215 réponses à ce sujet

[Lazarus Magni]

I think it’s clear from what plasma john wrote, to run a serious PW, self hosting really isn’t free. And those numbers don’t even include the initial investment, and maintenance investment. It’s also clear it does take a fair level of technical expertise. There is a reason serious PW owners who self host, are very tech savy, if not full blown IT professionals. And again, this is the result of over 10 years of PW owners adapting to this circumstance (pay for hosting [more expensive perhaps in the long run] vs self hosting [more expensive initially, but perhaps less in the long run, or comparable]).

Ehye, pretty much summed up the virtues of paying for hosting. I pay for hosting, because I don’t have the hardware nor software technical expertise to set it up, the money for the initial investment, the IT knowledge for security, ect…

From what both of you guys said, it is also clear a significant amount of money is involved in hosting. And Bioware missed out (and is still missing out) on all of this. Paying for hosting runs from 500$ a month, down to as cheap as what I use (ad-sl.com) where I pay 30$/mo for 20 slots (I think it’s 24$ for 16 slots min, and as MM mentioned it’s like 45$/mo for 30 slots. I am not sure what the max number of slots are.) Now there are limitations to my host, for example, if I needed a cloud server for multiple virtual servers, I would have had to go with something like Rakspace which was on the order of 200-400$/mo if IRC. Luckily for my needs I didn’t need that, and so ad-sl.com provided a reasonably priced and high quality alternative for me. I suppose this is why I can afford not to be donation based. (And I would like to reiterate my support for that being allowed, with the cost of hosting there is no reason a PW community should not be allowed to voluntarily contribute to that, as long as it is donate to support, and not pay to win.)

So again, in light of the numbers that are coming forward, it seems apparent to me, a game developer could offer something that is free for players, open source like NWN 1 which has a 10 year proven track record of being able to maintain a community’s interest, and gain on-going (after game sales have dropped off) supplemental income from a hosting service which would give them incentive making such a game in the first place, and supporting it for the duration of it’s lifetime. It might not be the cash cow WoW is, but it wouldn’t be the cash black hole NWN 1 was either. They would make a lot of money off the sales of the game (and expansions), and it would never become something they would lose incentive for supporting, even after 10 years (since they would still be making money off it from hosting.)

[MagicalMaster]

I'll respond to more later, but...

SHOVA wrote...

I'll go out on the limb, and state that WoW has probably never had 7 million pay to play members on the same month.

The more realistic way to look at this is they probably had a million paying, and another million using the free month. Then like with most PWs, the players came and went. new People started the paying, newer ones started the free month, and before you knew it, WoW was advertising we have 7 million players! Sounds a lot like some of the PW admins here, that like to jack up the numbers to get interest.

No.  The number WoW gives is the number of active subscribed accounts*.  Now, some/many players have multiple paid accounts (and thus a separate subscription for each), but the peaks of 12 million on this graph are actually 12 million paid accounts.  It doesn't include anyone on the free started edition or anyone with an inactive account.

But even if 1/3 of the playerbase as its peak had a second account (as in paying $30ish per month), that's still 9 million different people with active accounts.

*Places in the East like China have different subscription models such as paying by the hour (something like $0.06 an hour or so I've heard in some cases).  It's also worth noting many places besides the US get WoW for the equivalent of less than $15 month even on a subscription, so you really can't say $15 x 12 million = $180 million a month.  I'd guess somewhere between $90-135 million (which is still a good chunk of change, of course).

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 27 août 2012 - 09:16 .

[Lazarus Magni]

Numbers with out sources are meaningless. I could make a graph and have it show 10 million nwn players, would that make it true? But hey, here goes anyways...

http://www.gamefaqs....63698041?page=1

Oh and this is interesting:

http://en.wikipedia....rld_of_Warcraft

[MagicalMaster]

Are you saying that you think the graph is wrong in general or wrong about the 12 million accounts?

I mean, if you search "wow 12 million" the third result is this Forbes article.

The second result is Wikipedia, and if you search for "12 million" you'll find a sentence that then references this press release.

And the first result is a list of press releases in general. On page 2 there's the press release I linked above.

I mean, this took me like 30 seconds to find, more time than it took me to write this post. It's not like this is hard data to find if you think I'm wrong.

Incidentally, the graph is from this site.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 27 août 2012 - 10:57 .

[SuperFly_2000]

Just want to clear up some misconceptions here. It looks like many people think that ALL people think that an NWN1-like game HAS to have private servers. Here is where I don't agree and hopefully some others with me. What I am really waiting for is a NWN1 like game with one or a couple of company owned "large PW's" (or what to call them).

I am definately not a fan of WoW or any of its clones but lets all agree on that WoW unfortunately is the biggest thing that has ever happened in computer gaming....

[MrZork]

Thanks PlasmaJohn, ehye_khandee, and Lazarus Magni for giving us some idea of what your hosting costs run! With some idea of the range of hosting costs (anywhere from $30 to $500 per month at the extremes), we can rough out some idea of a revenue stream for the idea, just making a few assumptions.

I am just pulling numbers out of the air, though I suspect they are pretty generous. Let's say there are 1000 PWs with a consistent member base - that's significantly more than there are currently, but we'll assume a high number to represent Bioware's continued involvement keeping interest up. (BTW, I am assuming it's Bioware who gets into the PW hosting business, but it could be someone else.) And we'll further say that 500 of those PWs are willing to pay for hosting and they can come up with $250 per month for Bioware hosting, which is a little higher than the folks who posted here say they are paying, but it's the cost of convenience and the Bioware name means something. That's $1.5 million/year in revenue. Given the assumptions made, that's likely an upper bound, but it's a number that entices one to look further into this.

