[MUD-Dev] Indie MMOG's

[Derek Licciardi]

Adam Martin wrote:
> Samantha LeCraft wrote:
>> "Sean Howard" <squidi at squidi.net> wrote:

>>> What we need is indie MMOG development. Most game companies
>>> can't support a side scrolling shooter, but indie developers
>>> with less to lose and more heart to give keep the genre alive.

>> We *have* indie MMO development.  Have you ever looked at the
>> list of MMOs in development, and noted the number of titles and
>> the number of companies you've never heard of?  There are
>> hundreds, if not thousands, of indie MMOs in development right
>> now.  Most will never see the light of day, because of lack of
>> funds.  Those that do

> Having spoken to quite a few of them, I would say that lack of
> funds is far from their biggest cause of failure. Ignorance,
> naivety, and complete lack of knowledge about how to develop any
> major game - let alone an MMOG - are much larger barries on the
> way to their release (let alone success).

I'm sorry I have to totally disagree with this.  Our single biggest
weakness is funding.  Toolsets, development kits, team members and
assets all take money to use or make.  We started using Renderware
as our 3D foundation and are having good success with it until we
ran out of cash to continue paying the fees to use it.  Now we
scramble for basic funding to keep the project moving along.

I've got a stack of resumes from producers, designers, artists and
the like that all have extensive games development experience but it
takes money to hire them.  Properly funded I could complete a team
that would erase any doubt about the team's ability.  I, myself have
over ten years of MUD experience to draw from and my partner used to
be very active at the highest levels of volunteer support for EQ.
Still, the two of us cannot do it all and to get others involved it
takes money.  You seem to place a value on know-how that is a bit
high.  In today's market there are plenty of people that you can
hire to fill in any gaps of know-how that might exist in your plan,
though you can only do that with money.  *Wonders where the second
UO 2 team was orphaned to*

Look, I'm not interested in creating a lifestyle MMO.  I'm not
content with getting 20K players and calling it a day.  I believe
the medium has much more potential than that, from both the business
side and the design side, and with the experience we have on our
team we should be able to realize that.  I'm also not convinced that
starting small and growing into an EQ size is possible because it
has never been shown to be true.  To me the start small and grow big
idea is a romantic fantasy based on the realities of releasing an
under-funded project that can't properly compete in the market.
Point to one MMO that started on your 100K budget and has since
grown to 300K users, 100K users???  A properly funded MMO has a
significantly higher chance of success.

I've had to tell myself time and time again that there are people in
the industry that could do the same thing we are doing because ideas
are never unique.  To me it's just a matter of who gets funding
first to come out with that idea.  Eventually someone will beat us
to market with a similar enough game, if we can't get funding and
first to market is a very big success factor DAoC aside.  Just ask
all the canceled EQ clones out there about first to market.  Money,
therefore, remains our biggest hurdle, one that I hope we can solve
soon or risk wasting a lot of talented people's hours working for
free.

Derek
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