Dedication's what you need

I just spotted this on forum about up and coming MMORPG - ROMA VICTOR. Thought it showed what is needed for small production houses these days. Eye opening, no?


RedBedlam Comm. Mgr.
Rank: 100/100 Rank: 100/100 Rank: 100/100 Rank: 100/100 Rank: 100/100

Registered: 3/21/05
Posts: 174

"Rome wasn't coded in a day"
- Kanoth RedBedlam Community Support Manager


Another big difference between RB and the big companies...they get paychecks.

I'm hoping to get my first paycheck since July 01 for helping with these games. KFR also hasnt had a paycheck from his company since 2000.

In fact, I think only 4 or 5 guys on the team are paid when we have money to do so. Actually, here's RedBedlams structure with a bit about the people there:

Management (all on board for around five years - all unpaid):
KFR - See Jupiter.
RJH - Business Director (full and part time as needed)
NGW - Communications Director (part time)

Development (all on board for around 2-3 years - some have occasionally been paid as much as we could afford, whenever we could afford it):
Jupiter - Producer, Project Lead, Architect, Lead Designer, Programmer etc. Full time since the start.
Vulcan - Lead Client Programmer & 3D Engineer. Full time.
Neptune/Faunus - Lead Server & Tools Programmer. Full time.
Mercury - Lead 3D Artist. Sometimes full time; sometimes part time.
Apollo - Audio Lead & Composer. Full and part time.
Mars - Animator. As and when needed.
Additionally there are a few other goodly writers, artists and programmers that have also dropped in to help from time to time.

Consultants:
PJH - Virtual Economist
AJT - Server kernel & Tools Programming
Dr Richard Bartle - Virtual World Design
LG - Communications & Design

Community Support:
Kanoth. Community Relations Manager. Unpaid hero of the forums.
And of course the Prefects, Moderators and countless contributers that make this project both possible and worthwhile. They'll all feature in the game's credits eventually.

Partners:
Finally there are all the third party companies and organisations that have worked with and partnered with us. Some in particular have gone well above and beyond their obligations to help us out, for which we are all extremely grateful.

The word 'passion' means both suffering and devotion. I think it is therefore entirely appropriate to say that RedBedlam is made up of a very passionate bunch of people. Anyone and everyone that cares about Roma Victor owes a great deal to the dedication, enthusiasm and talents - not to mention sacrifice - of those listed above.

-KFR

"Rome wasn't coded in a day"
- Kanoth

AutoAssault slated by Jolt.co.uk

Well respected bastion of gaming servers, Jolt have reviewed AutoAussalt, the latest offering from NPSoft. Their review score of 6.8 underlies the true problem with the MMO genre at the moment... no innovation. Let's see if games such as Chronicles of Spellborne, Huxley, Dark and Light and Eve Online will bring (or continue to bring, in Eve's case) fresh air needed in this UO/WoW obsessed genre.

FFXIII

Looks quite nice - but is it worth buying a PS3 for?

video clip

LoTR cloning more than WoW's success

Looks like another big budget MMO, from Turbine this time, is probably gonna lack the punch needed to break out from the lowest-common-denominator form of publishing now employed by many successful dev houses, all with an eye on the peice of the pie that Blizzard holds with it's fantastically successful title World of Warcradt (WoW). Success, of course, counted in number of subs and the amount of cash bleeding out of unsuspecting punters around the globe.

It would be nice to think that some games are actually inspired by the need to make a good game first and a profit second, but I guess that's all just a pipe-dream...?



[quote]

The target is WoW, says general manager of publisher's online gaming division.

Vice president and general manager of Codemasters Online Gaming (COG), David Solari, has revealed a target of over a million players for the division's upcoming Lord of the Ring Online (LOTRO) title and admitted intentions to compete directly with Blizzard's genre-leading World of Warcraft.

"I think the goal [for LOTRO] would be over a million subscribers in the west," said Solari, speaking at the COG LiVE event in Warwick, UK, yesterday. "World of Warcraft is such a benchmark now, but if something's going to do it it's going to be a Lord of the Rings brand that lets people play in that environment and experience that content. It's got to have probably the best chance of competing with it."

LOTRO, developed by US developer Turbine, is scheduled for a Q4 release. Demoed in fully playable form at the event by executive producer Jeff Steefel, the initial release is to include the content from the first Lord of the Rings book, The Fellowship of the Ring, with the rest of the trilogy to be added as the game evolves. Turbine holds the rights to produce MMO content based on Tolkien's novels, as opposed to the recent New Line movies.

LOTRO is the most mainstream part of a quartet of titles from COG in 2006, the rest of which includes Korean import Archlord from NHN and the recently released duo of Turbine-developed Dungeons & Dragons Online and CCR Corporation's RF Online.

"Lord of the Rings is a pretty all encompassing MMO with a great brand behind it. So that's a generally more competitive game," Solari added. "All the games are quite different, which is what we decided to go for."

[/quote]

Original article in GI.biz

MMORPG study

Here's an old link, but still interesting. There's a couple of interesting study about games and education and another about the demographics of MMORPGs. Here's the link if you have time for some reading: http://www.nickyee.com/

I'm in the middle of writing up a post about the pitfalls all MMORPG dev companies need to be aware of if they aren't gonna end up with a big bunch of haters/griefers/trolls on their forum. Depending on how it turns out, I might post it here.