4 ms·

Its totally possible to make a large online game with proper procedural generation of geometry and sharded servers for zones. It's a bit of work but it's doabl

by jokoon 5y ago

Its totally possible to make a large online game with proper procedural generation of geometry and sharded servers for zones. It's a bit of work but it's doable. Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. Online games don't need content or scenario or background. A game without story is a software product. Not saying this is not a scam though, but real of the old gods proved it was possible to make a real MMO game with just 2 people.

kevingadd 5y ago
"Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. Online games don't need content or scenario or background." With a few notable exceptions, this is literally not true. Just do a survey of all the big money-earning PC MMOs or phone games. Picking a random result from page 1 of the google results for "best selling MMORPGs" - I'll place their list here and comment on it: Guild Wars: (I worked on this one) heavily story-driven, with a PvP mode. Can confirm lots of time and money was spent on the story content, and we had a competitor that tried to do our thing without the story, and it flopped. We released updates almost entirely made up of authored content and stories every year or so and they made good money. TERA: Gameplay-focused with lots of story content. Definitely would not have hit without the content. Planetside 2: One of the exceptions I mentioned - this is just a scaled up multiplayer FPS. (I kind of disagree with classifying this as an MMORPG, but I'm taking this list as it comes). Black Desert Online: Story focused. Haven't played this one so I can't comment in detail, but I've watched enough gameplay footage to be confident about this. Star Trek Online: Story focused (with some procedural content). Players are there for the content because they love Star Trek and (in some cases) want to role-play as a Starfleet captain. EverQuest: Somewhat story focused, but not in the way you'd normally see it now - more like a MUD with some very heavy developer guidance. They literally don't make them like this anymore, though, for good reason. Rift: Very much in the World of Warcraft mold. If you look at the promotional content on their website, it is clearly story focused even if it has some PvP and cooperative elements. Lord of the Rings Online: I feel like it shouldn't need to be said, but this game is entirely about story content and roleplay. When a friend of mine interviewed to join that team before getting hired, they quizzed him on the Silmarillion. Guild Wars 2: Like Guild Wars 1, story driven - probably more so than the original. EVE Online: One of the exceptions - this game is almost entirely about roleplay, player vs player combat, etc. It's not procedural for the most part though. I'd say this is one of the ones closest to a "metaverse". I should note that CCP tried to go all-in on building a Metaverse out of EVE, releasing tie-in games that shared its universe along with first-person gameplay and character customization... and players soundly rejected all of it, forcing the studio to go back to focusing on the core game. Runescape: Know almost nothing about this one. Certain it's not procedurally generated, though. Star Wars The Old Republic: See Star Trek Online and LOTR above. Story driven, very heavy on roleplay. People came to this game for its unique crafted story campaigns for each class, and the studio spun up to build it used the name of EA's leading story game studio (BioWare). Final Fantasy XIV: Heavily story driven. Story is why people talk about this game. If you look at user reviews or professional reviews, they all mention the story. Elder Scrolls Online: This might have a good amount of procgen in it, since Bethesda does use that stuff - but my understanding is that this is a story-driven game as well. Could be an exception to the rule, I suppose. World of Warcraft: The textbook example, presumably why they put it at the end of the list. Wholly story-driven, every major piece of group content has story motivations attached to it and the bosses talk to you. They do things like obliterate parts of the game world and replace it for the purposes of plot. Games that are "not about content" are a subset of the larger games market, and some of them do make good money. However, even the ones that "aren't about story", like say the latest Call of Duty multiplayer shooter, are still "about content", because they sell you hand-crafted maps to play on and people pay money to get the latest expansion or update with new maps. Anyone familiar enough with the market knows this. It's okay if you don't, but I would hope investors would do their research before handing money to another "games startup" that's doomed to fail.
- themacguffinman 5y ago
  A bit of a tangent, there was a notorious reddit thread a long time ago with a comment by someone supposedly in the MMO industry [1] that echoes your point about content: > Art is one of the biggest expenses in a commercially-produced MMO. There's a LOT of it, it's time intensive to create, and it has to be turned around fast That thread mostly focused on how unrealistic it is for one person to develop an MMO by themselves, which is not exactly the case here. But it gives a bit of a taste as to why MMORPG is one of the most challenging game genres to succeed with. "Half of all MMOs commercially developed never release; half the survivors immediately fail", and the remaining successes almost all have staggeringly huge amounts of art & lore like you mentioned. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet_im_a_26_year_old_lady_whos_been/c3lup2l/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet...
- polytely 5y ago
  Thanks for your work on Guild Wars! That game meant a lot to me growing up, it's really something special.
- iand 5y ago
  Elder Scrolls Online is primarily content led
- jokoon 5y ago
  Comparing with the best AAA sellers is a strawman, and I don't see the point comparing those with one that is being incubated. Minecraft is a good example of a game that has almost not content but sold amazingly well. > Anyone familiar enough with the market knows this. It's okay if you don't, but I would hope investors would do their research before handing money to another "games startup" that's doomed to fail. The "market" cannot predict innovation or success. This startup will probably fail, yes, but ycombinator is a private initiative and it matters to give the benefit of the doubt. I agree about possible nepotism, but I still believe in what I said about procedural generation and hand crafted content. Hand made content is crazy expensive, and I really think that procedural generation is a good solution.
walrus01 5y ago
> Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. The amazing success and critical acclaim of single player games such as Horizon Zero Dawn, the Metal Gear Solid series and the Deus Ex series, among others, might make you reconsider your position on that.
- jokoon 5y ago
  I was talking about multiplayer games.
dbg31415 5y ago
> Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience... Did you play Fallout 76 at launch? Oof. It was terrible. They've since added NPCs, but it's really hard to fix a bad first impression.
rcxdude 5y ago
This is very rare in MMOs. Most are not really sandboxes but theme parks, where most multiplayer is through interacting with the content cooperatively.
duskwuff 5y ago
Realm of the Mad God was able to build a successful game because they were extremely conservative on features -- low-res 2D graphics, no user-generated content, simple game mechanics, limited persistence. DreamWorld is... not that. They're promising features which nobody has successfully brought to market before, with a team which doesn't appear to have any meaningful experience in the industry.

