One of the major quibbles that I have with SWTOR is the fact that they have borrowed so heavily from other MMOs; to the point where many experienced MMO players consider it to be something akin to “WoW in Space.” The devs on SWTOR don’t appear to want to learn from previous game’s mistakes. Their propensity is to simply copy what has worked before. However, what worked five years ago may not apply to today’s market. Games do not exist in a vacuum, and technology, social attitudes of the time, and player expectations all influence the success of a game in a particular time and place.
Which is why the new announcement from Goblinworks regarding the Pathfinder MMO title is so intriguing. In it they list a number of areas which they want to follow in development. Not all of these are new; SWTOR for example has made quite a lot of use of middleware technology. But it is the culture behind these ideas which is of most importance. And Goblinworks appears to be determined to learn from past MMOs and to not only avoid their mistakes but to take game development in new directions.
So when I read this announcement I wonder if we just might be getting what we have long asked for:
At launch, and for the first seven months following, we will cap new paying players at 4,500 per month. Four thousand five hundred new paying players monthly. We expect to keep only about 25% of those players on a long-term basis, so after we factor in attrition of each month’s signups, we end up with 16,500 paying players at the end of that seven-month period.
Making a game that starts with 4,500 players and grows to 16,500 players is much, much easier and vastly less expensive than making a game designed to accommodate a million players on day one. We’ll be able to focus on a relatively small part of the world at first, expanding it only as we need to.
After the first seven months, we’ll raise the limit on new paying players to 12,000 per month. That will remain our goal for the next couple years of Pathfinder Online’s life cycle. Factoring in attrition, by the end of the game’s third year of operation, we expect to have about 120,000 paying players. For many MMOs, that number would be considered a failure, but because of our lean development strategy, achieving that number of paying customers will mean success for Pathfinder Online.
Details aside for the moment, this is thinking outside of the box. And above all it is an attempt to set up a game to succeed as opposed to positioning yourself for an epic load of failure. I can see issues with this of course, the major one being that MMOs are a social game and players like to bring their friends which this will restrict. But when you add in some more of their goals such as a non-instanced world and possibly only one server, then things start to get very interesting.
We have long lamented the fact that the ultimate expression of MMOs got bogged down with the super theme-park style display. To be honest, after Ultima Online it has been a long and slow rush downhill to where players are akin to lab rats pushing buttons to get rewards and an emotional hit. The achievement system is the ultimate expression of a game without soul and players with no mind of their own. To be honest I don’t know if this will work. But I love that at least they’re trying a different approach.
December 9, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Interesting. I do find it applaudable that they redefine success for themselves and don’t jump on the same bandwagon as others that rush for as many as possible, as soon as possible.
however, I do see many issues here in terms of choosing players; will it be restricted to geographic areas, will it be random, will you be able to join a friend on the same server (if there’s more than one) and when, etc.
there’s the up-side business wise, but from the individual player’s PoV this will cause a great deal of frustrations. if you’re among the chosen, you won’t care of course, but if you’re not, would you be willing to wait? and for how long?
The one big server is also not what I would personally want to see; when I read your title first, I thought “restricted players per server, w00t”, but then that’s not what they’re aiming at. too bad, I’d rather wanna see more servers with such small numbers.
December 9, 2011 at 2:41 pm
That’s very interesting, indeed. I may have to take a look into Pathfinder… but I know I’m a one-game player. I played the Bard’s Tale trilogy (for instance) almost exclusively for over two years. Played it over and over and over. I’ve not really picked up any games other than WoW as more than a cursory glance since I started playing only months after launch.
But, I think it is an interesting business model. As Syl said, I would think that running even a half dozen servers with that kind of a player restriction would actually be more beneficial to the company than limitting it to one server. It also makes me wonder what problems they anticipate at launch…
December 10, 2011 at 2:22 am
Didn’t initial Wii and Xbox sales use the whole supply:demand ratio to their benefit? I could see this very well being the same thing. Are there more than 5k Pathfinder players worldwide? Undoubtedly. You’d prolly have that many in transient gamers alone for any random indie title.
Limiting expectations to a level that is well within reasonably achievable is the right business move. Watching as those expectations are shattered with demand is just free PR.
December 12, 2011 at 4:22 pm
I really hope they can make this work. I’m not sure how about the business side of it; this model is a new one. I do like the basic idea of it. It’s the gameplay that needs to feel different though, you need to be easily immersed into the game, and it should be possible to just pick up and start playing without doing a lot of research outside the game.
I’m intrigued.