GotMMOG?

It seems Vogster’s mediocre crime-themed “MMOG” is getting the finger in Australia because of it’s content…specifically, the drug use and how the game promotes it…

I don’t know what’s worse? The fact that a country with drugged out Koalas is unhappy with a game that uses it in a fictional environment? Or that a game as uninteresting as CrimeCraft is important enough to care. At the same time, if you were Vogster, would you care? Sure you’re losing “legal” access to a potential market but the friggin game is about being a criminal. You can’t go into the fray thinking everyone’s going to welcome your game into their “perfect” homes.

On the plus side for Vogster, I noticed they’re listed on Steam now so that might open them up for more business. Though, I think they need to do something better than the description they have for the different monthly subscription types:

The major differences between the two subscriptions are the extent of customization, skill slots, speed of experience gain and inventory capacity. Standard and Premium subscription features will also be showcased behind “velvet rope” areas to allow players to make a fully-informed subscription decision.

What the fuck? WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENCES?!? Granted your fees aren’t that high $5/10) compared to everyone else out there (that require a fee) but that’s the best description of the differences you can give me? Here’s what’s on the CrimeCraft web site. Holy shit. What does it all mean to a new player who has no idea how your game works?

And what does “limited” mean for some of these things? Auctions? What’s being limited? Number of items? Cost of items? What I can buy? What about Text Chat? Limited? What? I can’t use the letters M-Z? 120 character limit?

If you want to know how not to create a tiered subscription model, check out CrimeCraft.

How’s about considering something different? I love that the free subscription people can’t skill up higher than the first level. Huh? If it’s a trial, make it a trial. Give them the taste they want (we’re talking about criminals here)…even if it’s a couple weeks…then juice them with the premium sub. The “standard” sub is fine but it should limit things like character slots, access to certain areas, access to certain items for free (basically that “gold bar” system), etc.

There’s talk of a “velvet rope”. What does a velvet rope mean when you’re at a club or some event? It’s all about VIP access…something few people get and most people there want. So, make it worth it and tantalize people with the details. Let them see the “movie star” behind the lines…meaning, tell them about this great feature (a special map to fight on, some fancy gang house for your gang, a “members only” store with special items that can’t be traded) that they’re missing because they’re just a standard user.

This isn’t rocket science. Leave the friggin Jerry’s Deli-sized menu of features for microtransactions. Need more character slots (and the premium sub doesn’t cut it or you’re not that interested in it)? Pay $0.50 a month for a slot. Want that primo outfit for your toon? $1.00 buys it for you (one-time fee; not tradeable).

It’ll be interesting to see what happen when APB comes online. They aren’t exactly the same but they share the one common criminal theme. The difference is the cops-and-robbers idea of APB versus the gang v gang model of CrimeCraft. We’ll see come Spring 2010.

g afk

Surprise, surprise. It seems Vogster, the creator of the largely useless CrimeCraft shooter dressed in MMO gear is laying off some people as they “shift” from dev to maintenance of their–as they put it–”Persistent World Next-gen Shooter” or PWNS. LMAO. Right…Maybe it’s time I prepare my own Sustained Tactical Futuristic Urban game, or STFU as I call it, for layoffs now too.

Something tells me they’re seeing lackluster sales (hint: have you considered distributing it better?) and subs. At this stage, there isn’t much you can really do unless you have millions more to invest and revamp the game or something (like, maybe, picking a different name since it’s a blatant copy of Warcraft and also implies something MMOish which you don’t seem to have or want to promote anyway). Better yet, why not host a contest to find and vote for the best name for the game?

I mean, after all, you do need to shift focus once the game is made…technically you don’t need a full staff dedicated to creating all the systems and content and such necessarily. Ideally, you’d have a content creation and maintenance team that’s substantially smaller and you’d move development resources to the next game. Or if you’re onto something and are selling the game like gangbusters, you’d dedicate that dev team to the next expansion…or put some of them back into the maintenance team to update the game more regularly.

