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GDC: 10 Reasons NOT to Make MMOGs
Warrior-GS writes "Gordon Walton, who helped create such games as Ultima Online and the Sims Online, is at the Game Developers Conference giving a seminar on "Ten Reasons You Don't Want to Run a Massively Multiplayer Online Game". GameSpy has been providing coverage of GDC, with several game previews and several conference reports. They also have a hands-on report of the Nokia N-Gage from four of their editors, and a somewhat unorthodox report of the Game Developer Choice Awards, where Metroid Prime was named Game of the Year. The convention continues through Saturday."
They suck once you realize it's just an IRC chatroom with graphics that you're paying $40 a month for.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
i thin kit'swonderful that someone inside the industry is talking about the limitations and pitfalls. it gives their conclusions more credibility, while the anti-everQuest folks often sound like whiners.
But I need to get back to the game, sorry.
Slashdot's February 2002 story about the technical challenges in starting a MMORPG.
Internet attracts
nitpickers with no money;
driving you to drink.
Karma: pi (Mostly due to circular reasoning in posts).
Before naysayers come out through the woodwork, know that serious gamers that have played through have absolutely loved the game. Me, being a hardcore Metroid player on the NES loved all aspects of the game, and loved how they stayed true to the franchise (including the music) in all aspects, except one very minor one.
And, yes, Metroid Prime alone is worth buying a 'cube for (hey, super mario melee makes for an excellent side game, too).
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
Somehow I don't see Sony halting development of Everquest 2. They seem to have overcome all, if not most of those barriers and have created a pretty flexible, dynamic, enjoyable game.
"Ask not what your country can do for you." --John F. Kennedy
"Please don't make them, because we don't want any more competition."
Oh, you're not stuck, you're just unable to let go of the onion rings.
--
P. Users - can't live with them, not allowed to shoot them!"
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
10: Too Many are Being Built
9: It Requires a Mastery of Too Many Disciplines
8: A Huge Team is Required
7: Getting a Credit Card from a Customer is Hard
6: The Online Industry is Counter-Intuitive to Packaged-Goods Company Management
5: Everything You Know about Single-Player Games is Wrong
4: The Internet Sucks as a Commercial Delivery Platform
3: Customer Service is Hard
2: There are Lots of Legal Issues
1: They Cost Too Much money to Build and Launch!
0: WHA WHA WHA!
Nick Powers
Encryption: I may not agree with what you say, but I will defend your right to encrypt it...
It would be nicer to have just one focused, properly framed, and complimentary photo of the guy...
Wah!
Why should MMPORPGs be restricted? These things are perfect for dropping GPAs, especially for freshmen at high-pressure universities like Cal Tech and MIT where numerous freshmen who've never had an internet connection finallu get a chance to play "Quake" or "Everquest" at 1+GBPs or something ridiculous. I remember one of my friends at Vanderbilt got slapped with academic probation and complained that he had no time to get his work done in Engineering. Six-Eight hours a day of Counterstrike and Ultima Online will put a crimp in the ol' calendar. And it becomes like an electronic crack or alcohol for the users, especially if they're anti-social or unpopular to begin with. Trying to tell them they have a problem only leads to fights and arguments. Oh well, regulating these things is almost out of the question entirely but there should be careful consideration of how to deal with the "addicts" and how to best manage these systems.
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
7: Getting a Credit Card from a Customer is Hard
Never mind, for example, the chunk of the gaming audience that's lost entirely because they don't have access to a credit card. People who have a credit card are wary to give it up. Right now, Walton theorizes, the model works in the United States because it's based off of a packaged goods model - people have already invested $40-50 to buy the box and take it home, so they're more willing to justify that expense by subscribing. "We need other ways to bill people that's more convenient," he explained. (For example, rolling up your MMOG fees into a phone bill, something that's done in places like Korea.)
Oh bullshit. #1, it's not hard to get someone's credit card, they consider that "rolled in". #2, I don't want ANYTHING except my phone charges (services included such as LD and CallerID) in my phone bill. I want a seperate bill for everything. I want to know exactly who to contact for my billing bitches. EVERYONE fucks up billing.
Credit cards are GREAT for fucked up billing. I was getting charged twice a month for something, I told the Credit Card company to deal w/it. It's their responsibility not mine.
these multiplayer games are cropping up all over the place b/c companies realize that people today are fucking stupid and addicts. They see the incredible success of games such as Sims and EQ and they want to cash in.
Dealing w/customers is fucking outsourced to stupid companies like Convergys who have shitty employees w/little or no training (yeah I worked there while attending school).
-1 Troll on this guy's article.
If you are only going to make a half-assed attempt then you may as well not bother.
.. if they do then we're probably all doomed
Surely the brightest minds in game development dont need someone standing up there telling them that massive online multiplayer games aren't as easy as single player ones?!
I have an abyssmal credit, DAMMIT! I don't have credit card, you insensitive clod!
It's ASDFing to the Ultra!!!!!
Secondly, and more seriously, he brings up valid points. I just started playing Asheron's Call 2 last month as part of a psychology experiment run by the University of Michigan. I found that the lower level game was very intense and packed with content, but as I gained levels over the course of a month, the content tapered off and turned into merely hack-and-slash. This makes sense, because the game is only a few months old and should thus have more content for low levels than high.
Unfortunately, high levels are relatively easy to attain. I played for 1 month, a few hours a night, and I'm currently at level 32, right where the content stops. But there are people who were level 50 only 3 weeks after the game was launched. What do they do now? They sit around, or create alternate characters until the 50 level cap is released.
"You make too much money and have to hire more accountants. Trust me- you don't want to have problems like that"
I don't see most of the points valid since many of such games ARE successful.
As of being hard to impelement, or lots being around, that's where challenge comes, and the best only survives.
As of requiring you to pay, if someone wants to play the game they will find someway to "pay", and there are some of these games that are free online (at least for now!).
Putting secrets in the game might not be very useful, but that applies for both single and multiplayer games, if someone wants to find it, they will, and the fact that the game is played ONLINE does not have anything to do with its SECRETS being posted online, these are two irrelated things.
We need to be real people, if it wasn't successufl, more companies wouldn't have went for it.
Khalid
"What you 'seek' is what you get!"
This prolly has to do with the fact that GDC 2003 is focused on Handheld/Cellphone games this year, and at $40/mo + bandwidth costs, it's kinda suicidal to push that on the consumer and expect the game to be successful.