Of course, that's just revenue, not profit. This kind of hosting is a hands-on, customer service business. The whole point of a PW paying Bioware to host their module is that Bioware would take care of the constant tech support, hardware maintenance and upgrades, network issues, etc. Running a server farm for 500 PWs is going to require several trained tech people to keep it running and keep up with normal support tickets. And, this is NWN PW hosting, so they have to be able to assist people setting up databases, upgrading modules, creating backups, and generally getting things running. And there would likely have to be a crew of people to keep the operation running 24/7, since you can't very well tell someone whose PW has crashed Friday night that tech support is out until Monday. I am going to guess it takes six employees to keep someone on hand to run the server farm and deal with support tickets around the clock. These guys are going to cost 75 to 100 grand a year each in total compensation (salaries, taxes, benefits, training, etc.). I will say one senior tech support manager at $100k and 5 staff at $75k. BTW, one could argue that it's possible to get away with fewer people and/or they can be doing double duty elsewhere and so on or even that they might work for less money. All possible - but keep in mind that if these folks feel like they are working like hasted gnomes and not getting sufficiently compensated, then turnover shoots up and you quickly lose whatever money was saved in added training costs for new people and low productivity.

Then, there is a need for someone to deal with billing, new accounts, closing accounts, and so on. That's probably a whole person, since 500 PW customers can generate some paperwork and there will definitely be flux in the customer base as PWs come and go, though staffing for that doesn't have to be 24/7.

So, far we are looking at over $500k in compensation costs and we haven't bought any hardware yet nor rented a building to put it and our personnel in. And, of course, if we have 500 PWs running, maybe averaging 25 players online during peak time (the bandwidth has to handle the peaks), we will need a somewhat decent data pipe. I am thinking those 12,500 players are soaking in the neighborhood of 3 kbps each for a rough bandwidth requirement of almost 40 Mbps, but one of the PW admins here may have better numbers on that. Ultimately, that's not the biggest expense and it may be best to outsource the actual rack space itself, but that means less control over the system hardware, which may or may not be a disadvantage. And, it has to be paid for regardless of where it sits.

Of course, ongoing advertising/promotion is needed and so on, but I won't try to estimate that and we'll just hope that PW players who become interested in building their own PW will be aware that Bioware can provide the hosting for them. There's probably a standard assumption for scaling overhead in this business, but I don't know it offhand. It seems likely there's another one or two hundred thou in personnel costs I haven't looked at. Also keep in mind that none of that is providing more content or development of game or server features, which require different people with different skills...

All in all, this is still too rough to judge, but I'd say the idea may well merit looking into by someone who has a solid handle on the numbers. Keep in mind that the revenue figures are pretty optimistic and the couple of costs I looked at may be low. Unfortunately, it wouldn't take much of a erosion of the revenue figures before the scenario loses viability.

Modifié par MrZork, 28 août 2012 - 12:27 .

[Lazarus Magni]

Very valid points Mr. Zork. But your “liberal” estimates, seem rather conservative to me (and vice versa). As I mentioned a while back, still to this day, over 10 years after initial release there are over 100 action servers alone. And there are like 10 (?) other gaming categories? I would bet back during NWN 1’s peak (which mind you had very little marketing associated with it) there may have been 3-5k live servers. And, given how much on line gaming has grown since 2002, if you had a state of the art game which was like nwn 1 (i.e. PWs built by players (along with other content), free for players to play, ect…), with good marketing, it could be quite a bit more…

Also your analysis doesn’t take into account the long term look. You spelled out the up front cost (which seems quite high to me, especially when you are buying in “bulk” [I would assume like food that would lower the cost], but then I have no clue about that stuff really), however a lot of those will diminish (substantially) over time. My host for example, yes they had to hold my hand a bit getting me initially set up, but since then the amount of time spent on my PW by them has been minimal.

Laz

P.S. MM all I was saying is sources are important. And I found that first link I posted in that reply to be quite interesting. 9 mil subscriptions (if the sources are accurate, as Sova mentioned… it’s pretty easy to inflate things like this with out a 3rd party verifying), but how many active players?

P.P.S. Superfly, there is no reason bioware could not do that with this model too. Have some official PW's in addition to player built ones. Maybe some of the more talented PW developers might actually get hired for a real job doing it.

Modifié par Lazarus Magni, 28 août 2012 - 03:29 .

[Lazarus Magni]

Post, Post, Post Script (P.P.P.S.) One way this model could fail is due to the fact that some people like simple. A lot of people apparently (e.g. WOWers). "Who needs 22 classes, and multi class capability? 3 is so much simplier!" Personally I like games that make me wonder and think. "What would this build be like given the PW I want to apply it to?" But apparently people like simple. "I just want to replicate what a couple million other people have done." Did I say something about sheep? I totally apologize for having that opinion, that was totally unfounded.

Another factor of WOW's popularity has to do with who is paying for these subscriptions. "My son's best friend has wow, and his parents pay for the subscription so that's acceptable for me too." It's like buying your kid a new toy, you don't care there is something better out there, you don't even take the time to find that out, all you care about is your kid wants it. It doesn't matter if it's stupid, and there are better things. Your kid doesn't want the better thing, he want's the most popular thing.
Again I am a big jerk for thinking a lot of people are sheep. 9 million people can't possibly be wrong.

Apparently people also like the pay to play, pay to win, and get paid to play to help others win model. The market for selling accounts, and other such nonsense is big time. Why just have fun when you can get paid for doing it?

My bad... this was a stupid idea based on ideals.

[MrZork]

LM, I'll admit that I had not heard about NWN back during its heyday, so my sense of these things is based on what I think is likely in today's environment. Of course, if Bioware/EA were to re-release the game (ignoring Atari/Hasbro and licensing issues) today using this sort of model and harness the full power of EA's marketing presence, then the numbers I used may indeed be fairly modest. However, marketing isn't cheap, either, and adding a few hundred thousand to the cost of the project may not be helpful unless it brings in hordes of new players and, at some point, new PWs. Would that happen in this market, which is fairly saturated with MMOs? It's hard to say. I agree with you that if Bioware had attempted something akin to what we are talking about here (with all of the marketing) back in 2003, then there might well be a much larger PW player base.

