http://multiplayerblog.mtv.com/2008/...-age-of-conan/

http://forums.ageofconan.com/showthread.php?t=163531

Mythic VP and lead “Warhammer Online” designer Mark Jacobs told me some of the things needed to make a successful MMO. But he also said if you’re looking to make an online game nowadays, the odds are against you.

“If you look at the numbers, MMOs have the highest failure rates of any entertainment product,” Jacobs said. Going all the way back 11 years to the release of “Ultima Online,” the first MMO to reach 100,000 subscribers, he said that there have only a been handful of successful MMOs compared to the number of them being developed.

I mentioned how the measure of success nowadays might be if your game still exists in a year. “It does seem that way,” he said, “and it is just tremendously sad when you look at the amount of money and effort that goes into MMOs.”

In our recent conversation about the state of online games, we also touched on why last year’s “Hellgate: London” went under, and what the troubled “Age of Conan” can do to prevent the same fate.

First, we discussed “Hellgate: London,” the online action-RPG was made by Jacobs’ long-time friend Bill Roper. Though Roper had experience as VP of Blizzard North working on the “Diablo” series, his company Flagship Studios recently closed its doors following the release of “Hellgate,” its first title, last October. So what went wrong?

“I know for a fact that sometimes just having talent is not enough,” Jacobs said after a long sigh. “You need leadership and you need patience. And what’s most important — something that so many developers forget — is you also need to deflate the ego a little bit. You really have to remember that as good as you were then — ‘Diablo’ was a great game — you’re not always going to be right… I think for ‘Hellgate,’ that was part of the problem.”

He also said that no matter how great you think your game is, developers must listen to the community. “It doesn’t mean you have to follow what they say, but you always have to listen,” he said. “The test of greatness is to know how to look at it and either incorporate it or learn from it. We might listen to the wrong advice, but we always listen. That’s how I think all developers have to be because nobody is that smart and nobody is right all the time.”

On the topic of the listening to the community, I wondered what Jacobs thought about Funcom’s May-released MMO “Age of Conan” and the trouble the company has had in terms of delivering promises to its fanbase. Blizzard president Mike Morhaime recently said that 40 percent of “WoW” players who left for “Conan” have since returned.

“If I was a ‘WoW’ subscriber, and I played another game hoping it would be great and it wasn’t, of course I would come back,” he said. “I’m not saying ‘Conan’ sucks but obviously the people who left it thought it sucked, otherwise they wouldn’t have left it. And the same thing may happen to us… ‘Conan’ had great sales initially, but then [Funcom] failed to follow up with continued great sales. If you’re not selling boxes anymore, if players aren’t talking about how good your game is, then obviously people are not happy with it.”

With Jacobs having played the game and having read fan postings on both the “Warhammer” and “Age of Conan” forums, he thought that Funcom should have delayed the game. "I think that the greatest mistake that they made was not listening and not learning from what had gone before,” Jacobs said, referring to the launch issues of Funcom’s “Anarchy Online” in 2001. “When they looked at ['Age of Conan'] when they were ready to launch, I can’t imagine how they didn’t see the issues that other people saw. According to their annual reports, they had plenty of money. They should’ve looked at it and said, ‘We need to delay this game.’ There are probably reasons I’m not aware of… but I think that’s their biggest sin.”

Jacobs said not all was lost for “Conan,” but with “Warhammer” and another “WoW” expansion on the way, they’ve now lost their head start. “If they’re willing to spend the time and the money to fix the things that — according to the players — are broken, and put in the things that players say they didn’t put in, they can turn it around,” he said. “But now they’re going to have to leapfrog over us and then leapfrog over Blizzard in order to bring back a ton of players — that’s going to be tough. They won’t be what they could’ve been.

Though “Age of Conan” is competition, Jacobs told me he actually wanted the game to do well. “At some level I wanted ‘Conan’ to succeed because for the last few years people have been saying it’s all Blizzard and nobody else can do it,” he said. “‘Only Blizzard can get those kind of numbers,’ and so far they’ve been right. But now it’s our turn.”

He added, “If we don’t succeed with EA behind us, the ‘Warhammer’ IP behind us, with one of the most experienced teams in the industry, that’s not going to be good for the industry. We need to show the world that it’s not just Blizzard who can make a great game, and that the audience is absolutely willing to try new things and to play a game other than ‘WoW.’”