You hear that sound? Every massively multiplayer game maker is suddenly trying to switch business plans to moderately-multiplayer, cloning Battlefield 1942. BF1942 is hugely popular, so it "makes sense" to do something like that.
Of course, like lemmings, there'll be a few dozen BF1942 clones, and most will die due to too much competition.
Game makers: go AWAY from what's suddenly popular.
I particularly like the realization that Customer Service is the key to maintaining a well-run MMOG. If you want a steady stream of cash coming in, it only makes sense that it takes a steady stream of cash to support your customers - but all too often, customer service is viewed as a grudging neccesity, not a potential for competitive advantage.
Stop by my site where I write about ERP systems & more
Doing customer and tech support for 50,000 adolescents who have free reign of their parents' credit cards.
SCO to Hell
This, I think, falls under that rarely used "constructive" branch of criticism.
All I ever wanted was an honest week's pay for an honest day's work.
This is the Visual world that is evolving. Hey, can't say it is there yes, but AO is as addictive as almost any other game, especially since it does allow that level of interaction. The issue is that people often forget that it is a game, and just that. Bitch and Moan, but they are here to stay, and there is too much $ in it to turn back. God help the movie industry when one is created using the Doom 3 engine. Looking forward to Eve.
Jason Key
Stem Cell Research Geek
http://www.stemnews.com
Today's Stem Cell Research
His points are quite interesting, but the question I have is that if no one gets into the arena (and obviously 100 is a lot) then who will supply the demand? He has obviously figured out what challenges there are, but you have to be able to overcome them, because there is such a huge demand for interactive group fantasy. People want to escape.
What about a decentralized approach. A grid based or peer to peer for persistant worlds. You might have to increase the bandwith to double check nodes and the like to prevent hacking, but some of the problems (DOS, investment in infrastructure) would go away.
In the world we live in we can only see clearly and understand the world that is near by, that doesn't mean we have to be connected to a server that is one giant persistant world. There could be areas of the world hosted on several region peers. The client would be required to take on some function of the world and it could be totally decentralized.
Any thoughts comments?
D.O.U.O.S.V.A.V.V.M.
...was that MMOG are A LOT harder to create and run than your standard game (console and PC included).
Just like with FPS and RTS games there is this rush with the success of UO and EQ to make these MMOG persistent games by small companies. These games will more than likely fail due to the lack of resources. This is deluting the MMOG genre because everyone is promissing to be the next "EQ Killer" and failing to deliver in one way or another.
So if you have a company and are thinking about making some persistent world, stop and make damn sure you plan a lot of resource and time into it...then double it. If word of mouth can kill a stand alone game it will uttery destroy an online one.
Massively Multiplayer Online ChatRoom ;)
Seriously, these games need to be made so they have a real point, and so that people will not get so attached to them. I'm sick of seeing my friends drop out of classes because they'd rather wait two hours for an imaginary dragon to spawn so they can cast the same spell over and over again and after another half hour they die and sit around waiting for someone to resurrect them.
I have a friend who's 65th level on EQ. (Currently the highest possible so he says proudly). He's also a year behind in his studies, and has had bouts of depression and alchololism (due to his lack of social life) for the past three years.
Pardon the sudden rant, but why can't there be an actuall MMOG that people can spend, oh, 1-3 hours on a week instead of 10-30 hours a week and still have fun.
"I only speak the truth"
Karma: null(Mostly affected by an unassigned variable)
10. We need the money from our existing product without having to worry about competitors 9. Only three-four companies can afford the costs of having to import programmers 8. Script-kiddies figure out how to cheat so fast that the game stops being fun 7. Paying customers can sue you if someone phishes out their credit card number (did we find out the hard way?) 6. There are only so many people with the skills to handle this kind of work, with only 100 not getting their check from Bill Gates 5. We need to recoup our losses from the last IPO before we can let more people into this field 4. Such games "might promote deviant behavior" which the parents of the players could sue us for if their kid does something crazy and blames on our influence 3. Our non-engineer company chairman is still addicted to the game and is holding up our decision-making process 2. Hackers will gravitate towards any popular online gaming sites and may end up raiding your accounts due to inadequate security 1. We haven't been bought out by Microsoft yet!
As long as there is a Second Amendment, there will always be a First Amendment.
That's reason enough. I bet he had hair before he started.
Except where void, or prohibited by law. Can cause dizziness or shortness of breath. May not be legal in all states. Your mileage may vary.
Paul "Say no to feeping creaturism"
Sony has LONG since tackled the issue of harrasing customer phone calls with their customer service program, "Operation: Go Fuck Yourself". Sony believed that if you truly just stopped giving a shit, eventually your customers would pick up on this and quit asking for help. It's a beautiful, horrifying behemoth of a program that paid off big time in their favor. Grats to them.
Finally, math books without any of that base 6 crap in them.
the fact that MMORPG's don't let you run your own server, edit and create your own levels & mods, and run customer service on a fee basis? (ie EQ wanting you to pay $ to change your character's name.)
You are right, if the average gamer being talked about is a /. geek.
But I'd have to agree with Walton on this one, the average user is still scared crapless about giving up a credit card. It's not that their paranoia is based in reality, but rather their perception thereof.
As well, as he mentioned in the article, this is a much more prevalent problem outside of north america.
Bottom line is he has the experiance to know whether this is really a problem or not, you can speculate all you like but I don't really think he's lying about this, what would the point be?
No Comment.
One of the main points, one which he put much stress on (and I'm glad to see this) is Customer Support. Problems happen; and if the game is to survive and prosper, good support is essential. I've been playing EverQuest for some time, and the support there (which has improved) is still, in my opinion, subpar and problems are often very hard to get some answers/help for. Especially when you have technical issues.
The old joke was this; "Verant changed the mean of CS; it now means 'Customers Suck'."
"Yours won't be any more fun than anyone else's!"
He mentions in the article how 'old business models' aren't suitable for online games; reffering to the pre-packaged product.
Surely the answer then is to develop a new business model adapted to the new market?
Is this too blindingly obvious? (I would think he mentions this in the seminar although its not in the article)
"And don't call me Shirley!"
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
The world is too static. I can imagine a space game like this one that allows people to travel all over the place, trying to find new things. Granted, it's impossible to allow an infinite amount of places to explore and stuff, but they simply have to start rotating servers, starting the exploration from zero again every once in a while...not let the game get stagnant as it seems to be now.