Meanwhile, if you look at the PW listings now, there is  still an impressive number of PWs around. But, most of them are pretty quiet the vast majority of the time. Which is fine, but I don't think that those guys compose the likely market for premium hosting. Another thing I didn't go into in the last post is that each PW has to have a pretty big player base if it is hoping to defray costs via small donations. You can do the math yourself, but suffice to say that a PW paying $250/month for hosting that has 15 players who are willing to ante up is basically asking those players to come up with more than they would pay to play WoW. And that's for each PW (not one donation to play on any of them). Not saying it wouldn't be worth it, but if our benchmark for unreasonably costly P2P games is WoW, then this indicates a potential fly in the ointment. Of course, if each PW has 100 donating players, then it's not such an issue...

I am not sure what you mean regarding the potential for savings by buying in bulk. I know about economies of scale, but no cost that I accounted for would go down by buying more of it. Most of the costs I looked at were labor costs, and hiring more people doesn't get much cheaper per person. (Well, it does in the overhead sense that the human resources department may not have to grow proportionately. But, a company like Bioware/EA already has a sizable HR department, so I wasn't adding any cost for that anyway.) Yes, there is some worthwhile discount to be gotten by buying computing hardware in bulk, but my estimates aren't high due to failure to account for those discounts because, as I said, I didn't add in the cost for hardware at all.

That said, there is something to be said for economies of scale in hosting. That is, you need a minimum crew to provide 24/7 support for hosting, but you need that crew for 10 PWs and that same level of staffing might take you up to several hundred PWs. That's likely part of the reason for Blizzard's success with WoW. Sure, they can claim an impressive accomplishment in keeping millions of gaming accounts active and (I am guessing) hundreds of thousands of gamers playing all at once during peak periods. But, if they are doing that with a small ratio of staff to players, so they can grow (as they have done) the player base tremendously and still have under 5000 employees.

As to the long-term view in terms of the time profile of resources that must be devoted to each PW owner to get him up and running: Yes, it's true that setup effort tends to be higher than ongoing effort for these things. However, I never added in the extra expenses for setup. I was estimating the ongoing costs and assuming the extra expenses to setup would average out over time or Bioware would have to charge a setup fee to cover those boosted initial expenses. To be honest, I thought more people would balk at the idea that Bioware could charge $250/month for the service and still have anyone buy it, since I imagine only a handful of PWs are spending that much per server today. But, without that cost (and, as you inadvertently point out, potentially even a higher startup charge), there is a real issue on the revenue side.

Anyway, once again, I am certainly not saying it can't work. Someone with more expertise about this field would need to fill the back of an envelope with numbers to get a grip on it. But, I don't think my estimate for revenues is super low and I know that there are more items on the expense side than I listed. It's an interesting proposition.

[MrZork]

LW, regarding "sheep" and so on: Why go there? You mentioned that you think MM enjoys riling people in this thread, but what do you think it does to refer to WoW players (some of whom are clearly also NWN players) as "sheep"? The insulting term doesn't prove your point and, IMO, doesn't advance the discussion.

Meanwhile, as to the non-inflammatory substance of the comment:
1) I don't know much about WoW, but I know how to Google "world of warcraft classes". I may be missing something, but it looks like WoW offers more than three classes. Meanwhile, even if there are only three WoW classes, I played Dragon Age: Origins a little. I found it to be fun, despite having only three basic classes. Though I like NWN's class system, it's certainly possible to have an engaging game with fewer archetypes than NWN has. Meanwhile, there may be ways to differentiate a character within the archetype, just as there are in DA:O and, in fact, as there are in NWN.
2) I am not going to try to figure this out for WoW, but I suspect that, like most of the video game market, the median player is an adult about 30 years old. If you have information showing the typical WoW subscriber is a minor whose subscription is on his parents' credit card, I'd be interested to see it. (Seriously, I am curious in this info.)
3) How big time is the market for selling power-leveled characters? Once again, out of the millions of WoW subscribers, I am curious how many are making money that way.

[Lazarus Magni]

No doubt marketing isn’t cheap. Hence why bioware didn’t invest much in it. But no doubt marketing yields results, hence a substantial factor towards WOW’s success. As I mentioned a while ago, I have seen plenty of WOW commercials on TV. I don’t recall seeing a single NWN 1 commercial.

Back in Aventia’s hey day (Av1 2003-2005ish) they had 90 players on at any given time across 3 different servers (4 including the hall of commerce.)

If we are talking about PWs paying 250/mo across the board, I certainly would not be hosting. The beauty of my host is it scales with slots. If I had more players, I would purchase more slots. If the number of slots I needed jumped beyond what one server could handle I could go to the next level with multiple servers sharing a common server vault (AKA cloud servers with *cough* the community submitted server vault sharing NWNX plugin.) If say the average was 100/mo from both small time servers like mine, and big time servers like say PoA, with an average (over 10 years) of 1000 paying PW owners, that would be 100000/mo, 1,200,000/yr, 12,000,000/decade. And that’s just from hosting… If Rackspace really was not able to turn a profit, would they really be doing it?

If you want to use my host as an example. A generous estimate is that they spent 10 hrs getting me set up, another 5 hrs the next month to work out some kinks (mostly related to security, and DoS attacks… gotta love haters), and then perhaps 1 hr/mo since then. On the real, it could have been more like 1hr the first month, and about 1-2 min every month there after if it were a big time opperation. In fact if you were doing it on bulk, you could prolly turn that into 10 min the first month, and 1 min/month there after per PW. Your overhead just went from the profit crushing numbers you mentioned to an actual viable and profitable option.

Regarding potential savings in bulk. When I buy one box of mac and cheese I pay 45 cents. If I go to sam’s club and buy 10 at a time I pay 30 cents/box. If I were boston market or something and bought 1000’s of boxes at a time I would prolly pay 10 cents a box or less. I would be shocked if it didn’t work the same in the cyber world…

Why do I use the sheep analogy? Because I don’t care about offending WOW’ers. From my perspective they are such. I paid less that 100$ to play NWN 1 over 10 years. People who pay 1400 (subscription costs) + 100 (original game price) + whatever they want to invest to pay to win are both suckers and sheep from my point of view. I don’t blame blizzard. If I had a cash cow to lead to the trough I prolly would too. Unless I actually cared about them, in which case I might try to liberate them.

