Originally posted by madazz

Glad someone else called him on his bs about the graphics. However, I played the game. I tried twice. Both times I just couldn't force myself to play anymore. Who had the idea to put mmo quests in a single player game? Just my opinion, but it killed the whole game for me.

Agreed. I personally wish that MMOs got rid of quests like that, adding them in a singleplayer games was not a good idea.

Originally posted by AbdullaDoo

You can listen to a clip from news radio in Providence here:

http://www.630wpro.com/Article.asp?id=2456271&spid=

 

"In the hiring of all of the individuals, the salaries they were talking about, they're eating up $20-25 million a year just in salary."

"If it was a bank that had to lend this type of money, they'd require all kinds of statements on a regular basis."

"The Rhode Island taxpayers will be responsible if 38 Studios cannot pay it back."

 

 

Many developers make over a $100k+ a year.  You hire 100 developers your paying $10M a year.  And that is being very conservative. 

Anyone getting into a venture like this who doesn't understand there would be somewhere in that neighborhood in salaries is fucking incompetent.

How much is one Schilling worth?

To my 2001 World Series Diamondbacks, it is worth a World Series.

To Rhode Island, it is worth negative $112.6 million.

GW2 only have 270 people to do AAA b2p MMO.

38S borrowed 75mil in return have to employ 450 people in RI doesn't really make sense.

Kurt Schilling should have not make that deal.

He should just start it small, independant and he could outsourced some work to save cost.

Originally posted by kokopuff
Game is complete vaporware. Source:I work in the building they rented from. empty empty space

Game exists. I played it. Emply office might equal just a mailing address as opposed to a PO box.

KoA only sold 300k or whatever amount because it was overpriced. They priced themselves out of the running. $60 is crazy talk for this and most games. Worth half that maybe.

Originally posted by xmenty

GW2 only have 270 people to do AAA b2p MMO.

38S borrowed 75mil in return have to employ 450 people in RI doesn't really make sense.

Kurt Schilling should have not make that deal. 

He should just start it small, independant and he could outsourced some work to save cost.

To 38s defense are they also making single player games.

But yeah, they probably took too much water over their heads. Undead labs are doing the same thing with a lot less cash. Of course UL do have a very experienced lead designer and programmer while 38S main talents are an artist and a writer, skipping on good programmers can get really expensive.

I hope they turn things around though, we need more AAA MMOs, not less.

this is good news.. im happy to hear this.

we dont need anymore WOW clones. not only is it boring to play them, it no longer makes money.

im sorry devs, you need to think and create now. riding on the back of WOWs success doesnt work anymore.

not to mention that making a clone a video game is pointless. we can just play the original. its a complete waste of money, time and resources.

Originally posted by bartoni33

Originally posted by kokopuff
Game is complete vaporware. Source:I work in the building they rented from. empty empty space

Game exists. I played it. Emply office might equal just a mailing address as opposed to a PO box.

KoA only sold 300k or whatever amount because it was overpriced. They priced themselves out of the running. $60 is crazy talk for this and most games. Worth half that maybe.

38 studios did not develop KoA, they bought another dev company and had them change their game they were working on. The mmo they were supposedly making is vaporware, they rented 6 floors of the building I'm in and four of them had no one in them ever.

Originally posted by gestalt11

Public funding on ventures like this is a terrible idea to beging with.  Chafee musta been high.  And now Studio 38 is in a terrible position with a governments and governors hooks in them going over thier dirty laundry because they are scared about an election.

 

Can you imagine how the beta would get run with a bunch of IRS auditors breathing down people's necks.  They certainly wouldn't be saying things like "It'll release when its done".

 

Any MMO that has a politicians hooks into it is doomed.  period.

I don't think it was a smart idea either (from the public's persepctive), but again, for the record, Chafee was against this deal from the very beginning.  The deal was signed and sealed during the previous election and is on the shoulder of the previous governor, Carcieri.  Chafee inherited the responsibility to try to keep the studio going in the best interest of the public.  One of the problems it appears is that there hasn't been enough oversight.

Strange, I thought KoA was great, and for a 60 dollar game you got at least 2 hours of enjoyment per dollar, way more than you get for other games these days.  I'm shocked by the low sales volume.