If that wasn't the truth.....

Well said, I agree with him. I really wanted to continue to play AoC... but the bugs ruined it for me :( Anyways, heres to hoping WAR has a fantastic launch and sales.

My god, look at how rude that mod Charon replying on AoC's forms is.  I though they got rid of the rude mods after i left AoC, but i was wrong Oo

Originally posted by RoseWater

My god, look at how rude that mod Charon replying on AoC's forms is.  I though they got rid of the rude mods after i left AoC, but i was wrong Oo

Poor quality moderation.

He's in defensive mode because his game just got straight up dissed. He's only so pissed because everything Mark said was pretty much spot on.

that is why the AOC forums are trash...."due to popular request. thread is closed" pathetic

did you see the guy asking for a permaban of anyone that didn't think the game was amazing in its current state? THAT is what is wrong with AOC

Agree, that thread shouldn't have been closed because it did have something to do with Age of Conan. And that mod shouldn't have said that, if there's one way that mods should act, it should be neutral and without emotion. It just creates a more professional looking company that way, at least imo.

someone reposted it in off-topic and charon decided that arguing with the person that posted it would look professional. its AOC news...i hardly see how it should even be off-topic really

 Everytime I read something of Mark's, I'm always very impressed. I really like him.

With the release of some of the games lately, you would think developers don't know how to make a great game.  A successful mmo is very possible, but it appears there are a lot of self destructive types currently designing and managing these games.

If you want to know what the next great successful mmo is destined to be, start perusing these forums.  Yeah....skip over the negative crap, and you will see there are some really smart people around here with some brilliant ideas.  The problem is getting the idea people together with the folks that can make it happen.  That's the wall we need to break down.  Unfortunately because of the huge sums of money required to make these games, it seems unlikely .

Mod's need to be tested for personality defects. I'm sick of seeing elitist and socially inept people being lifted to moderator status.
Reminds me of sports referees who constantly blow the whistle on any infraction of the rules compared to the ones who let things slide a little to keep the game flowing and interesting.

I'm so glad I quit AoC, cause after reading how Charon reacted to it and the comments of other posters, I have seen first hand now just how piss poor Funcom is and how they are handling their own mess. Funcom is stopping at nothing to becoming the worst MMO company in history. SOE can finally relax now I guess, lol.

i'm just sick of seeing some of the insults being thrown around by members of that community that obviously got a free pass. every negative thread is hit with insulting comments that are apparently allowed because the person that said it likes the game. i see more offensive behavior and name calling that should be moderated from the AOC defense team. the "haters" do have a big share of offensive posts...but at this point, it really does look like an attempt to censor bad reviewsm

Going to be interesting to see if Gaute comes up with some kind of response to Mark's claims.  More classic steak moments.

Wow...not the OP but the link to the AoC forums. I could not subscribe to a game knowing that moderators of their forums were going to act like such children. For people who paid money to play the game and the right to post on that forum to just delete what they have to say on such shaky grounds and manufacture stuff about popular demand for closing threads is ludicrous.

Originally posted by Hydrakana

Going to be interesting to see if Gaute comes up with some kind of response to Mark's claims.  More classic steak moments.

prime rib is next on the menu...it takes awhile to cook afterall

Originally posted by Hydrakana

Going to be interesting to see if Gaute comes up with some kind of response to Mark's claims.  More classic steak moments.

lol, true, but i dont think he got anything to say....

Actually, personally i dont think with blizz only heading the top of the charts is bad. At least it makes other developers really think to come out with something new. Or else they will only get a medicore subs....

Back to AoC, if the dev really think the same as the mod, than i can say there's no future for this game....

sad and i fear for the dev jobs....

yeah, i got banned for 6 months for saying epeen and talking about a tactic where mater was closing "i quit" threads because it was discussing account info.

yes, i trolled, but i never got infractions for trolling, i got banned for making a comment about whether that was really what is meant by "discussing account info"

btw, famine just apparently pwned charon, cause the thread is open again. i knew i had a reason to like famine. too bad he is the only one i have any respect for

I like it when someone like Mark makes these comments.  It echoes what we have all been saying but when it comes from the mouth of someone in the public eye, it makes people take this view point seriously.

Fan boys try to put it down to us being burnt out from too much gaming, but situations like this go to prove them wrong.