And as far as simplicity? Obviously I am not a WOWer… last I checked when the game came out they had 3 classes. Perhaps expansions have expanded on that to a whopping 9? I would be shocked if building (and playing) a WOW toon were nearly as complex as building and playing a NWN 1 toon.

Modifié par Lazarus Magni, 28 août 2012 - 05:57 .

[MrZork]

Lazarus Magni wrote...

If you want to use my host as an example. A generous estimate is that they spent 10 hrs getting me set up, another 5 hrs the next month to work out some kinks (mostly related to security, and DoS attacks… gotta love haters), and then perhaps 1 hr/mo since then. On the real, it could have been more like 1hr the first month, and about 1-2 min every month there after if it were a big time opperation. In fact if you were doing it on bulk, you could prolly turn that into 10 min the first month, and 1 min/month there after per PW. Your overhead just went from the profit crushing numbers you mentioned to an actual viable and profitable option.

The number I used was not assuming some large resource allocation of tech support per PW. That isn't why it is expensive. It was the low-end cost to have a competent tech in the office at all hours, plus one to cover sick leave and vacations. In other words, even if most of the support tickets could each be handled in a few minutes, you still need someone on call to do it for 168 hours a week, which rounds up to five full-time shifts plus one extra, who normally works with someone else during the expected busy times and covers when someone else isn't working his regular shift. The total cost of that staffing doesn't go down with quick ticket handling because that's the minimum to have someone ready to handle the tickets, whether they take a lot of time or not. (Actually, it's possible to trim the number a bit by using flexibile part-timers, but that can have its own problems.)

Now, the way around that is to amortize the cost over many, many PWs. The total cost doesn't go down (in fact, it starts going up again at some point), but it becomes a smaller fraction of the revenue stream. If it costs half a million dollars to keep a capable support team up 24/7 and we have to cover that with revenue from 50 PWs, we are doomed. If we have to cover it with revenue from 5000 PWs, then it's not an overwhelming expense. That's how WoW does it and I suspect that's how other server farm operators lack Rackspace (which has ~100,000 customers) do it.

This is part of why the size of the PW owner market is so important in thinking about this: Some costs (like supporting servers) can go down on a per customer basis when we have lots of customers. That means we have a viable business if there will be enough people buying the product. To be sure, at least in my opinion, WoW would not be in business if they only had 50,000 players. They wouldn't be profitable because the minimum resources to maintain a playable game start to disappear when the revenue stream shrinks that much.

Regarding the economy of scale issue: I understand what you are saying, and there are savings to be had when buying hardware in bulk. But, the big expenses I listed before were labor costs, not a retail product like Mac'N'Cheese that we can buy wholesale if we buy enough of it.

BTW, as I mentioned briefly before, one option is for BioWare to subcontract out the tech expertise to an outfit like Rackspace, at least until they can confirm that they have enough business to maintain their own team. That would lower the startup costs significantly by making labor costs scale down to a lower initial number of PWs using the service. And the hardware could be Rackspace's, so it's basically rented instead of bought. There are downsides, too, of course. For one thing, it will limit the ability to provide service that is customized to NWN. Presumably Rackspace (or someone like them) would be willing to work with BW to deal with that somewhat. And, of course, the potential profit is limited by the added costs of subcontracting. But, it might be a good way to see how big the market is without having to make a huge capital and organizational investment to find out. If, after a year or so it looks like there are enough PWs to justify a custom NWN server farm, then plunge ahead and really offer services specific to NWN and potentially work on optimizing nwnserver for the environment. If not, then transition out of the hosting business, perhaps seeing if Rackspace is willing to give a good deal to the PWs in order to keep their business.

[Lazarus Magni]

Again, the need for tech support would decrease substantially over time. You might need some getting servers going, but after that initial investment, the need for it will drop off substantially to just maintenance, and new accounts. Which would in my estimation be a far lesser burden than the initial cost.

The cost to the developer doesn't go down per server as much as it does per year. NWN 1 has held the community's interest for over a decade... capatlizing on that, I can hardly imagine would be a bad thing for both the developer and the consumer. Unless it is the afore mentioned WOW model of pay to play, pay to win, ect... in which case just the consumer is the loser.

If bioware were to subcontract to rackspace, they may as well just buy stock in rackspace, and let it play out as it would. If bioware actually had this hosting capability (and offered something better than rackspace, like ad-sl.com, which has equal quality, and is more affordable) it would be a whole different ball game.

[MrZork]

I am not quite getting through on minimum tech support costs. If I want to provide professional support with one guy handling support tickets (the fewest I can employ), I have to pay that guy roughly $55k in direct compensation and then there are some extra compensation expenses that I am estimating bring the cost to the company of employing this guy to about $75k per year. If he's all I hire, he works his 40 hours per week and goes home. Anyone filing a support ticket before 9AM or after 5PM or anytime on a weekend gets a friendly email saying we'll get to you when we're back on the clock. Ditto when he's sick or on vacation. So, to provide 40 hr/week support (that's 8 hour support), we are looking at $75k per year, minimum. We can't really reduce the cost lower than that because he gets paid the same even if there aren't that many problems. To put it another way: Assume that when we first start the business our PWs are new and have problems and our tech guy is working 40 hours per week putting out fires. That costs $75k. Later on, things are running smoothly and all our PWs' tech problems can all be solved within an hour of this guy sitting down at his desk each day. He spends 5 hours a week handling support tickets and the other 35 reading comics. That still costs $75k.

