Star Wars and Raph Leave SOE?

Gamespot reports that Raph Koster, chief creative officer for Sony Online Entertainment, has left the company. While Gamespot seems to confirm this news, there are a number of MMOG-related rumours swirling at GDC. Mythic may be in EA's sights for acquisition, and Sony Online may soon be losing the rights to the Star Wars license. IE: No more SWG. Grimwell online has a rundown on these virulent rumours. Chris Kramer (from SOE) said words to the effect of "We're in it together for the long haul." SWG will be staying with Sony Online for some time to come.

Comments

Raph Koster = Non-fun Games

[Teckla]

Raph Koster is excellent at designing unfun games. I'm not sure this is a bad thing for the company "losing" him...

Re:Raph Koster = Non-fun Games

[Jack Johnson]

I don't see how this is a troll. Many years ago I spent a lot of time reading Koster's writings as I found the workings of MMOs much more interesting than the games themselves.

He impressed me as a guy with a hell of a lof knowledge who obviously spent a LOT of time thinking about how to make these games work but, was way too sure of himself. He wrote with the confidence of someone who truly believes he had it all figured out a long time ago.

I could just picture him shooting down ideas left and right because he "already thought about it and it won't work" or more dangerously, "shouldn't be that way" according to his personal standard.

Fact is, when attempting to average the tastes of millions of players there's about 0 chance that it will line up well with that of any one particular guy. These designers have to understand that ultimately, they don't get to decide what works, what doesn't or how things should be, the players do.

Re:Raph Koster = Non-fun Games

[Anonymous Coward]

I agree with that statment, but it's only half true.

One of Raph's "Laws" for Virtual Worlds reads

"It is not a game, it is a service"

Therefore, it is not a surprise that he fails at the game part. His games are virtual world experiments - they neglect the game part. The part that makes MMORPGs like World of Warcraft successful is that they are games. They don't try to be virtual world, society or government simulations. They embrace that they are games.

And please spare me your personal opinion about WoW, it does not matter, success is defined by $$$, # of paying subscribers, critical review ratings a customer retention rate - all of which WoW has.

Anyone who has followed Raph's blog knows that he is avoiding the topic of success and WoW like a hot cake. He knows that it spells doom to his unproven theories. Any game based on his ideas so far can now be rated as a failure, it took someone with fresh ideas (no harsh death penalties, no deep virtual simulation, no player run society of government) to realize the full potential (6 million subscribers and counting) of this genre of GAMES.

The virtual world fans, the "simulationists" are now up in arms about their hero being dethroned, but it's the only logical conclusion. Of course SOE and LA have realized that with his design, they won't attract any of the market that WoW just opened.

Yes, no question, they are stupid to think that they can change an existing SERVICE radically, piss off the niche crowd it attracted and convert it into a successful GAME. But this is not the issue here. The issue is that people continue to believe the highly theoretical bs this person puts out there.

Remember UO? Remember how many people left the game because Raph believed in the good of mankind and unrestricted PK that would solve itself by player governance? Remember the futile attempts at an overengineered reputation system? Remember how the game only got better after he left?

Remember SWG? A large scale virtual world simulation, but a colossal failure in terms of sales and a damage to the Star Wars brand. Too complex, too complicated to be maintainable or serviceable?

"Single Player Games will be dead in a decade" - Raph.
Sure.

I for one will make sure NOT to buy any game associated with his name.

Re:Raph Koster = Non-fun Games

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes you are.

The number of people who left the game right after buying it because they were PKed over and over again greatly outnumbers the number of people who were left in the end.

Its the same scenario as SWG. A simulationist minority was holding out for a game that failed to appeal to the masses. Now making a niche game, that is what you want. But SWG was never supposed to be a niche game, and therefore this is its greatest failure. Now the Avatar of the simulationists has been fired from a job he should have quit on his own in the first place. Instead of quitting for creative differences or whatever reason, he held on his chair, while the game was transformed under his feet from his vision to a new, different vision he could not stand for. Instead of standing up for his community, the people he attracted with his niche design in the first place, he chose to remain silent while people were working in the background on NGE and other changes - knowing that these would greatly offend, betray, sell out the players who signed up to the game for its niche vision.