Originally posted by kokopuff

Originally posted by bartoni33

Originally posted by kokopuff
Game is complete vaporware. Source:I work in the building they rented from. empty empty space

Game exists. I played it. Emply office might equal just a mailing address as opposed to a PO box.

KoA only sold 300k or whatever amount because it was overpriced. They priced themselves out of the running. $60 is crazy talk for this and most games. Worth half that maybe.

38 studios did not develop KoA, they bought another dev company and had them change their game they were working on. The mmo they were supposedly making is vaporware, they rented 6 floors of the building I'm in and four of them had no one in them ever.

38 Studios have had staffing problems, and are missing their job-creation milestones for several reasons including budgetary and the fact that the area is not a game or software development hub of any sort.  The game may be behind schedule, and over budget, but the game is not vaporware.  If it were, then the Rhode Island EDC, Pricewaterhousecoopers, IBM, and Standard & Poor's are all complicit in a conspiracy to defraud the public as they have all vetted and audited 38 Studios.  Well now that I think about it, that is probably the norm for modern business.

Getting 120 hours out of a game doesn't make it worth $60 if the whole ride is mediocre at best. Whoever thought that many "kill x quests" belongs in a single-player game deserves to have this kind of failure placed squarely on their shoulders. It's not even acceptable in an MMO these days, but a single player? Come on, now. A single-player RPG is a chance for a game to shine, a chance for the player to evolve and change the world in ways you can't in an MMO without ruining the chance for others to participate. 

So no, no shock to me the game failed. I actually liked the combat, I liked the aesthetic too, as well as the character development. But the storyline was incredibly cliche, and the rest of the game lacked effort in its conception, as if they were working the animators and modelers so hard they forgot to make the writers and designers do their part, too.

It's sad when games and studios fail, but I still maintain that pain and loss are the best way to learn a lesson. The more of these stories their are, hopefully the sooner studios will learn that you can't just churn out a bogus game for a quick cash grab. 

update

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/16/no-relief-in-sight-for-38-studios-after-emergency-meeting/

Joystiq reports that "it appears 38 Studios put up all present and future IP by the company as collateral," meaning that if the studio defaults, the state of Rhode Island will own all of its game assets

Originally posted by Nadia

update

http://massively.joystiq.com/2012/05/16/no-relief-in-sight-for-38-studios-after-emergency-meeting/

Joystiq reports that "it appears 38 Studios put up all present and future IP by the company as collateral," meaning that if the studio defaults, the state of Rhode Island will own all of its game assets

Yep, just what I figured. 38 will end up dissolved.

Well with the mediocre reception of Amular and the stated direction they wanted to take there MMO this was kind of expected. Interest died in the games and the company fast.

Amular (While in my opinion was good) did little to show off the power house talent they had.

Ken Rolsten - Amular had no large sandbox world, it was more of a hack and slash themepark.

R. A. Salvatore - With the story and the quests and such the way they were it was hard to believe that Salvatore was even part of this.

Todd McFarlane - It simply was hard to see his influence in the game as much of the art and graphics seemed to be designed with WoW in mind.

The news about a less action oriented combat system for the MMO and no sandbox kind of killed much of the hype.

You put a team like this together there will be certain expectations.

After Amular it was clear that this team would never deliver on the expectations, it was sadly destined to fail.

Im on KoA forums quite often, my understanding was that there were in the range of 330k box sales, digital sales exceeded 1 million and that the overall sensus was that KoA was a sucess in the eyes of the forum dwellers. 

I really love KoA, although I definitely didnt love the camera they used.  If only they had a normal mmo camera instead of the crap one that has to constantly follow you.  I really loved the art style and the game world it self was interesting given the cirumstances as a single player game. 

KoA was inteded to be a mmorpg from my understanding, that was made into a single player game. I realize they want to make a mmo with 38 stuidios to so im not confusing the two.

I really hope 38 stuidos can pull off there mmo though, cause the little of KoA I played I enjoyed very much.

Curt was looking a bit frazzled while running the media gauntlet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=BZ_6PkeO_g8

Funny how Schilling has always stated he's against government in business and especially government bailouts, yet he's looking for R.I.'s government to bail his company out.

Dude is a hypocritical joke.

The game is not bad.  My ex is way into it more so than the sims.

Its like a combination of WoW, Fable, Skyrim or Elder Scrolls.  To me the story is kind of dry with no humor nor engaging though.