

  "SOUNDS GUD!"

> I think EA made bad decisions. I don't think either patience or
> focus would've helped E&B

Absolutely they would have. There is a tremendous market of people
who like sci-fi stuff just waiting to be exploited. E&B had a lot of
good ideas but NONE of them were fully polished or fully realized.

One thing I've learned in over 8 years of game design is that 10
half- finished ideas does not even equal a SINGLE fully realized
idea. Breaking the habit of half-doing a feature is a very difficult
and very important thing for game designers to do. Half completed
features is one of the most glaring faults I see in a lot of games
that fail to live up to expectations.

> Finally, the disclaimer: my point of view is that of a player

Ah. Well that explains quite a bit. :)

----------------------------------------------------------------------
Michael Hartman, J.D. (http://www.threshold-rpg.com)
President & CEO, Threshold Virtual Environments, Inc.
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