Now, the estimate I listed earlier was for providing 24 hour support service so that no one's Friday night support ticket sits idle until Monday morning. (That's important if the idea is to promote the hosting as so solid that a PW's players will be willing to pay/donate for it.) For that 24 hour support system, I hire four more guys like the first and one guy with some management training who costs a smidge more. Why? Because there are 168 hours in a week and I am figuring on someone being there for each one of them. And, some redundancy is needed because people go on vacation and get sick and so on. Similar to the 8 hour support scenario, this crew may be busy at first and then less busy later on as the PWs come up to speed. But, it's still the case that the tapering off of support needs of the PW owners doesn't reduce the minimum costs because you have to pay the staff whether or not they are busy.

(BTW, the 24 hour support system isn't really more expensive than the 8 hour support when the system is at full capacity and there are enough tickets to keep people working for 168 hours per week. Ideally, there will be enough PWs for that to happen.)

Regarding BioWare subcontracting the server farm initially to determine how big the market is: I don't care about RackSpace; that was just an example. If some other farm operator like ADHosting provides better service for less, then they are a better candidate for startup subcontracting. Who gets the contract wasn't the point. The point was that having a subcontractor run the server farm for some early period of time while BioWare/EA promotes the service would be a way to put off the expense of investing in hardware and the expense of maintaining that minimum tech support team until BioWare could gage the market and see if they really wanted to invest fully in that business model. I suggested it as a way to lower the barrier to entry for BioWare (or any game company that wanted to try). If BioWare had a way of testing if the numbers could make the system profitable without the downside potential of bankrolling a full-fledged operation, they might be more inclined to make the attempt.

Modifié par MrZork, 28 août 2012 - 10:16 .

[Lazarus Magni]

If someone told me I will pay you 100k/yr to spend 80 hrs/wk for the first week (or even month), and than 8 hrs a week for the next 55 weeks of the year, I would say… sign me up!

And again 24 hr/ 365 support service? I have contacted my host at a couple of odd hours, but in over a year of being with them… it’s more like once every 2 months (odd hrs or not) (after the initial set up, which again could have been greatly reduced with volume and experience.)

My host offers 48 or 74 hr return on support tickets. I have never had it reach that limit (it’s usually more like a couple of hours or less) in all of the half dozen times I have had to contact them in the year of hosting. Most of those times have been mod related not host related (except the initial server security issues, which I imagine would not be much of an issue for a major game developer.)

You know… honestly I am in way over my head. I can’t really speak to the logistics of game development, marketing and success. All I can truly speak to is my perspective as a player/consumer.

I don’t want a nwn1 version of WOW (a watered down version of NWN1 in a pay to play, and pay to win format, with none of the capability of the player community to actually express their creativity). I don’t want an Atari version of nwn 1 (2x flash, and ½ the game), I want a modern day equivalent of NWN 1. And yet better. I want a modern day equivalent of nwn 1 that provides both the consumer and the developer an incentive for producing/buying such a game, and maintaining it’s interest for as long or longer than nwn 1 has.

It’s pretty much as simple as that from my perspective. I offered a model that could perhaps produce this, but there may be better ways to achieve it. It doesn’t make a big difference to me, the only thing that does, in this regard, is that it is ultimately achieved.

Frankly in the grand scheme of things, there are prolly way more important things I could be focusing my attention upon. But this has been a significant part of my life and I would like to see it not be for nothing.

From my perspective a modern day equivalent of NWN 1 would be a game I would want to play for another decade (if not more), which would be bolstered by it’s ability to provide the developer an incentive to produce and continue to support such a game, with out exploiting it’s players/consumers.

Modifié par Lazarus Magni, 28 août 2012 - 10:51 .

[WebShaman]

I want to go back to MrZork's text on Cable - I don't seriously see the comparison here with a WoW subscription, tbh.

Cable gives you access to a multitude on Entertainment - be it as it may. Sports, drama, films, etc. You can change the channel to match your "mood".

WoW is giving you a subscription to ONE (and only one) sort of entertainment experience here. It would be like having to subscribe to each and every cable channel individually!.

A true comparison would be like being able to subscribe to a number of MMOs at once (or whatever).

That said, I am still boggling at the amount of revenue that WoW is sucking in. It is a huge amount for a game, occuring on a regular basis. I still cannot fathom how anyone can claim that they are anywhere near getting back in value for pay-to-play in comparison to the play-for-free model.

If WoW was running Square CPI animation style graphics, with total 3D geometry in all areas, real physics rules, one-on-one DM support (or DMs per Clan, whatever type of model), etc, well, perhaps then, yeah.

But it is not running that, is it?

Barring that, we are back at the NWN model (albeit WoW graphics are a bit better IMHO...or are they?).

If we had a NWN3 (refreshed graphics ala Square, say) combined with the best features of NWN and NWN2 (party mode with possession, please), a real 3D environment (z-axis for flying, climbing, etc), real inside/outside type of building (so one can actually look through a window and see inside, go through walls with abilities and spells, etc, etc, etc), and then offered it up ala NWN style (relatively easy to use toolset with lots of wizards, documentation), the different styles of play (single, multi, etc) - offered up a great single game (OC) AND an official PW based on it (awesome sauce IMHO), with hosting, etc, I think it would do very well.

Hmmm...but it would have to be based on Pathfinder, and not 4ed. Gawds, I dislike 4ed. Sorry.

Back to the topic.

[PlasmaJohn]

Even Paizo doesn't use the Pathfinder rules for their "Pathfinder" MMO.  There's long been speculation that the OGL only grants non-electronic rights.  I can't believe that Paizo is incapable of adjusting their ruleset to work for a CRPG environment, so the conclusion I'm going to jump to is that it's tacit confirmation about no electronic rights for OGL derived products.

Developer/Publisher hosting is such a bad idea, I'd much rather see a developer create a licensing model that encourages the formation of multiple hosters.

It is rare for a non-MMO company or division to have the IT skills necessary.  Tacking it onto the workload of the MMO IT dept. is just begs to shove it into 2nd class citizen status.  Merely by providing that service they discourage 3rd party hosting if they don't prohibit it outright.

If people are aware of Second Life they pretty much consider it to be one big red-light district.  Too many other operators would insist that their licensees conform to "canon" or whatever morality standards a corporation dictates for their products.