Maybe a purge is needed...

[Churla]

IMHO , SWG was doomed from the get go. The reason is that they had a great IP to develop a game off of. They had two options they could go for. Either make a game for star wars fans, or make a game for MMORPG players. They tried to straddle the fence and it cost them. The SW fans didn't feel that this game was any more SW than any other sci fi based MMORPG other than character references and some races. I mean really now, how many beast tamers did you see in the star wars movies? They got a similarly tepid response from MMORPG junkies because it really wasn't anything innovative to the genre and was cursed with some bottability issues. So they roll out NGE to try to fix this. Problem, the hardcore SW people have already left, and you remake the game to try to be more appeasing to what they're looking for. This annoys the MMORPG people because now it's even less of a game they can get into. In a perfect world it would have been "Hey, you got Star Wars in my MMORPG! No you got MMORPG in my Star Wars! Hey these are two great tastes that taste great together!!!" Instead we got "Hey, you got MMORPG in my star wars, and I seem to have gotten some Star wars in your MMORPG, how about we let this Sony person throw it on the ground and piss on it?"

Re:Losing Rights to SW? Rumours++

[SydShamino]

Given that one of the other rumors is:

Smedley Getting the Axe at SOE. This is a bonus entry, not from GDC. Something I was actually told last week and wanted to sit on and fact gather. At this point with Raph gone and SWG in question... it's hard to think this wouldn't be on the table.

I wouldn't expect Smedley to say anything else.

Him leaving wouldn't change my opinion though: I will never play an SoE game again.

The problem is the genre

[Jerim]

MMORPGs have become completly derivative of the genre as a whole. I can generically describe every MMORPG ever created as a game where you create a character, choose a class and then go out and complete missions. With the quests mostly consisting of killing monsters or some other NPC.

Sure, they have tried to throw in distractions such as housing, and guilds and different quest branches. (I.E. questing to gain a title or questing to gain an item, etc..)

I purchased EQ2 recently, because a year or so ago it was described as a unique game, with something different. By that I am referring to the class system where you pick a general class at first and specialize as you gain levels. From a magic user to a priest for example. But no, when I played it, you got to pick your class up front and that was your class for the rest of the game.

I actually think UO is the best MMORPG on the market. It make not look great, but it has way more variety. An Elder Srolls MMORPG would be incredible.

EVE vs SWG

[sugarman]

As it stands right now, SWG is in a tough spot. Those who want a space-based persistent world, with bounty-hunting, smuggling, and space combat have a great alternative in Eve.

Those who want sword fights, magic powers, alien landscapes, weird creatures and chainmail bikinis have pretty much every Fantasy RPG to play.

Those that want wear funky armor, control an army of robots, and use a blaster that allows you to shoot first can play City of Heroes.

Aside from Branding, exactly who is SWG trying to appeal to? Everything they might have is being done better by other games.

Two words : Damage control

[MMaestro]

Given the fact that SOE's MMOs have been in a constant state of decline since Smedley took control (EQ2 being a flop, SWG's complete overhaul, EQ1 having virtually no growth sans expansion packs) hes just trying to cover his ass when his head is on fire.

LucasArts isn't exactly Nintendo when it comes to protecting its brand names but they're not stupid enough to continue to let the Star Wars name be burned alive. (SWG is the laughingstock of MMOs these days.)

Re:Errr... I think its the other way around.

[vertinox]

The Star Wars Devs (and Raph the supposed 'Genius of MMOGs'in particular) should have realized that in a genre selling 'you are the hero' that everyone wants to be the hero, aka a JEDI.

Everyone wants to kill the hero.... And take his things and send him nasty /tells saying how he 'pnwed' him and his mother. The only reason people play nice in MMOGs is because of PvP limitations.