by jokoon 5y ago

kevingadd 5y ago

"Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. Online games don't need content or scenario or background." With a few notable exceptions, this is literally not true. Just do a survey of all the big money-earning PC MMOs or phone games. Picking a random result from page 1 of the google results for "best selling MMORPGs" - I'll place their list here and comment on it: Guild Wars: (I worked on this one) heavily story-driven, with a PvP mode. Can confirm lots of time and money was spent on the story content, and we had a competitor that tried to do our thing without the story, and it flopped. We released updates almost entirely made up of authored content and stories every year or so and they made good money. TERA: Gameplay-focused with lots of story content. Definitely would not have hit without the content. Planetside 2: One of the exceptions I mentioned - this is just a scaled up multiplayer FPS. (I kind of disagree with classifying this as an MMORPG, but I'm taking this list as it comes). Black Desert Online: Story focused. Haven't played this one so I can't comment in detail, but I've watched enough gameplay footage to be confident about this. Star Trek Online: Story focused (with some procedural content). Players are there for the content because they love Star Trek and (in some cases) want to role-play as a Starfleet captain. EverQuest: Somewhat story focused, but not in the way you'd normally see it now - more like a MUD with some very heavy developer guidance. They literally don't make them like this anymore, though, for good reason. Rift: Very much in the World of Warcraft mold. If you look at the promotional content on their website, it is clearly story focused even if it has some PvP and cooperative elements. Lord of the Rings Online: I feel like it shouldn't need to be said, but this game is entirely about story content and roleplay. When a friend of mine interviewed to join that team before getting hired, they quizzed him on the Silmarillion. Guild Wars 2: Like Guild Wars 1, story driven - probably more so than the original. EVE Online: One of the exceptions - this game is almost entirely about roleplay, player vs player combat, etc. It's not procedural for the most part though. I'd say this is one of the ones closest to a "metaverse". I should note that CCP tried to go all-in on building a Metaverse out of EVE, releasing tie-in games that shared its universe along with first-person gameplay and character customization... and players soundly rejected all of it, forcing the studio to go back to focusing on the core game. Runescape: Know almost nothing about this one. Certain it's not procedurally generated, though. Star Wars The Old Republic: See Star Trek Online and LOTR above. Story driven, very heavy on roleplay. People came to this game for its unique crafted story campaigns for each class, and the studio spun up to build it used the name of EA's leading story game studio (BioWare). Final Fantasy XIV: Heavily story driven. Story is why people talk about this game. If you look at user reviews or professional reviews, they all mention the story. Elder Scrolls Online: This might have a good amount of procgen in it, since Bethesda does use that stuff - but my understanding is that this is a story-driven game as well. Could be an exception to the rule, I suppose. World of Warcraft: The textbook example, presumably why they put it at the end of the list. Wholly story-driven, every major piece of group content has story motivations attached to it and the bosses talk to you. They do things like obliterate parts of the game world and replace it for the purposes of plot. Games that are "not about content" are a subset of the larger games market, and some of them do make good money. However, even the ones that "aren't about story", like say the latest Call of Duty multiplayer shooter, are still "about content", because they sell you hand-crafted maps to play on and people pay money to get the latest expansion or update with new maps. Anyone familiar enough with the market knows this. It's okay if you don't, but I would hope investors would do their research before handing money to another "games startup" that's doomed to fail.