This follows exactly from what this guy says. To make a game world that's as dynamic and as exciting as I would want would require a huge amount of support, something a lot of people would like to see, but not something that a lot of people would like to pay for.
I guess that those ten reasons to not make an MMOG are simply those, but the more people that waste their time and money trying to make it better, eventually will bring along, not to use a silly pop-culture reference, 'the one' that brings it all together. Then we'll be rocking as everyone else will have to copy that one to make success for themselves.
well, here's hoping that afer the earth and beyond team moves they can start to juice up the sci-fi world they have created in such a way that they really impress people. I've got my fingers crossed.
that the guys at http://www.atitd.com decided to make their game.
1. Develop MMOG
2. Share market with 100s
3. ???
4. No Profit!
--
we come in peace / shoot to kill
we come in peace / shoot to kill
Well, all those points are true.
It is like the list of 10 Reasons not to Develop a Newsreader, or How To Optimise: "Don't do it".
This list doesn't mean that one shouldn't do it. But probably you shouldn't do it. At least in the majority of the cases.
All those important issues are probably most often ignored or underestimated.
It is a good advice at his fellow developers to keep this list in mind, before they start on their (probable) odyssee.
And my opinion in point ten, he makes already clear that such a reminder is necessary.
"Between strong and weak, between rich and poor [...], it is freedom which oppresses and the law which sets free"
The author sees problems that need to be micromanaged. In my experience with projects like this, you need organic growth, not sudden, rapid growth like the Sims Online got. Many users are willing to create content for you, if you waive their monthly fee. This could represent a small portion of your userbase, and the content creators become more valuable than their waived fee. In regards to customer service, many of the most sucessful online games have a group of players who are in a "mentor" role. They answer questions, help out newbies, etc. Some do it out of good will, others do it for special privilages they get in the game. These two simple steps can drastically reduce the complexity of an online game.
A good example of this is Asheron's Call 2 vs. the original Asheron's Call. AC2 is a beautiful game that you can run through and just appreciate, while AC1's graphics are merely functional. AC2 has brand spanking new crafting and town building systems, while AC1 has the same old ones. AC2 offers individualized dungeons so groups can go hunting and questing without running into packed "camped" dungeons, and AC1 does not.
Which game has more subscribers and active players? AC1, by a wide margin, despite never having received anything in the way of advertising from Microsoft (as opposed to AC2 which was widely and aggressively marketed). AC1 simply has more content -- more stuff to do. It may not be eye candy like AC2, but the eye candy effect wears off after a week or two anyway. To catch up to AC1's three years of monthly (free) expansions, AC2 would have to -- well, be out three years. Or hire a MUCH larger content team (the AC2 content team is basically the old AC1 content team).
EQ2 will face the same problem compared to EQ1. People are going to buy EQ2, go "ooh, ahh", log in, appreciate New Freeport's amenities, walk outside and fight a couple of rats, and go back to their level 65 guys in EQ. Why would they want to level up on rats again in a game with 1/10 the content of EQ?
Games without the brand recognition of AC and EQ have it even worse off. Dark Age of Camelot somewhat sidestepped this phenomenon because they were the first "next generation" MMORPG out of the gate (Anarchy Online was too buggy at release, so doesn't count ;)), and got the disgruntled AC/EQ/UO players. The newer games, such as Shadowbane, have a LOT to live up to. Current MMORPG players will compare everything to their current game, and if the new game doesn't REALLY shine, they have no reason to leave. They have too much time invested in their characters. And The Sims Online's tepid sales show that the market isn't ready to expand much yet -- you're dealing with the same bundle of players that you have to lure away from their current addiction.
Maybe they should worry a little more about securing their online payment systems!
Ohhhhh, wait...
He's talking about getting their customers to provide credit card info for billing.
See above, it still applies.
the preceding comment is my own and in no way reflects the opinion of the Joint Chiefs of Staff
When I read the article, the first I thinked that this guy should not have been running a BBS in the old days. Most of this points could be correlated to an (hypotetical? there was ever one published?) list of 10 reasons you don't want to run a commercial BBS (specially if you programmed it, as myself). Of course, this list is more actual and have problems that are not fully related to the BBS ones, but anyway, gived me some sort of deja-vu.
From the article:
...and a somewhat unorthodox report of the Game Developer Choice Awards, where Metroid Prime was named Game of the Year.
:-P
Off topic my rear
Good quote, too many chars. Seriously, the slashdot 120 char limit sucks!
People like me refuse to pay to play. We already bought your damn software now just let me play the damn game. Yeah I know the monthly fees go towards the servers and stuff but I personly refuse to pay to play software i already payed for! and for the record I dont play any MMPORPG's
This seminar may have been more useful as "things to keep in mind when starting a mmog". Why would you discourage people from designing something?
IMHO, It sounds like he just wants less competition.
Side note: Whats with the horrible selection of pictures that come with this article? It's a seminar, shouldnt they just have one picture of him speaking? Maybe some screenshots? Instead they have four pictures of him speaking, not even at different angles. Ones blurry too.
Well shit, if you have abysmal credit and don't have a card, they're probably doing you a favor by not letting you fritter away your cash on useless stuff like games.
Go buy some cigarettes and Mad Dog 20/20 instead, and solve the problem of you for us.
Yes and no. I tbink the guy makes a compelling argument that a small shop can do a good job on a tightly written, possibly smallish, well-executed game. That won't work here. The point is that 1), marketing MMORPG's is quite different than marketing other shrink-wrap games, and 2) You can't make a small MMORPG at all (obviously).
Surely the brightest minds in game development dont need someone standing up there telling them that massive online multiplayer games aren't as easy as single player ones?!
No, but the dumbest game company exec in charge of development sure as hell does. Like he says, even the best MMORPG's have gotten a lot of core issues wrong at the start. Most of them suck at the beginning and only get better after constant tweaking, hopefully with consideration of player input. I think that says that game companies don't know how to make a MMORPG by ship date. The best ones are from the companies that are responsive enough to make the game better, and to care enough to fix it, after the ship date.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
MIT dorms share a 100Mb/s connection to the outside world. On the otherhand, you generally have really low pings from them.
It's interesting that he mentions shorter gameplay - one of the online games I've enjoyed the most is (Although not an online RPG) Magic: The Gathering online. I really like it because I can sit down, log on, play a game, and log back out - all in the space of 10 minutes. There's no "I need to go get something to drink, let me wait for a 30 second logout animation, a 20 second 'connecting to character server' screen, and then another 20 second login animation when I get back," and there's no "I want to play, but it's going to take me 10 minutes to get my character ready to play, and another 5 minutes to run to the place I want to hunt (or another 10 minutes to try to find a ride there) and then there's really no point if I don't play for at least 20 minutes."
