Will shadowbane ever come out in Europe

[Mosop]

Lots of reports of bugs,hacks,people quiting etc etc,will anyone want to run this game in Europe anymore.

With the price of these mmg games going up all the time,they roll out the excuse of the costs involed servers people to run en dev time etc etc.Which is fine im shure its getting more expensive to write and run these games,But how do these smaller ones with a lot less players survive.They all seemed to have big plans but some turned out to be AO AC2 Neocron etc,i know theve got less servers people to pay cos theve got less players.But they didnt intend to be that small when they figured out the cost of running and wot to charge,so are they close to colapsing or are the big boys charging too much and making too much money.

Weve heard lots of these strugling for players,but not a lot of them colasping all together

 

[SadSurfer]

It is an interesting and complex question (well for me anyways!!!).

As per everything in life it comes down to money, the game itself costs millions to make ... this is fine as game companies understand this bit. The problem comes with providing a service which is something game companies have not done before.

Some look at it and say its easy and the Customer Support etc is just a waste of time, likewise others don't understand the costs and issues with servers, communications, firewalls etc and believe me the demands of a MMO is so completely different from a web site (for example).

Yes there does seem to be alot of new MMO's struggling for players. Why have they not closed yet, well some expected low numbers, other have no way made there money back so they are trying to turn things around, others I think you will see winding down soon (IMHO).

Underlying strategies (excluding game design in this) can have a major impact on the beta and live costs, issues over CapEx, Managed Services, Outsourcing, Staff locations etc if done wrong can screw the successfulness of a game in a single blow.

Not sure if that helps but it makes me feel better

V

 

[Treebeard]

Ubisoft have a lot of experience with online games and MMG's so I don't think things like CS and what not is the problem with Shadowbane, they seem capable of handling that side of things. I can't see the problems with Shadowbane being down to inexperience on the publishers part.

I think Shadowbane was doomed from day one because of poor coding.

They may pull it out of the fire but the problem I found in beta was that it had some great ideas, some of the best I've seen in any MMG, but the server technology and coding left a lot to be desired and tbh was quite frankly awful. I think the hacks and bugs recently have shown this.

Add to that the fact that there are no real trade skills and you are left with a PvP only game that also keeps it out of the mainstream.

I think they still have a winner if they can get the coding side of it right as they offer a lot that the other games don't but it may be a bit late now. As for Euro release. I think Swing's legal dodabs are only just coming to an end so maybe someone else will pick it up if there is still a game there.

I can't see the other MMG's running at a loss on a month to month basis. Certainly some of them haven't anywhere near made the development costs back and maybe never will but knowing the way publishers are, if they were also making a loss every month they'd close them down no question. Even 20 to 30k subs a month is a quarter of a million dollars. I know for a fact that AC1 is still doing pretty well and AO also is supposed to be doing ok.