At the recent PAX East 2011, MMORPG.com played host to a developer panel featuring some of the industry’s best and brightest including Curt Schilling of 38 Studios, Craig Alexander of Turbine, Jeremy Gaffney of Carbine, Scott Hartsman of Trion, Brian Knox of En Masse, James Ohlen of BioWare, and Colin Johanson of ArenaNet. Find out what the discussion revealed in Lead Writer Bill Murphy's last report on this exciting event. Leave us a comment or two when you're finished.

You can read parts one, two, and three of our PAX Panel Recap, but to save some time and get to the nitty gritty let’s dive right into the next question from the thousand or so in attendance.

Read Bill Murphy's MMORPG.com PAX East Panel - Pt. 4.

First off, I'm totally looking forward to the new work in the sub-genres of the MMO realm. Personally i would be very interested in something like a more escapism GTA-like world. Somewhere between Fable and GTA would be awesome, but maybe that's just me. Imagine a MMO that isn't centered around combat.

How many here have heard about World Of Darkness? If not, check it out.

Whats wrong with my giant floating phalluses art?!?  :p

Nothing's wrong with it... just get in line with the other 300,000,000,000 kids who will try to do it before you

MMMM one company that I've seen making strides in this direction would have to be paradox interactive. Games like dreamlords (MMORTS) and salem (less combat oriented MMO with perm death) really could be the future of the industry. 

Quote:    Curt Schilling added that it’s hard to take risks in the MMO industry mainly because the budgets are so huge and taking a risk can often mean risking tens of millions of dollars on a formula that’s not proven.  Instead, he thinks it will be the smaller studios with smaller budgets that perhaps could drive growth in different MMO types.

IF it means Risking 'Tens of Millions' of Dollars Why would he think a 'Smaller Studio' with a 'Smaller Budget' could do it? 

IF it costs Millions of Dollars - Surely the Smaller Studios will not have that kind of budget! Seems to be a contradiction.

Originally posted by S00S00

IF it means Risking 'Tens of Millions' of Dollars Why would he think a 'Smaller Studio' with a 'Smaller Budget' could do it? 

IF it costs Millions of Dollars - Surely the Smaller Studios will not have that kind of budget! Seems to be a contradiction.

 

It's not that an MMO can't be built on a smaller budget. It is that the larger studios won't do it. It's not considered to be worth their time and investors money to make a small buget game and get the smaller returns generally associated with it. Big companies want WoW numbers.

Basically, Curt is saying the small studios will experiment, trying to distinguish their product w/something other than huge production values, and then the bigger studios will steal any of it that actually works to make a big budget version.

Sad, but likely an accurate prediction.

Sabrel has the right of it.

Larger companies don't risk large amounts of money just because something is cool. Smaller companies are hungrier and are most likely put together by people who are really interested in exploring a specific idea. Unfortunately they have a lot of hurdles to jump over as they might not have the experience, might be trying to create something that their funding can't support over the long term and of course have to cut some corners in some departments i order to bring their game to life.

Doesn't help to see an indy company show some screen shots and "some" players start going off on how it's 2011 and "those graphics look so '90's".

This whole panel thing makes you wonder why nothing they say ever comes to be. No doubt they left PAX and went back to their studios to design the next WOW clone.

The argument that people would create 'giant floating phalluses' is ridiculous.  A simple /report system that is already used to stop people from harassment and naming their characters bad words could be used just as easily to report a giant phallus.

Furthermore, a community panel or voting system could be used to filter out quality content from objectionable before allowed in the game if we are referring to players being allowed to model or name their own objects (for instance, the vast majority of ships in Pirates of the Burning Sea were modeled by players and monitored by a player panel).

Furthermore, a player driven world does not necessarily have to have player modeled objects.  The level of creativity allowed in games like UO and SWG was satisfactory without allowing players to model objects.  Arranging and customizing objects is a huge step in itself away from linear mmorpgs.  

Technically someone could draw a penis on the ground in a house in SWG, but the game is community driven enough that few would want to.  I have never seen it in the game before despite it being possible.  If you don't want to see the phallus you can just leave that players house.  You can report that player as well, as an alternative, both to the player city council, the players guild, and to the developers of the game.

PS: 'Larger companies' are idiots when they set out to make a linear RPG on a budget that is probably 1/10 of that of WoWs and actually expect their game to be a competetor to WoW or think they can take a decent market share to pay for the game.  That makes little business sense.  The only thing that makes less sense is the people playing these games when they could be playing a superior linear mmorpg, WoW.

Originally posted by S00S00

Quote:    Curt Schilling added that it’s hard to take risks in the MMO industry mainly because the budgets are so huge and taking a risk can often mean risking tens of millions of dollars on a formula that’s not proven.  Instead, he thinks it will be the smaller studios with smaller budgets that perhaps could drive growth in different MMO types.

IF it means Risking 'Tens of Millions' of Dollars Why would he think a 'Smaller Studio' with a 'Smaller Budget' could do it? 

IF it costs Millions of Dollars - Surely the Smaller Studios will not have that kind of budget! Seems to be a contradiction.

 

 Keep in mind that many smaller studios never get past that 1st MMO. A larger studio and larger budget have larger investors who aren't willing to take a long shot with their $$$. Failing for these investors pretty much guarantes you are now a small studio and will find it very hard to attract the big $$$ needed for a serious MMO in the future. 

Originally posted by Dwarvish

Originally posted by S00S00

Quote:    Curt Schilling added that it’s hard to take risks in the MMO industry mainly because the budgets are so huge and taking a risk can often mean risking tens of millions of dollars on a formula that’s not proven.  Instead, he thinks it will be the smaller studios with smaller budgets that perhaps could drive growth in different MMO types.

IF it means Risking 'Tens of Millions' of Dollars Why would he think a 'Smaller Studio' with a 'Smaller Budget' could do it? 

IF it costs Millions of Dollars - Surely the Smaller Studios will not have that kind of budget! Seems to be a contradiction.

 

 Keep in mind that many smaller studios never get past that 1st MMO. A larger studio and larger budget have larger investors who aren't willing to take a long shot with their $$$. Failing for these investors pretty much guarantes you are now a small studio and will find it very hard to attract the big $$$ needed for a serious MMO in the future. 

Thats why you make a cash-cow like TRION did with RIFT.