-=Best Viewed Using [INLINE]=-
Of all the GDC awards, the one that I was most pleased with was the lifetime achievement award given to Gunpei Yokoi. The NES and (to a lesser extent) SNES game library were equal parts Miyamoto and Yokoi. Metroid, Donkey Kong, Kid Icarus ... The Game & Watch series, the NES and SNES design, all contributed to (if not outright created) by Yokoi.
Not to mention the whole Gameboy thing... Who'd have thought that ugly Gameboy would pave the way for its successors' complete market dominance.
It's good to see the man honored. It was a tragedy that we lost him so young.
--Jeremy
Jesus was a liberal
2. Get capital
3. Create, huge, killer, dynamic world
4. Incorporate amazing gameplay
5.???
6. Profit!!!
You are not the customer.
10: Too Many are Being Built
But there are very, very few good ones.
9: It Requires a Mastery of Too Many Disciplines
Oooh, I thought that was half the fun. It's like saying "the tech tree is just too darned big!" in MoO3
8: A Huge Team is Required
But somebody is obviously making money off of it, so what's the problem again?
7: Getting a Credit Card from a Customer is Hard
Huh? Not from somebody who actually wants to play the game. Maybe you're talking about the whiny 15 year olds I hear on the XBox forums all the time.
6: The Online Industry is Counter-Intuitive to Packaged-Goods Company Management
So you look towards other examples of services that have succeeded with "24-hour operations, 365 days a year, with continuous customer support, etc, etc". Is this really a reason not to make an MMOMMOMMORPG? Sony obviously disagrees.
5: Everything You Know about Single-Player Games is Wrong
Um, not really. Plot? Interaction? The mastery of many disciplines????? Sure, there are radical difference in some areas, but a reason not to make a MMORPG? Pretty weak.
4: The Internet Sucks as a Commercial Delivery Platform
Dot bust, blahblahblah. Once again, where you complain, others have succeeded.
3: Customer Service is Hard
I'm sorry, but this man's "points" sound increasingly like whining. Customer service is a fact of life. Yes it's online. No, it's not crippling. DEAL WITH IT.
2: There are Lots of Legal Issues
Like ANY industry. He refers to Ultima misfortune. Last I heard, ultima was a good example of how not to handle an MMORPG. It was especially bad in it's opening years if I remember right. Customers were revolting in droves. So yeah, if you screw your fanbase over, I can see the potential legal issues.
1: They Cost Too Much money to Build and Launch!
Perhapse, but lets refer to point #10: Their are too many being built. Points #10 and #1 don't exactly share a happy coexistance with one another in why you shouldn't make an MMORPG. "My God! They cost too much, but everybody is building them anyway!" Huh? Either A) You're lying/Don't have a clue or B) There s enough profit potential inspite of reasons 1-10 to do it anyway.
If you said C) Both A and B, you get a star.
You need a FREE iPod Nano
Now I'm craving a cheeseburger!
:)
Thanks a lot.
mmmmmm cheeseburger...
Misread #9. It's like any other multiplayer game in existance, so the point is still busted. What game doesn't need incredible game code, awesome artists and world-building resources, great community management, airtight customer service? With the exception of an enterprise-level server and traffic management system, and a reliable billing system, what's the problem again?
You need a FREE iPod Nano
When you die we'll write
"Ran out of personal responsibility"
on your tombstone.
I think the most important point in this article was in the conculsion. "Don't pollute the market" Walton said. The worst thing that could happen to MMORPGs is a bunch of crappy games. I fervently hope that upcoming releases like Star Wars Galaxies will be wonderful - but if they aren't, the whole genre could die.
Skip Franklin
It's always darkest just before it goes pitch black. -- despair.com
In truth, sony pours TONS of money into Everquest. Their bandwidth alone is huge. Add onto that that they have a full development team for dealing with the implimented game, (the live team: fixes bugs, etc), and then another whole development team that builds expansions and such to add content. They are contuiously changing the core code of the game, (such to add features not implimented in the original game such as 2 new user interfaces since the game was released).
They have 50ish servers compromising, (from what I understand), of roughly 30 computers per server, which means for every patch they are possibly updating around 1500. (Though it should be noted that I doubt they patch every computer every patch.) Also, these servers are located in both the United States and in Europe. And they are expected to have minor patches done in 2 hours, major patches, (for things such as expansions), done in 8. And no loss of any amount of data, (such as what character has which items), is tollerated in any way. Because of this their network administration must be near flawless.
Now lets look at what we have down the pipe. We have games that are being thrown together by people who come from single player games instead of MUDs and D&D. We have people who design games with out the backing of the enormious companies it takes to supply the capital required for a 4 to 5 year development cycle, implimentation of the enormious amount of hardware, the marketting, and the payroll for the support staff. We have people who don't realize that they must either be perfect at what they do, (see blizzard), or tap a previously untapped nitch, (Star Wars Galaxies) of MMoG potential. It would be wise that they make sure that the nitch exists and that the model for advancement in the game actually holds water first though (The Sims: Online).
In the end, we will have many companies that put 2/3rds of the work and money into making the games all competing with each other for a very small populace of people who are not already commited to as many games as they can afford time wise and monitarily. Most of them will die out, just like the dot-com bust.
But many games will pervail. Star Wars Galaxies will likely be as big, if not bigger than Everquest. Worlds of Warcraft shows amazing promise. Horizons seems to be a crowd favorite. And whatever product is being build by Sigil will be one of the leading contenders. (For those who don't know, the company is run by the people who made the decisions about Everquests form and is funded by microsoft. They also have recruited alot of the senior staff that had previously worked for the Everquest team.)
But with the majority of the market for Online RPGs and D&D type worlds already accounted for through Everquest, (or soon to be picked up by the above mentioned games), Developers better have a spot for their game to fit and they better do a DAMN good job of designing it, populating it, and supporting it if they plan on recouping their losses.
I do security
Metroid Prime is solidly implemented and sure looks and sounds good, but it is very middle of the road otherwise. It has some atrocious die/retry loops very early on. It hits all the big cliches, like a reactor that's going to blow in N seconds, and you have to get out before it goes. I have a hard time coming up with much of anything about the game that's fresh or not done completely by the book. Hmmm...turning into a ball is fun, but that still doesn't push this into "Game of the Year" territory by any means.
