The future of NWN 1 (and some commentary on MMOs in general)

[Legacy_SuperFly_2000]

               How about a premium module for Persistent World gaming....
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Aelis Eine]

               

PlasmaJohn wrote...

There have been several examples of virtual world toolkits with developer supplied hosting.  The problem with them has been that every last one have adopted the games publisher/record company attitude of demanding an exorbitant amount of any gross revenues.  Multiverse (http://www.multiverse.net) found out the hard way that this attitude doesn't work in the long run.  In some cases they expect the worlds to be charging players $15/month or more (2nd Life private islands, ActiveWorlds)

Another pitfall to be wary of is system reputation.  Second Life is viewed by many as a red-light district.

When a single entity has all of the profit motive, then they act to maximize thier own benefit.  So you get stuff like percentage of revenue fees or periodic fees way out of touch with reality.  Or worse, you get usage restrictions (thouh shalt only run on our hosting, thou shalt be family friendly, etc.). 

Don't get me wrong, I'm not against anybody making a profit.  Quite the opposite in fact.  I just want to see the profit motive work for me.  I want to see a system that allows for multiple independent content and hosting providers.  This lets everybody focus on their core competency and are motivated to do their best work instead of working to lock people in.

The game client and server are more infrastructure products.  These are ripe for an Open Source effort akin to the Apache web server.  Maybe the independent suppliers can collaborate on or subsidize its development.

Looking at Multiverse, I think the root of the problem is not the pricing, but the barrier to entry. Multiverse is not positioned towards the masses. Quoting from their website, it requires "a basic knowledge of Python, Java and XML", and while I won't say their website is riddled with jargon, there's enough technical terms in there to give the impression that it's oriented towards technical people rather than the masses.

The trouble with that approach is economies of scale - if you fish in a smaller pond, you catch less fish, so you hope you can catch bigger fish. From what I'm reading though, they only asked for a 10% cut. In comparison, Steam takes a 30% cut, and I think iTunes also takes 30%, so it might be that the small margins coupled with small client base that did Multiverse in.

The thing about NWN and a hypothetical NWN successor though, NWN PWs are similar to MMOs, but they are not MMOs. The average PW would have maybe 30 concurrent players, while the top PWs have maybe 80. The average MMO would see concurrent players number in the thousands.

So as far as needs of a Module/PW maker vs an indie MMO maker go, there are some major differences between the two. PW solutions are smaller scale and don't need to give the builder quite as much power, but need to be more user-friendly and more polished and visually appealing out of the box.

That's why I think a walled garden approach has advantages over open source for PW devs. It allows the publisher to control some of the more technical aspects of PWs. If hosting was done on the publisher's side, server setup can be integrated into the UI as a few simple buttons. The builder would not have to worry about port forwarding, finding their IP address, wondering why their server doesn't show up on the server list etc.

It goes both ways though - if the publisher wants to host on their side and expect users to pay, this is the minimum level of service I would expect, otherwise I agree open source/open hosting would be better.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_Bannor Bloodfist]

               In my humble opinion, no NWN MMO style game will ever be created.

"Why?" you ask? The answer is WoW. Indies like Bioware was originally, will not/can not get financial backing unless they can PROVE that they will make as much money as was/is being made by WoW.

You can NOT give the community the power to create their own things without being liable for all of the IP copyright issues that absolutely WILL occur. Here in NWN land, there is a huge amount of copyrighted materials, creatures. weapons etc that have been directly stolen from other games. In a MMO style environment, the lawsuits would be flying left and right.... here in a "dead" game that is no longer supported, the only folks that could get sued would be the folks that directly copied the materials, and lawyers won't bother since they know it would cost more in legal/court fees than could ever be confiscated from Billy Joe Bob, 17 year old that broke the law. They can't sue Bioware since Bioware no longer provides support, same with suing Atari, can't do that since they are also disconnected from the game.

So, since idies can't get financial backing without having that proof that there will be hundreds of millions in profits, well, the games can't get created. It all boils down to completely unfounded greed. Bio had a chance to continue with NWN dev work, but Atari and WotC said no. End of story. No one can step up to the plate and offer competition since WotC want's way too much money to make the possible sales work and still have enough to pay the employees of any potential company, much less the so-called financial backers.