I'd love to see a well supported end-user CRPG client and content creation toolset with open or well documented art asset formats and communications protocols with the flexibility to adapt to any game system.  (and a pony).  I do not want to be beholden to the upstream provider for hosting, authentication, billing, art, content, morality standards or permission to operate commercially.

[leo_x]

 There was a kickstarter awhile back that was attempting to do a model somewhat like what is being proposed here.  www.kickstarter.com/projects/1622375855/myworld It wasn't successful but the idea seems to have been 5/mo subscription for players to be able to play every public world and 10/mo hosting fee for world operators.  There's more to it than that, like world operators getting some promotional free month passes for players, etc.  Might be the worst of both worlds tho, but he seems to have given it some thought.  Making it even more relevent, he uses NWN tiles in his tech demo!

@PlasmaJohn - Wouldn't you be better off just licensing some game engine/toolset like Unity at that point?  I seem to recall that HG was taking (or thinking about taking) that path.

Modifié par pope_leo, 28 août 2012 - 08:20 .

[henesua]

Lazarus Magni wrote...
I want a modern day equivalent of nwn 1 that provides both the consumer and the developer an incentive for producing/buying such a game, and maintaining it’s interest for as long or longer than nwn 1 has.

The community could pull this off itself. The talent is certainly available. It surprises me that  no one has yet done this. Perhaps it has happened but the same old bickering over petty nonsense killed it. This thread being an example.

[PlasmaJohn]

@PlasmaJohn - Wouldn't you be better off just licensing some game engine/toolset like Unity at that point?  I seem to recall that HG was taking (or thinking about taking) that path.

I've done that calculus several times already.  The bad news is that there is no right answer.  The good news is that it's getting closer.

The free Unity is missing some fundamental features and IIRC there's a limitation on your sales (after a certain threshold you must purchase Pro).  Pro is $1500 per developer.  It's price competitve with its peers and I suppose if you're an indie developer with a hot game concept it's great, but imagine if all of your builders had to shell that out... 

I think for the target demographic the content creator shouldn't be much more than $100.

[Shadooow]

henesua wrote...

Lazarus Magni wrote...
I want a modern day equivalent of nwn 1 that provides both the consumer and the developer an incentive for producing/buying such a game, and maintaining it’s interest for as long or longer than nwn 1 has.

The community could pull this off itself. The talent is certainly available. It surprises me that  no one has yet done this. Perhaps it has happened but the same old bickering over petty nonsense killed it. This thread being an example.

Unfortunately, this community proved its not able to come to agreement on anything which buries any such attempts. Even if someone started, others will not support him because of they have different view on the subject. Instead of cooperating to make something the whole community could benefit from, everyone there is doing the same on his own.

Modifié par ShaDoOoW, 29 août 2012 - 09:30 .

[PlasmaJohn]

What is non-obvious about Bazaar style development is that it is near impossible to bootstrap the project like that.  The successful ones all started as prototypes developed by an individual or small team.  The project must be attractive to those with the essential talents needed to take it to the next level. 

Choosing the wrong technology or license will cut you off from many capable contributors.  Mono/.NET is offensive to some of us.  The GPL or LGPL waves a huge anti-business flag in the game development community.

[Lazarus Magni]

That was quite an interesting project Pope Leo, too bad it didn't get off the ground.

And I am not sure which community is being refered to here? The NWN 1 community, or the gaming community at large? The nwn 1 community has already proven on numerous occasions, it can come together to work collaboratively on something. (CEP for example, or more recently the NWPAD event.)

[MagicalMaster]

5.0.4 hit in WoW and it is amazing.  I've been busy.  But here we go again on a giant post!

[quote]Urk wrote...

A player that has payed that monthly fee for the 8 years that WoW has been active has payed about $1,400 for the privilege of playing that one title. That's enough money to get your kid braces, pay for health insurance for 2-3 months (assuming your employer won't match), put a down payment on a pretty nice car, pay rent for a month or two, or take your family on a really nice vacation.

IMO anyone who pays that kind of money to play a video game is in need of serious professional help.[/quote]

How is buying a new game for $60 every 2-3 months (let's call it 3 to be generous) any better?  Over 8 years, that would be $1940, over 33% more than your $1400.  And there are many people who will pay $60 each month.  Buy a game for $60, play it for 30 hours or whatever, and then move on to the next game.  That's $5760 over 8 years.

See, you're looking it at from "I pay <blank> dollars for NWN back in 2002-2005 and haven't paid a cent since then to play!"  But that's not the norm in the gaming industry whatsoever.  The vast majority of people don't play a game for going on, what, 7 years without an official update?

[quote]Urk wrote...

Do you really expect me to accept that Blizzard is providing a service that even comes CLOSE to offering that kind of value? MM, you're being jacked. If you're content to be a mark for this kind of profiteering be my guest, but don't be looking to me to respect your choice. All I have to offer is grudging acceptance and pity both for you and for your family as you ****** away the valuable resources that they depend on.[/quote]

Yes, I do.  Or rather, I think it's worth $15 a month/$0.50 a day/$0.20 an hour to play the game.

And it's far less expensive than buying new games.  If I went out for a steak dinner, that one night would cost as much as 3-4 months of WoW at an absolute minimum at a good restaurant.

My economic choice has nothing to do with the aggregate.  I don't care if WoW has 100 players or 100 million.  I want a RPG where I can do finely tuned and brutally difficult high end group content.  As long as I can find the people I need for my guild and Blizzard keeps putting out at least decent raids, I'll be content.

[quote]Frith5 wrote...

As for MMs question on how to keep track of the fees for Officially Licensed PWs, I admit I don't understand the question. How does a company keep track of anything? What am I missing? How would Bioware know how much a PW as taking in, you mean? Standard contract, and CD-key system I suppose would work to track unique PW users, x monthly PW fee / Bioware's share? Or do you mean something else?[/quote]

Yeah, that's what I meant.  For example, what if it was more of a standard F2P model where you basically couldn't do anything unless you paid an "optional" monthly fee?  Like a $10 item that made you gain experience ten times faster and ten times as much loot dropped for you, for example, for the duration of a month.