I'm not knocking Metroid. It's a decently fun game, especially for the traditional "kids with lots of free time" market. But just because a movie is solid and safe doesn't mean it should win an Oscar for best picture.
Motor City Online was a fairly low-commitment game. Oh you COULD spend lots of time in it if you wanted to score the top weekly times for the most tracks and win the weekly TOP GUN award, but most people just wanted to race each other in similar cars. You could set up a race with all kinds of car restrictions (Vintage D, Classic B) based on horsepower/weight and age, and other user restrictions (over 4000 lbs. only) so that the game wasn't just about who had accumulated the most money. I don't think I ever played it for more than 10 hours in a week, usually less. I played it for 3 months in the winter of 2000, until the sun came out and there were other things to do.
IMHO, that game failed for reasons other than gameplay. The box was not clear enough about the $10/mo fee, and there were pissed people on the forums all the time complaining that they had just wasted $30 and they didn't even have a credit card, then they would warn all their friends not to buy it. The box also promised features that didn't make it into the game before I quit playing, which again made people angry. So with the PISSEd people talking it down instead of telling all their friends how great it was, it never achieved critical mass that would have allowed it to get profitable and keep adding content.
It was a good idea that was even executed pretty well, but was marketed wrong. Alas.
Don't moderate flamebait as Troll. Know the difference or you will be Meta-moderated.
Better than some of the other things people have suggested.
Why is it that MMOG's charge a fee of 40-50 bucks just like any other game would and yet they also require a non-trivial monthly fee. I would expect a monthly fee game to at least be cheaper than others. So this answers it:
Right now, Walton theorizes, the model works in the United States because it's based off of a packaged goods model - people have already invested $40-50 to buy the box and take it home, so they're more willing to justify that expense by subscribing.
So that's it! I personally think that if they had incorporated the start-up fee into monthly subscription they would have far more customers. I know that I would probably try subscribing if it were so. When again, I value whatever social life I still have left, so maybe they have saved me :)
I'm glad someone is stepping up and saying this, though I doubt anyone will listen.
The name of the game is scarcity. It is VERY important to advertising and gaming. If someone is going to dedicate between 5 and 40 hours of their week to playing a game, how are they going to play other games? I don't think there is NEARLY the market for MMOG's as there is for single player games with small multiplayer capabilities.
If you are going to make an MMOG, it better be DAMN good, or you aren't going to retain any customers.
An MMOG isn't anything like a single player game. I can go back and play Final Fantasy 7 or Zelda Ocarina of Time anytime I want, but what happens when a publishing company doesn't feel it is making enough money off a game? ZIIIIP! That was the sound of the ethernet/fiber being pulled on the server. Now you can't play it. Worthless. You just spent $10 a month for the last 2 years on a game that is now gone. $240 vs a one time fee of $40. No contest to me.
-- Having a Creationist Museum is like having an Atheist place of worship
Clearly the MMOG space is over-saturated with companies looking to produce titles with millions of active players, huge budgets and so-forth. Likely 95% of these companies will fail, especially the independants.
There is, however, still vast amounts of MMOG market space waiting to be tapped. I think there's no question we're going to start seeing lots of very creative, lower key and alternative MMOG's with very unique and exciting concepts emerging on the scene. These are the types of games the indies CAN succeed with and WANT to develop.
Take Imperial Wars for example. This is a very exciting alternative to the hack and slash MMOG's out there now. It's a turn based (almost play-by-mail like) game that doesn't require you to spend 30-50hrs per week waiting around for some MOB to respawn, but requires that you socially interact with your team in order to succeed. It captures both the edge-of-your-seat strategy and the social aspects of the online community.
Companies that capatilize on creating games that Joe Average has time to play, games that have extreme strategy but also harness the community effect of the internet, are sure to reap rewards.
Beware of geeks bearing formulas.
"First and foremost, it's a bad idea to make these games at all. If you do, you'll be competing with me. I'm obviously insane. You don't want to mess with my bad-assness."
"Politicians find new names for institutions which under old names have become odious to the people."
The amount of content required is IMMENSE.
Duh. That's why you don't try to build it yourself. Make a game in which the players build the world. And then encourage them to do so. I suppose this ties in with:
Everything You Know about Single-Player Games is Wrong
That's right Dave. One of the "wrong" things is the premise that the game creator creates the world. That doesn't work! The game creator has to create the rules of the universe and start the world. Then, if he expects to not be swamped, he has to sit back and let the players take it from there.
Moderating "-1, Disagree" is simple censorship. Have the guts to post your opinion.
Not to be overlooked are the winners of the 5th Annual Independent Games Festival competition, which were also announced at the GDC awards ceremony.
The festival included ten innovative and often offbeat titles, such as Teenage Lawnmower (a mowing simulation that manages to incorporates issues such as domestic violence, unplanned pregnancy and alcohol abuse) and Pontifex II (a game that lets you design your own dream bridge, and hope it doesn't collapse). The competition's grand prize was won by Wild Earth, a beautifully animated game that sends players on an African safari to take pictures of wildlife. (Wild Earth also won two awards in the IGF for Game Design and Visual Arts).
This post sponsored by Ninja Burger. "
I never have been into MMO (Massive Multi-Player Onlines) and I'll tell you why:
1) Recycled games themes; You get either Dungeon and Dragons or Future Space SciFi. No one is really breaking out of the box on this. Of the 100 games on the market, they fall into these two catagories.
2) Too restrictive, Narrow play. Stop making the game so static. Just make a world that has rules and let the players do the rest. Don't make it so you have to do missions to advance.
If players want to be in a clan that raids other clans, then let it be. You can make protection zones (No fighting in the zones), but once out of the zone, go at it. For exmaple, let players set the price of items by supply and demand.
I am still waiting for a Fallout (Post apocalyptic) style MMOG where I can be evil or nice or anything in between. Just create the world and let the players do the rest.
Linux O Muerte!
in this thread. They talk about Metroid Prime in the DAMN ARTICLE WRITE-UP, none of this (except for these anti-idiot mod flames) is off-topic.
MS astroturfers must have gotten their mod points today. That's fine, it means they won't be posting their shit in the story, and they'll be fuxxed in metamod.
These types of games may be hard to bring to realization between development and money, but they are the best to play. Stop whining and start sucking it up. Two thumbs down of his top ten. Loses all credibility with me.
He says that for 100,000 people, you'd pay about $5 million to set up and deploy the game.