The stock market demands that your IPO will make millions in profits, way above and beyond a safe margin. It used to be that the word "profit" meant that all your bills were paid, all your employees were paid, and you had "extra" money left over. Might only be 1-5% but it was a "profit" and was accepted as such. Now, well, now that word "profit" means a return on investment of well over 500%. invest $10, incur an additional $10 in expenses, so a total of $20 of real world expense, and the banks want your return to be $100, not $25.

The world can not work that way. We have proved that beyond a shadow of a doubt here in USA and all across Europe. The world can NOT live on credit when the interest rates are 28%. You can never pay that debt down.

Ahh well, back to working on stuff for a "dead" game, that might get used by a few hundred folks, and do it out of love of the game and the opportunity to be able to create. I don't need 100 million folks to pat me on the back, or to pay $1 each for the privs of using what I may or may not create. It would be nice of course, but in the real world, it is just not going to happen. There are no more premium module teams for NWN that I can help as I did with Wyvern Crown, since all development was stopped by infrogrames(atari) and WotC. Thank you WotC for your thick-headedness and infrogrames for your financial stupidity.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par Bannor Bloodfist, 22 septembre 2012 - 09:48 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_kamal_]

               Well, there was the open source reimplementation of NWN1, and the project person had already done work like getting maps to load and some other functionality.
               
               

               
            

[Legacy_PlasmaJohn]

               

Bannor Bloodfist wrote...

...

You can NOT give the community the power to create their own things without being liable for all of the IP copyright issues that absolutely WILL occur. Here in NWN land, there is a huge amount of copyrighted materials, creatures. weapons etc that have been directly stolen from other games. In a MMO style environment, the lawsuits would be flying left and right.... here in a "dead" game that is no longer supported, the only folks that could get sued would be the folks that directly copied the materials, and lawyers won't bother since they know it would cost more in legal/court fees than could ever be confiscated from Billy Joe Bob, 17 year old that broke the law. They can't sue Bioware since Bioware no longer provides support, same with suing Atari, can't do that since they are also disconnected from the game.

...

I think you're conflating a couple things here.  (ObIANAL)

Even if NWN were still supported and wildly profitable today, just becase Billy Joe Bob created a Sonic the Hedgehog server doesn't mean Sega (IIRC) could reasonably expect to win a lawsuit against Bioware for the same reasons that it would be futile to sue the Apache Foundation over a Sonic fansite because they use the Apache webserver.  Like the webserver software, the NWN server is just a tool and the entity liable for infringement is Billy Joe Bob and not Bioware.

Now Sega could go to BJB's ISP and slap them with a DMCA notice if BJB lived and/or hosted in the USA.  I think outside of the US it takes an actual lawsuit and injunction to accomplish the same, but worry not, WIPO is busily crafting DMCA-like legislation for everyone!  Regardless, still not Bioware.

The only situation where Bioware would be directly liable is if they were using somebody else's work without permission (that's infringement, btw, not theft).  In fact this happened: http://www.gamefront.com/fans-upset-over-stock-photo-in-mass-effect-3-pic/

Not sure how many MMO's allow player provided content.  I know that Second Life does and I'm sure they have policies that deal with infringment.  I expect it to be at least a violation of their Terms of Service making one subject to account termination and deletion.  Not really a product killing drama.

Sure, there's a bit of a chicken-and-egg problem here.  Frankly I'm rather amazed that NWN pretty much stands alone.  Partly because of that, the people with money see the concept as either very risky or one that leaves money on the table (lack of lock-in, lack of mandatory fees, lack of selling user data, etc.).

I don't buy into the common wisdom that it requires millions of dollars to develop a game.  I think what fuels this perception is the need for the latest eye-candy and AAA/AAAA level art.  Sure, they make a game pretty but they do nothing to make them fun.  "Pretty" is an investor feature because it drives short-term sales.  "Fun" is a gamer feature that can drive long-term sales if nurtured correctly. 

IMO the Games industry has forgotten that they're about "fun".  Sooner or later somebody will figure this out.
               
               

               

                     Modifié par PlasmaJohn, 24 septembre 2012 - 09:27 .
                     
                  

            

[Legacy_WebShaman]

               

PJ said :

IMO the Games industry has forgotten that they're about "fun".  Sooner or later somebody will figure this out.

I would add "again" at the end of this, as NWN and I would also add in Tactics Ogre : LUCT to that list as well definitely are good examples of the fun part.