themacguffinman 5y ago
A bit of a tangent, there was a notorious reddit thread a long time ago with a comment by someone supposedly in the MMO industry [1] that echoes your point about content: > Art is one of the biggest expenses in a commercially-produced MMO. There's a LOT of it, it's time intensive to create, and it has to be turned around fast That thread mostly focused on how unrealistic it is for one person to develop an MMO by themselves, which is not exactly the case here. But it gives a bit of a taste as to why MMORPG is one of the most challenging game genres to succeed with. "Half of all MMOs commercially developed never release; half the survivors immediately fail", and the remaining successes almost all have staggeringly huge amounts of art & lore like you mentioned. [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet_im_a_26_year_old_lady_whos_been/c3lup2l/ https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet...
polytely 5y ago
Thanks for your work on Guild Wars! That game meant a lot to me growing up, it's really something special.
iand 5y ago
Elder Scrolls Online is primarily content led
jokoon 5y ago
Comparing with the best AAA sellers is a strawman, and I don't see the point comparing those with one that is being incubated. Minecraft is a good example of a game that has almost not content but sold amazingly well. > Anyone familiar enough with the market knows this. It's okay if you don't, but I would hope investors would do their research before handing money to another "games startup" that's doomed to fail. The "market" cannot predict innovation or success. This startup will probably fail, yes, but ycombinator is a private initiative and it matters to give the benefit of the doubt. I agree about possible nepotism, but I still believe in what I said about procedural generation and hand crafted content. Hand made content is crazy expensive, and I really think that procedural generation is a good solution.

walrus01 5y ago

> Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience. The amazing success and critical acclaim of single player games such as Horizon Zero Dawn, the Metal Gear Solid series and the Deus Ex series, among others, might make you reconsider your position on that.

jokoon 5y ago
I was talking about multiplayer games.

dbg31415 5y ago

> Games are not about content, they're about multiplayer experience... Did you play Fallout 76 at launch? Oof. It was terrible. They've since added NPCs, but it's really hard to fix a bad first impression.

rcxdude 5y ago

This is very rare in MMOs. Most are not really sandboxes but theme parks, where most multiplayer is through interacting with the content cooperatively.

duskwuff 5y ago

Realm of the Mad God was able to build a successful game because they were extremely conservative on features -- low-res 2D graphics, no user-generated content, simple game mechanics, limited persistence. DreamWorld is... not that. They're promising features which nobody has successfully brought to market before, with a team which doesn't appear to have any meaningful experience in the industry.