Let's see: 100,000 people * $10 per month * 12 months per year = $12 million per year.
$12 million - $5 million = $7 million
Nope, that's not profitable at all.
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ECHELON is a government program to find words like bomb, jihad, plutonium, assassinate, and anarchy.
I think an MM online deer hunting game would be awesome! Think about it... your goal is to hunt. But there are other hunters, whom you can shoot too. But if you shoot them, you're immediately become "evil", and police start coming after you and other hunters can shoot you with abandon. Being evil is not permanent: If you manage to get a distance away from any other hunters, you become "normal" again. If you get shot when you're normal, you only get injured, but if you're shot when you're evil, your character dies.
As you kill more deer, elk, and evil hunters, you get better weapons. As you gain knowledge of the terrain, you can figure out better ways to hunt both game and people and get away with it. Or if you're a good person, you'll find out better ways to catch evil people.
This scenario will encourage people to hunt in groups. That way, if potential evil people approach and maim someone in your hunting party, you can easily catch the evil person and gain considerable skill. Lone hunters wouldn't be able to defend themselves for a period after being shot.
Potentially you can also have cabins to keep your weapons, which can get robbed, and bullet-proof vests, and hunting stores. The terrain would be variable, with rivers and mountains creating natural barriers for would-be escapers.
Anyway, if anyone knows how to develop games, feel free to take my idea...
my blog
One of the things *I* would like to see in a MMORPG is better multi-platform compatibility. If you could make a game that people on Windows, Linux, Unix, Mac, PS2, XBox, and GameCube could play - TOGETHER, on the SAME servers - you would sell faster than "Pamela Anderson fscking Tommy Lee" videos.
And I also agree with making one that you don't have to give up your wife, children, job, and dog just to play. Not that giving up some of those would be all bad...
...when you have SUBSPACE!!
I swear, we wasted so much time on this game back in college. That, Command and Conquer, and Duke Nukem 3-D
What, me Tweet?
The 10 points taken, they are mostly about money (or reducible to it). There are hundred if not thousands of succesful MUDs out there that have been keeping their players happy since the days of the command line OS. Theres content, complexity and good community management there in spades (nearly always this is done unpaid by hobbyists; indeed players aspire and strive to become "wizards" eventually and manage this sort of thing). The best MUDs are quite selective and picky about how joins the admin staff; usually experienced players with a known reputation.
So perhaps the problem isn't that these things can't be done; perhaps its that its hard to turn a profit doing them? I'm going to stop short of drawing an Opensource comparison here, but I think this is something to think about. Building communities is perhaps best left to...communities? Now theres a novel idea.
(And yeah, I know a text MUD isn't quite the same as Everquest, but I think my point still largely holds).
your mkmorpg will make millions (3) and cost millions to develop and support (5) so you'll wind up losing (-2) millions!
I'm a fan of online gaming but the stakes in the MMORPGs are too high. You feel like you're always behind. Where as in Neverwinter or Counter Strike you're only as good as the map and your skills.
Which mine have deminished significantly recently, where are you CS:Condition Zero?!?!?!?!
...he's bald.
hehe
nah man forget I said that, no dissing the bald people
sheit foo ya can't hold ya beer
Is EQ...People have invested a lot of time and in many cases real money to get the characters to where they want them. And as you know, this is something he did touch upon, there is a lot of content in EQ and they have been adding more and more over time...So all this makes it hard for someone to just quit and move onto other games.
EQ 2 will be out this year and I really believe it may encounter the same issue with regards to getting players to switch...They have stated they will not actually close Eq 1 until it becomes less profitable. Indeed if indicators include server merger vs server expansion then Sony are in the process of putting a new server online due to increasing subscription.
Actually started late in EQ and the reasons:
1. UK had no free dial up access
2. Box price + subscription seemed too expensive. Actually having to buy a box put me off for a long time
just imho.
StarTux
Am I the only one who is bored with 3rd Person Shooters and MMORPG's? Can any think of any new ideas? Something exciting and new?
Rus
Cheap UK and US VPS
This guy has got this issue right on.
I worked for a computer gaming software development company called Maximum Charisma Studios in 2001-2002. I was the systems and network engineer, doing all of the production and corporate infrastructure -- desktops, servers, Microsoft, GNU/Linux, WAN and LAN networking.
Maximum Charisma actually produced their first software title called Fighting Legends to store shelves, which was a huge accomplishment considering that we were independent. We had Sony manufacture the CDs and a few other things, but we handled distribution. We outsourced some customer service agents for the anticipated needs of customers, but that was about it. The company consisted of about 30 people at it's height.
Fighting Legends was supposed to be a Multiplayer Online Real Time Strategy (MMORTS) game. It required a network connection that I metered out to be an average of something like 25Kbps bursting to 80Kbps per user for the persistent connection. Latency was a big issue, with the edge of enjoyment being about 250ms.
There was trouble with Fighting Legends. The big mistake was design. The game was designed poorly because the company was inexperienced. It lacked story, it lacked refinement of play, and it lacked fun. The game was not fun, so nobody played it. I know the actual statistics of how many players we had, how many at one time, etcetera, but I am not going to quote them. Instead I will just say that we didn't have enough.
The overhead to keep the company going without the subscription cost meeting the break even point is what killed the company. We could have gotten more money, we could have really cut down on spending, we could have probably made it for the second title if it was not for the overhead costs of Fighting Legends. It was the data center costs that were the killer -- $900 per month per cabinet, and about $5K+ per month for power data and other service costs.
Maximum Charisma took about 2.5 years of development time. The product was on the shelf on November 1st of 2001. The company called it quits on January 29th 2002, even though the servers stayed up for almost two months after.
Here are is a picture from Maximum Charisma Studios of our data cabinets. This is off of a 1.5Mbps VDSL line, so be wary. And don't even tell me about cable management. We got those 65 some odd servers out of box, software loaded, and in the rack within 72 hours. It was a break neck operation. As for the hardware costs of all of this equipment that you see, it was something like $450K -- I still have the receipts to prove it.
http://www.Opendreams.net/jesse/images/Maxim
Here is the Maximum Charisma death notice;
http://pc.ign.com/articles/354/354578p1.
...is one of the funniest things I've seen in a long time. The resemblance is... frightening.
I was stating the obvious to save anyone else doing so, still: Im just wondering if the game software-houses aren't that stuck in their ways that building a new business model seems totally alien to them now.