[quote]Lazarus Magni wrote...

But it sure is interesting, and just goes to prove the market does not always support quality. Comparing NWN 1 with WOW, there is no contest in quality IMO, NWN 1 wins hands down, and yet had a fraction of the profit for Bioware compared to the profit Blizzard has gotten from WOW (and is still getting.) I shoulda bought stock in Blizzard years ago…[/quote]

I would really love to know how you're measuring quality in this case.

Polish?  Bug-free?  Lots of content?  Engaging content?  Accessability?  Something else?

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

I understand that Blizzard patches routinely (what exactly do they patch? Bugs I can understand. Are they also adding content through patching?). What seems sort of strange to me is that they then have these...expansions, right? And they cost money.

So I guess the big question is, why do they need to charge for these expansions, when there is a routine patching system (assuming it is being used to also add content)?[/quote]

Yes, they add content through patching.  Specifically, they add new questing hubs, new dungeons, new raids (10+ person group zones at the pinnacle of PvE content), new gear, sometimes new PvP areas, new PvP seasons, new vanity/cosmetic items, and sometimes more.  Usually get a big patch containing a bunch of stuff every 6ish months.

The expansions, on the flip side, have (sometimes dramatic) class revamps as well as many new areas (usually new continents/worlds) and extra levels.  Plus a new race and/or class.  Aka, the patched content is all themed for the expansion preceding it.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

I do find it hard to imagine that it is possible to get back that amount in value. Keep in mind that I did try WoW (trial version) - it didn't "blow" my socks off like NWN does. Instead, it seems like a huge PG driven game, with hordes of PG kiddies running about. As for the RP aspect, it seemed to me (during this rather "brief" time spent on the game) that it only took place among Clan members, if that.[/quote]

There's no significant RP in WoW, no, and people trying to do so are usually laughed at.

However, as others have mentioned, the average age in WoW is probably about 30.  With idiots making obscene comments/jokes in chat it is *definitely* not a PG environment.  There are entire articles about trying to "kid proof" WoW if your teenager wants to play...like turn off all chat channels, no group activities, no guilds, etc.  On a personal level, I think the youngest person in the guild I run is 20 and the average age is probably close to 27-28.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

So what do those who play this MMO basically do in the game? Can someone break down like a weekly routine here? I mean, it is pay on a monthly basis to play (and at $15, doesn't that sort of make one want to play as much as possible, to get more "value" back out of that $15?).

I have never felt "forced" to play NWN (not even when I was playing in a closed DMed PnP style NWN Campaign). I think if I was paying to play (especially $15 a month!), that that would change. I also hear through other sources (those I know who either play WoW or have quit) that pressure from the Clans to raid or somesuch is also high, and that those who do not regularly participate enjoy the displeasure of the other members or somesuch.[/quote]

Well, I run a casual (in terms of time commitment) raiding guild that raids 4-4.5 hours on Sunday and Monday night.  The vast majority of guilds roughly at our level spend 3-4 nights a week, and the top world guilds will spend 6-7 nights a week beating the new raids when they come out.

So that's 8-9 hours committed by me, plus I like to do other stuff and roam around in the game, so I probably play 15-20 hours a week, which is less than most of the people at our level.  Sometimes do more if new content is out that is outside of raiding.

And yes, if you're in a serious raiding guild, you are expected to be there usually a minimum of 75% of the time, and give advance notice if you'll be absent unless it's an absolute sudden emergency.  It would be like joining a basketball league and then randomly not showing up to practice or even to a game when your team is counting on you.  I run a 13ish person roster, and we *need* 10 people there each time.  Sometimes 1-2 of the people won't bring what we need for a certain fight and thus we literally need everyone to show up nearly all of the time.  If you didn't show up on a night and then said "I just didn't feel like playing" you'd be removed and looking for a new home.  We don't have time for people who will waste *our* time.

That said, most people *don't* join one of these higher pressure guilds and just play whenever.  I think like 20-30% of the playerbase participates in the organized weekly stuff.  Something like half the playerbase isn't even maximum level (leveling can easily take 100+ hours, especially if you're new and exploring or make alts).

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

Then we come to the "other" thing that I mentioned - other-named WoW servers. They are free-to-play (as I understand it - I am not well informed about them, so what do I really know?). But the mere existence of such (regardless of what state they are in, so to speak) must have a huge psychological impact on the returned value of pay-to-play subscribers, doesn't it? I mean, here you have Subscriber X paying $15 a month, and Subscriber Z paying...nothing? Both get the same experience...[/quote]

Hardly.  The illegal private servers have a number of issues...

1, they can and often are shut down at a moment's notice.  You could try to log in one day and find everything gone
2, they're riddled with bugs
3, they don't have the same community/playerbase

On top of that, many of the illegal private servers are for past expansions, basically a game that is no longer available.  Most people have enough sense to realize that the game is vastly better now.  Some good things have been lost, but the stuff gained more than made up for the loss.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

Oh yeah, one more thing I wanted to ask about WoW (and MMOs in particular) - does the world react dynamically to what the Player's character does?

Do Clans actually affect theWoW universe (or whatever it is called?). Or is it really just a big PG sandbox, with most of the the stuff being static quests, items, lootz (that is the right term, right?), etc?[/quote]

More the sandbox.  That said, there's a new technology called "phasing" which allows quests you do affect the world, so some places will be destroyed (or build), as an example.  But it's personal, so if you've never done the quests you'll see a very different view than I'll see.

[quote]SuperFly_2000 wrote...

Just want to clear up some misconceptions here. It looks like many people think that ALL people think that an NWN1-like game HAS to have private servers. Here is where I don't agree and hopefully some others with me. What I am really waiting for is a NWN1 like game with one or a couple of company owned "large PW's" (or what to call them).[/quote]

I very much disagree.  I'm interested in NWN because I can build my own content, whether it be a campaign or a server.  If I'm just playing on company created PWs, then you're basically just playing WoW or a similar game.

