Slashdot Mirror

Offcial announcements:

http://www.sonyonline.com/corp/press_releases/0617 05_warnerbros.html
http://www.timewarner.com/corp/newsroom/pr/0,20812 ,1073757,00.html
http://biz.yahoo.com/ap/050617/sony_time_warner.ht ml?.v=1

Interestingly, the DC Comics MMO is scheduled for Q4 2007.

Bruce

Ok here are some numbers i had pulled up a week or so ago. But are semi-relevant here. Numbers are comparisons of PC MMPORG numbers and PS2 online subscribers. as well as the actual amount of hardware for online use they have sold. Sony online registered member numbers, check bottom paragraph gives you Everquest PC numbers PLUS the numbers for Everquest Online adventures (the PS2 game) A chart shoing subscriber numbers of several MMORPG's Everquest Online Adventures being the PS2 one at the bottom Chart And here is another SOE press release staing only 500k hardware adapters were sold in the US, and im pretty sure all of themaint gettin used. SOE press release either way this supports the fact that there isnt a cash cow in console online games. MMORPGS would generally have a higher active subscriber base then other online games due to their nature. PS2 is the highest proliferated console system in the US atm. And just using SOE's numbers (which might even be inflated) doesnt really give a rosy picture. granted FFXI for PS2 skews the numbers a good buit, but i think thats due to the different approach they have taken towards subscription and how they implemented the game.

Ok here are some numbers i had pulled up a week or so ago. But are semi-relevant here. Numbers are comparisons of PC MMPORG numbers and PS2 online subscribers. as well as the actual amount of hardware for online use they have sold. Sony online registered member numbers, check bottom paragraph gives you Everquest PC numbers PLUS the numbers for Everquest Online adventures (the PS2 game) A chart shoing subscriber numbers of several MMORPG's Everquest Online Adventures being the PS2 one at the bottom Chart And here is another SOE press release staing only 500k hardware adapters were sold in the US, and im pretty sure all of themaint gettin used. SOE press release either way this supports the fact that there isnt a cash cow in console online games. MMORPGS would generally have a higher active subscriber base then other online games due to their nature. PS2 is the highest proliferated console system in the US atm. And just using SOE's numbers (which might even be inflated) doesnt really give a rosy picture. granted FFXI for PS2 skews the numbers a good buit, but i think thats due to the different approach they have taken towards subscription and how they implemented the game.

In case you missed it, there's another article on the site (http://www.sonyonline.com/corp/press_releases/EQ2 _incentives_051303.html) that shows Sony is trying to provide additional incentives to those who play both EQ1 and EQ2. The most relevant paragraph follows:

"SAN DIEGO, CA - May 12, 2003 - Sony Online Entertainment Inc. (SOE), a worldwide leader in massively multiplayer online gaming, announced today that it is adding incentives to EverQuest® II, the parallel online universe to the hugely successful gaming phenomenon EverQuest®, to reward current EverQuest players for the time they have invested enjoying the original title. The incentives will include exclusive crossover quest zones in each game that will be accessible only by subscribers of both games, allowing characters in EverQuest and EverQuest II to gain access to hidden treasures, an EverQuest II in-game reward for loyal fans, and additional features to be disclosed over the coming months for ongoing EverQuest and EverQuest II players"

Last game I played that had crossover zones to encourage people to play both was probably Might and Magic IV/V...

It's time for another interview here on Curmudgeon and this time we have with us Brian Hook, president of Pyrogon Games and former developer at id Software and Verant/Sony Online Entertainment. Before working on the seminal shooters Quake 2 and Quake 3: Arena, Brian was the original architect of the Glide API used by the 3dfx Voodoo line of video cards. After departing id, Brian worked as a Senior Technology Architect at Verant, concentrating on development of technology for next-generation massively-multiplayer online games (MMOGs). After founding Pyrogon in 2000, he created the puzzle game Candy Cruncher, which we reviewed earlier this year. Two additional Pyrogon games have appeared since then, NingPo MahJong and Letter Linker, both available for Windows and MacOS X. (A Linux version of NingPo MahJong will be shipping in the near future.)

This interview covers a wide range of topics: game design criticism, OpenGL/D3D, making money as a smaller game developer, and the importance of porting software to different platforms. Indeed, something for just about everyone. It's quite long, so you might want to bookmark it and consume it in more than one reading.

The interview questions were prepared with the assistance of regular CG authors ruffin and michael.

jvm: What kinds of games do you enjoy playing the most?

Hook: That's a tough question. I guess in some ways I just have very high expectations about software these days, so most games pretty much turn me off within the first 5 minutes when I spot egregious design flaws.

That said, the games I've played and enjoyed the most recently have been No One Lives Forever 2, which I felt had some of the best production value I've ever seen in a game, and Ghost Recon, which is a hoot in multiplayer.

jvm: So you play mostly on a PC, as opposed to a console?

Hook: I should really get some consoles and play console games, but it's hard to justify the time.

jvm: Could we get an example of a game with these egregious design flaws, complete with a breakdown of those flaws? The more popular the game, the better.

Hook: That's dangerous ground =)

But a typical example I have is what I call "simulations that think they're games". To me, a game should be fun and exciting, which means that I should be making interesting decisions that lead to success based on the data I have at that time. Too many games today STILL punish you by just killing you because that's "realistic".

Hitman 2 is a good example of this. Starting with the very first mission, you can pretty much expect to go through and play that mission 20 times before you complete it, because there are timed events that you don't know about a priori. Which is a shame, because the actual mechanics in Hitman 2 were extremely fun. It was probably the one game in recent memory that I really wanted to like but which ended up being so frustrating and tedious that I couldn't enjoy it. Obviously it's a popular game, so I'm in the minority on this.

I think the games that really got a lot of this down were the 1980s LucasArts adventure games like Lo