;)
Just something that keeps coming to my mind in this topic; Imagine GTA3 as a MMOG. Like the game or not, and whatever business model you apply, there are a hell of a lot of people who would have the credit-cards out there and then.
So why hasn't/isn't it being done? - Its either that they really are stuck in there ways or that I'm missing something (the latter is more probable)
It could also be that the scale of such a project (you prob. couldn't even use the original engine) is just sick making at the very prospect
Ripping an new rectum in the fabric of spacetime.
If Content is the key to your MMOG experience, then perhaps the revolution will come with AI/Heuristic automatically generated Content.
There need to be more Unbounded games. I'd still be playing SimCity, with a population of billions no doubt, if I weren't restricted to that finite map. And then I'd network-portal my SimCity to yours and we'd scale up and build a distributed planet.
An unbounded game can't be exhausted of Content. Just set up the rules and the space.
Start Running Better Polls
Just a thought: i rented Animal Crossing from blockbuster a couple of days ago, and it really does a good job of fitting what you describe.
The game is basically The Sims, except from the perspective of a Sim rather than the perspective of God. The game takes place in realtime-- it works off the Gamecube's internal clock-- and even if you aren't there, stuff happens and changes in the town.
The reason the game is interesting is that after the 30-40 minute tutorialish session of setting up a new character, it is basically designed such to make you want to play it for about ten minutes every day-- however, after about ten minutes, there really won't be much to do. You basically sign on to see if anything changed in the town, see if you got any mail, check with your neighbors and see what's up, *maybe* do something to get some money to help toward eventually paying your mortgage and see what's new in the store. And then there really isn't much else to do, usually, unless you want to just sit around and fish. This is brilliant becuase it keeps you from getting sick of it. And, of course, every few days something will actually be *happening*, or every so often you'll decide to plant some trees, and you'll be playing for a couple hours maybe. But you generally won't overdose on it: you can't sit through and experience the entire game in one solid weeklong gaming session. The game *forces* you to take it in small bites, yet ensures there is something special worth signing on for every single day-- yet doesn't *penalize* you if you just stop playing for a month.
This is an example the MMORPG world would do well to follow. As you note, a system like this would lead to some community "issues", but it would make content creation, system maintenence, etc, an order of magnitude easier.
Interestingly, shigeru miyamotu is on record as saying that Animal Crossing 2 will have "network support". I assume this means internet support. As of now, it's possible to "take the train" to a friend's town with your character if you either borrow their memory card with their saved town on it, "take the boat" to an "island" if you plug in a GBA with the GBA version of animal crossing saved on it. I'm very curious how they'd implement internet features.. it could wind up being like a kind of p2p MMORPG.
(Note to everyone: make sure if you rent this game, you either have a spare memory card or rent it from somewhere that includes with the rental the memory card that came with the game. An animal crossing savefile takes up a full 57-block memory card.)
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
once again demonstrating that high charisma is useless in video games ...
_f
The problem with MMORPGs is that they very very closely resemble paper and pen RPGs, but cover exactly one end of the traditional roles within that game: the player. There is no place for a GM in everquest.
This is a problem that you rarely saw with, say, MUDs, because most MUDs you had an average of maybe 30 people on at once, and if you wanted to make your own MUD, or MUSH, or MUCK, why then, you just had to get some hardware that could handle 30 heavy text connections at once, and type descriptions of an intricate world. You could easily play the GM if you wanted to, long as you owned hardware. And then with MUSHes, even a non-administrator player could play GM as long as they could learn a simplified version of Forth.
I think "There" has the best idea, at this point: they have an open-ended world with the ability to be extended by users, programatically. People can recreate the world in any way they want, and interact with it however they want, even in ways that the people who made the game never foresaw. The community can build itself and entertain itself without the company having to build 3d models for everything that happens. And, of course, it empowers the user.
People want to be able to tell their own stories, there are a *lot* of people with the technical and creative expertise to come up with perfectly entertaining content on their own (as long as someone gives them some stock art to work from..) and i think users are a lot happier with the traditional MUD two-admins-and-28-players ratio than the Everquest "log a complaint and we'll schedule you with an admin appointment in two days time, after the other 10,000 requests are dealt with" ratio.
What i think is going to be the killer app as far as MMORPGs go is when someone figures out how to make it is as easy to make an everquest-style "graphical MUD" as it is to set up a Diku MUD, and then somehow links together all the player-created worlds so that you can let characters drift between them. The only problem i see with this system is accountability-- if you can transfer characters between worlds, what's to stop someone from creating a "everyone immediately levels to 99" world? Most likely, some kind of system would have to be implemented whereby each world would just have policies as to what they will and won't allow, similar once again to traditional pen and paper RPGs-- like, you try to bring in your 50th level Godlike Jedi Master into a star wars game around here, and everyone will go "Um, no, here's a piece of paper. Everyone else in the game at the moment is at *about* level 10, dumb your stats down to level 10 or so and give us a backstory for a character of that experience."
Of course, the problem there is that then you start going less toward a persistent multiverse and more just toward a series of played-online pen and paper RPGs with some kind of associated community.. at which point you might have just as much fun with an *actual* play-by-email pen and paper rpg, or just finding some kind of database of active MUSHes. So i'm not sure how this would work out. But it's definitely something I think is worth experimenting with.
Also, i'm not quite sure how Yiffing would be implemented within such a system.
Any thoughts?
Irritable, left-wing and possibly humorous bumper stickers and t-shirts
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
I worked at Origin for 3.5 years. Gordon Walton was brought in a full 2 years after its release from another EA development house in Charlottesville, Va. called Kesmai. He had no hand whatsoever in creating Ultima Online, but did a lot of work to clean it up.
GW is pretty much a bad ass, as well as a pretty swell guy.
Small companies cannot make the same games as big companies. Small company games must be clever, not massive.
IMO, the answer to content for a small company is reusable content, like a soccer field or Quake level. For an MMORPG, this would be a New York style city. You can see it all in a week, but there is always something going on (that does not require the attention of the Programmers). Imagine Antigua in the age of piracy.
I have not heard of anyone doing large scale random content in MMORPGs, though this was done effectively in some single player RPGs (Nethack and company) and strategy games (Civilization).
For high level players vs low level players, put things in the game that are level independent. Perhaps make the "powerful" stuff in the game depend on location in the world or some other more dynamic effect than long play time. Or associate level with the player's actual game skill vs other players instead of a character attribute. In other multiplayer games, the newbie gets the same weapons as the old timer.
