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Sony's MMORPG "Sovereign" Dead
Gudlyf writes "Although the main site for this massive-multiplayer game by Sony (once known as Verant) was updated at some point late last year, it seems that according to CNN Money, it's gone quietly dead after 4.5 years in development (reminds me of why I posted my vote in a previous story on vaporware): "Work on 'Sovereign,' a massively multiplayer real time strategy game, has been terminated after more than four-and-a-half years of development. Ambitious in nature, the game had hoped to replicate a continuous global war that supported up to 500 players. Diplomacy would have played as significant a role as the player's tactical abilities. 'We came to a decision that it was not going to be what we wanted it to be,' said McDaniel. 'It never really had the magic.'""
Prototype early. If the fun isn't there in the prototype, you're just playing for "luck" to make it a success.
Belief is the currency of delusion.
The more realistic you make a war game, the less fun it is.
Though not a RTS, Planetside offers commanders the same type of control over their troops.
Planetside.info
This game sounds too much like the classic board game "Diplomacy". I am not surprised that they couldn't capture the magic of Diplomacy in a MMORPG. The whole point of the game Diplomacy is to be a complete bastard to your friends, and win through underhanded tactics, deceipt, treachery and eavesdropping. It's not the sort of game that I would care to play with a bunch of strangers, I don't really see the point in it.
Unfortunately, failures are part of the creative process - not everyone or everything can succeed.
c rap" hanging round its neck for the next five years. Which is more than can be said for some game developers...
For every Van Gogh there are a million artists (with and without both ears) who are never recognised for their talents. Sometimes it's because they don't have any luck, sometimes it's because they just plain suck.
Sony realised that Sovereign wasn't going to set the world on fire. Rather than waste more money launching what they considered would be a flop they canned the project. Sure, money has been wasted, but not as much as could have been. More importantly, Sony's games division doesn't have a "it-took-you-five-years-to-develop-that-piece-of-
Sony should be applauded for its decision. Sure, we want games but we want good games, not ones that even the developers aren't happy putting on their CV.
BTW, if you're after cheap games, then there's a simple solution: don't buy them when they're launched, just wait six months or so. All titles, especially on the PC platform, are discounted a few months down the line.
"Accept that some days you are the pigeon, and some days you are the statue." - David Brent, Wernham Hogg
When Theodore developed Sturgeon's Law it wasn't that 90% of all writers are crap that he had in mind. It was that 90% of *everything written* was crap. What he was driving at was that 90% of everything written by a *great* writer was crap, but one of the main differences between a great writer and a hack was that the great writer didn't *publish* the crap.
.until the artist shows him the trunk full of hundreds of the previous inferior renditions the great artist disposed of before hitting the masterpiece.
Thoreau's Journal is one of the most interesting works in literary history because it gives us an inside view into some of this. His journals are full of bits of Walden and other works while still under development. Of course, Old H.D. was a great writer, so even his journal was heavily edited and polished before publication.
This applies to Van Gough as well. We don't see his crap because he himself made sure we didn't.
There's also a story about a king who commissions a drawing of a rooster and when presented with the final bill balks. .
The king was paying for the *total* labor required, not just the final product.
So Sony is merely doing what any wise artist, writer or businessman would do. When the first draft goes bad, and then the second and third, on the trash heap it goes.
Crap is as crap does. Admit it before it drags you down to hack status, and at a loss.
That's the true application of Sturgeon's Law for those with any real talent to peddle.
KFG
They just might have some killer story that would make a multimillions dollar release. And with awesome content, they might just hold off on release for a couple years till they have a engine worth to release to the public.
I saw the video of the game, the content looked good, the play looked worthwhile. But who knows, the programmers could be working on other projects till they see an engine worthy of Duke Nukem.
It worked for George Lucas.
"In most current persistent world games you don't regress if you haven't been logged on in a while."
This is completely wrong.
Most MM games are constantly evolving. It you don't play regular you do indeed fall behind. Far behind.
The expansion packs for EQ add lots of new goodies and strata to the game. In level based games the maker can increase the maximum possible levels attainable, or create new abilities and rewards that can only be gained by actively playing.
An example; If you had stopped playing DAOC five months after release, logging in today you would find yourself completely outclassed. No "epic" armor, no "Realm Abilities," no "spellcrafted" gear, you would have your original gimp spec that has almost certainly been changed dramatically, etc. A player that hasn't logged in since April or May 2002 is so far behind that any attempt to play as-is would be hopeless.
It's part of the formula. You either put hundreds of hours in or find something better to do with your time.
Maw! Fire up the karma burner!
open source it?
(this isn't flamebait)
-neil
I think that should be changed to any *rich* artist, writer, etc.. The only reason why this game didn't get released is because Sony is a big company with a lot of money. If this was some smaller game development company, and they spent over 4 years of their time making a game, and scrapped it, they will probably go out of buisness. If it was a smaller company making this game, my guess is that the game would have released and would have probably not done that well. That happens a lot more then a company just giving up after 4+ years..
It was wise for them to do this though, I believe that the market for games that require a monthly charge (which im guessing this game would have done, i couldn't find anything mentioning that) is a pretty hard one to break into, you are going to need something thats gonna hook a lot of people for many many months to make money on somethin like that. I just hope they do something with all the work they did...
I have a feeling that there's only a certain population out there willing to play MMORPG's. The more that come out, the more you'll find with hardly enough players to support an interesting world. No point in playing a MMORPG when it's just you and a wombat ::)
-- taking over the world, we are.