[quote]Lazarus Magni wrote...

Post, Post, Post Script (P.P.P.S.) One way this model could fail is due to the fact that some people like simple. A lot of people apparently (e.g. WOWers). "Who needs 22 classes, and multi class capability? 3 is so much simplier!" Personally I like games that make me wonder and think. "What would this build be like given the PW I want to apply it to?" But apparently people like simple. "I just want to replicate what a couple million other people have done." Did I say something about sheep? I totally apologize for having that opinion, that was totally unfounded.[/quote]

Help me understand something.

You clearly have no clue whatsoever about WoW.  Yet you continue to try to insult it based on things you know nothing about.  Why?

I mean, for example...

[quote]Lazarus Magni wrote...

And as far as simplicity? Obviously I am not a WOWer… last I checked when the game came out they had 3 classes. Perhaps expansions have expanded on that to a whopping 9? I would be shocked if building (and playing) a WOW toon were nearly as complex as building and playing a NWN 1 toon.[/quote]

1.  The game launched with nine classes.  Each class also had three specializations that play completely differently.  So there's the equivalent of twenty-seven classes right there (for example, a paladin can be a Holy Avenger with a 2H weapon, a bastion of defense with a sword and shield, or a healer with spellcasting abilities.  And the paladin with a 2H weapon is very distinct in terms of playstyle compared to a warrior or death knight with a 2H).
2. Expansions have expanded it to 11 classes with 34 specializations currently.  Again, all of which are distinct and play differently.
3. Prepare to be shocked.  Please read this guide for Marksmanship Hunters.  Note: that's *ONE* specializtion for *ONE* class there.  The guide is composed of the first two posts in the thread, the first is a "quick reference."

[quote]Lazarus Magni wrote...


Another factor of WOW's popularity has to do with who is paying for these subscriptions. "My son's best friend has wow, and his parents pay for the subscription so that's acceptable for me too." It's like buying your kid a new toy, you don't care there is something better out there, you don't even take the time to find that out, all you care about is your kid wants it. It doesn't matter if it's stupid, and there are better things. Your kid doesn't want the better thing, he want's the most popular thing.Again I am a big jerk for thinking a lot of people are sheep. 9 million people can't possibly be wrong.[/quote]

As has been said, the average age for WoW is probably about 30 and I would *not* recommend anyone play it below the age of 15.   Most serious guilds have a minimum age of 18 or even 21.  You need to stop thinking WoW is a "kiddie" game.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

Cable gives you access to a multitude on Entertainment - be it as it may. Sports, drama, films, etc. You can change the channel to match your "mood".

WoW is giving you a subscription to ONE (and only one) sort of entertainment experience here. It would be like having to subscribe to each and every cable channel individually!.

A true comparison would be like being able to subscribe to a number of MMOs at once (or whatever).[/quote]

WoW gives quite a few types of entertainment.

1, leveling, which many people find fun in and of itself.  As I said, it can easily take 100+ hours to level a character, and then you can start another.
2, dungeons, which are 5 man PvE content designed to be done in 30-60 minutes
3, raids, which are 10-25 player PvE content that is designed to be completed over the course of months with difficult bosses and the best rewards.  This is what I play the game for
4. Looking for Raid, an automated and drastically easier version of raids with worse rewards to let bad players or players with chaotic schedules see the lore of the raids
5. Battlegrounds, both just random PvP or in rated and ranked teams (10-40 person content) which is focused on objectives
6. Arenas, which is either 2v2, 3v3, or 5v5 deathmatch PvP
7. Social experience.  Many people like WoW just because they interact with people, they like being in an online world
8. Vanity/cosmetic items, such as pets, mounts, banners, and such which can be earned
9. Reputation and daily questing, working your way into the graces of various factions and helping change the world
10. Achievements, which can give you nerd points for doing other stuff in specific ways

And scenarios, which are 3 person very obective focused PvE content, are going to be released soon as well.  No traditional tank or healer required for these, very dynamic.

Saying these are all the same thing is like saying watching TV is watching TV.  They appeal to very different audiences.

[quote]WebShaman wrote...

If WoW was running Square CPI animation style graphics, with total 3D geometry in all areas, real physics rules, one-on-one DM support (or DMs per Clan, whatever type of model), etc, well, perhaps then, yeah.

But it is not running that, is it?[/quote]

WoW has 3D geometery in something like 95% of areas, with actual player controlled flying available over the world.  And real physics rules like getting knocked back a certain distance or taking fall damage.  And while there's never a Game Master assigned to a specific person 24/7 or something, you can get one-on-one help if you put in a ticket to be contacted.

Modifié par MagicalMaster, 30 août 2012 - 06:51 .

[SuperFly_2000]

Magical Master wrote...
I very much disagree.  I'm interested in NWN because I can build my own content, whether it be a campaign or a server.  If I'm just playing on company created PWs, then you're basically just playing WoW or a similar game.

No you aren't. Cause WoW gameplay DOES differ from NWN!

1) Game is designed to be viewed from different camera angles and distances than WoW. Giving strategical overview in combat, more of a pen and paper feeling when moving around...versus WoW which gives more a first person shooter feeling.
2) It uses the superior D&D system almost to full extent. Combat is more slow paced and strategical.
3) ...and maybe most importantly....the game is designed around roleplaying in a way WoW isn't. Like I said...its more slow paced and playing as a team is usually very important...especially in low levels .... very unlike WoW...where level 1's are mindless bots that never communicate...anyway....you have to rest to replenish spells also and usually have more business back to town than in WoW where you usually meet the other players and so on....

It's hard to write everything that makes NWN1 superior to WoW but at least I have started...

Oh, please edit your post....its ridiculusly long and I think we will still get it if you remove most of that mastodont quote....no one is saying that WoW players are dumb....at least I am not....I would just like a more NWN1 looking game more...

Modifié par SuperFly_2000, 30 août 2012 - 06:11 .