You can have it good, fast, or cheap. Pick any two.
People are going to buy EQ2, go "ooh, ahh", log in, appreciate New Freeport's amenities, walk outside and fight a couple of rats, and go back to their level 65 guys in EQ. Why would they want to level up on rats again in a game with 1/10 the content of EQ?
I agree, but oh, it's much, much worse than that. From what we hear, Sony will not migrate EQ1 characters to EQ2 *and* will shut down EQ1 after a period to free themselves of the immense costs of running two COMPETING systems in parallel.
And at that point, when they abandon people who have invested years in developing their EQ1 characters, they will suddenly find that they themselves have been abandoned, and have lost a huge proportion of their regular monthly income. When you kick a person in a place that matters they tend to remember it, and by the time people's characters are in their 50's and 60's, they matter to them. EQ2 could be the prettiest place in existence, yet it will be perceived as fatally flawed if it bars one's own EQ1 characters from entry. People are their characters.
Talking to fellow guildies about the likely effect of this, I have not yet found a single one that would be willing to start from scratch again. We'll have to see how this plays out, but it rather looks like those business managers who decided on the non-migration policy from EQ1 to EQ2 have taken business stupidity to a new level of magnificence.
"The question of whether machines can think is no more interesting than [] whether submarines can swim" - Dijkstra
The gameplay still seems oriented around individuals or small party adventuring: If a thousand players are individually killing bugs on different parts of the map, are any of them gaining a more enriching experience for being in the same massive and persistent world?
I've recently taken up DAoC. And while I like Sony's release once, update often Everquest model, I think the way to go is to have a MMORPG with an end.
You could have a "Final Chapter" with an end goal. Anyone who completes this goal could either start AC1 over agian as a nobody, or start AC2 as "Sir" this or "Lady" that. You'd migrate your customer base over to the new game and give the "karma cap" people some status in the new game.
I'd rather you do it wrong, than for me to have to do it at all.
Industry is going to get a big kick in the ass when I release KyuFu end of the year. I estimate I'll make 1-100 mil/month off the bitch.
God spoke to me
Soviet Russia:
new diversions are needed,
The haiku writes you.
Not for a MMOG.
Levels are a relic that should be done away with, I agree. There's no excuse for them to be around. They slap the idea of immersion right in the face, they do. Sure - so do skills and attributes, but less so than 'levels'. You don't see a level 20 plumber fixing your pipes. You do see a highly skilled (hopefully) plumber.
Aging won't work. People are attached to their characters. They get fed up and quit when their 100-10000 hours (entirely feasible - I've seen *more* than 10k hours on various M*s!) is laid waste and gone forever - IE, when their character dies.
However, a corollary on the note of "but its a great idea for free games like MUDs"..
Free? Money has nothing to do with it. Character death can work, and it can work well. The problem is, it can only suitably exist in a roleplaying environment.
Everquest is not a roleplaying game. UO, DAOC, AC are not roleplaying games. Final Fantasy is not a roleplaying game.
About the closest thing to a graphical roleplaying game that exists is Neverwinter Nights, and that's only if you have a seriously good DM running a campaign.
The problem with roleplaying online is that players are like children. They must be constantly monitored, otherwise, it all goes to hell. If you don't watch every move, you suddenly have people whose characters can chew gum, write a novel, walk their dog, fire a gun and dodge a tactical nuclear weapon, all at the same time.
At that point, the game is befukt.
Nobody is going to want to play a game where your character dies from old age. It reminds me of those no-warning deathtrap rooms like they used to have in text adventure games. It just happens for no good reason and pisses you off. Personally I would never play a game where I spend hundreds of hours playing a character, only to have it killed off by the gamemaster for "old age." We have enough dying of old age in the real world, we don't need an online simulation about it. There is nothing fun about dying of old age.
Imperator said: Is it just me or is this guy subtly looking for a job?
--
You know damn right!
Yes, the shameless plug is that I am looking for a job. The good news is that I have a phone interview with a major computer gaming software developer come Monday. Wish me luck.
It is first-person persective, but it's not a first-person shooter. Until you use the left stick for strafing/moving, and the right stick for turning/aiming, it's not FPS.
Metroid Prime is one of the very few first-person action games in existence. It emphasizes action sequences over aiming skills, which is why I draw this distinction.
Plus, anyone who tries to play it like an FPS always ends up hating it. I've had a few people say they hated it because they couldn't use the C-stick for aiming/turing.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
Couldn't you have just said "a major game company" instead of padding it out to sound all "professional"?
For fucks sake man. That's annoying. It's two steps away from buzzword bingo.
Do you really think anybody reads slashdot for any other reason? In SOVIET RUSSIA, naked natalie portman petrifies you with COLD grits!
Good luck!
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
I sit in irc all day (while @ work) and used to sit in everquest all night (waiting for SWG).
The single mighty difference is that it provides something to talk about that has novelty and can hold your interest AND it's nothing to do with your actual daily life.
It has the stuff that gives you your strokes - gossip, rumour, truth & lies, cooperation, boredom, achievement, anticipation, surprise, disappointment & elation and humour.
Some people will say "get a life" and I'm saying "S'ok, I buy my life from Sony, you go back to watching Coronation Street"
I got better value from the hundreds of hours of EQ time than I ever got from many other activities.
By necessity the genre will get depth as time goes on. I'm looking forward to what I'll be drolling my way through in 20 years time (should I make it).
There are places where the networks are not touching,and there are places where they are-Boeing's Lori Gunter
I want a filter that lets me cut out anything scored higher than a 1. The trolls are the only fun about slashdot.
A rope lying over the top of a fence is the same length on each side. It
weighs one third of a pound per foot. On one end hangs a monkey holding a
banana, and on the other end a weight equal to the weight of the monkey.
The banana weighs two ounces per inch. The rope is as long (in feet) as
the age of the monkey (in years), and the weight of the monkey (in ounces)
is the same as the age of the monkey's mother. The combined age of the
monkey and its mother is thirty years. One half of the weight of the monkey,
plus the weight of the banana, is one forth as much as the weight of the
weight and the weight of the rope. The monkey's mother is half as old as
the monkey will be when it is three times as old as its mother was when she
she was half as old as the monkey will be when when it is as old as its mother
will be when she is four times as old as the monkey was when it was twice
as its mother was when she was one third as old as the monkey was when it
was old as is mother was when she was three times as old as the monkey was
when it was one fourth as old as it is now. How long is the banana?
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