Something tells me these guys, who don’t strike me as veteran MMO devs, dreamed of billions in revenue as people, tired of WoW (which they are) flooded their servers to finally play something different and interesting. You’d think a shooter mixed with an MMO would work wonders since I know plenty of shooter gamers who drop out of regular play to join their guild in WoW for a while.

C’mon guys. Why is this so hard? Look at this article about WoW and iteration. Not everyone can afford the time to iterate everything but there’s definitely something to be said about making an interesting feature available and providing a clean and easy mechanism for feedback. It can work well IF you’re committed to it and if you act on it.

All I can say is, when I first heard about CrimeCraft and APB, I thought GTA where everyone (or almost everyone) is a player rather than an NPC. APB looks like it’s much closer to that idea and will likely do a lot better than CrimeCraft is right now. I can’t say that NO one likes CrimeCraft. But, in a market with COD, Halo, and L4D all coming out with sequels in the next few months that everyone wants, why would I care about a “persistent world” shooter? COD is much more entertaining and fun and I already know people I can play with. CrimeCraft? No idea. I know one person who WAS interested in it but with Aion coming out and their love for WAR still out there, guess who’s gonna lose a subscriber?

g afk

So, CrimeCraft is officially out. The thing is…who cares? I played the closed beta and as unfinished as it was the only real bullet point of any note was the fact that the bulk of the game was supposed to be about the FPS-like (definitely not straight FPS…just FPS-like) matches. Basically, the game is something like a hybrid of Guild Wars with the “MMO” lobby and instanced gaming and a third-person shooter.

It’s been a month or two since I played it so it’s possible they might have made some changes for the better but I seriously doubt it. You’ve still got the static NPCs, you’ve got imbalanced weapons, you’ve got a lot of people trying to be gangster.

Also, I think the fact that they’re self-publishing (definitely not showing up in Amazon’s catalog) and not seeing much in the way of advertising is a telling sign. No one wanted to grab this sucker and roll with it…on 24′s.

Feel free to try it out but don’t expect much.

g afk

So, the CrimeCraft closed beta’s been closed down for the time being. Again, those lovely NDAs are clamping things down but given its focus on TPS (third-person shooter) PvP combat, it’s made me think about the coming glut of FPS-MMOGs that are looking to come out.

Sanister’s going to talk about one and we’ve all played Planetside at one point in our MMO lives. FPS and MMOs are coming whether we like it or not.

Now, Sanister and I are both FPS players as well. UT, Quake, CS, TF2, COD…we’ve been there. And, as any shooter fan will say, beyond skill, lag is a bitch and a half when playing a game that relies more on skill and less on die rolls.

The big question is, assuming you instance things to keep player counts low and thus ideally limit lag caused by massive numbers of people on the same shard at the same time (gotta love running into IronForge and seeing shadows all around because the game still hasn’t loaded everyone’s toon yet), will there be enough FPS players willing to cross over to a MMOG to fight it out?

Sure there are a number of people who play both game types (just mention WoW or something in chat in COD and you’ll get people talking about their level 8os on some server somewhere). But, will those players really want to grind the PvE environment to hit the end game so that the instanced matches are easier to win? How do you deal with the differences in lag (not to mention skill) from player to player?

I think the most important factor any FPS-MMOG has to address is matchmaking. In most FPS games, you do your own matchmaking. You join a server…get your ass handed to you and move on to another server. Or you stick with it and learn to compete against the best player to become one of them. Battlefield Heroes supposedly matches you up with players of “similar skill”. If that’s based on rank and kills then that’s gonna be a mistake. COD’s mini-RPG in multiplayer is easy enough to max out and reinstalling the game loses enough of your profile if you’re not careful that plenty of solid players might appear as the lowest ranked person on the server.

If these FPS-MMOGs can match based on average ping and to some extent skill level, then they might make the whole FPS/MMOG union work…shotgun optional. Otherwise, if the devs focus on more accurately modelling the trajectory of a 7.64mm bullet as it exits the barrel of an AK instead of matchmaking, you’ll end up with another niche game better suited to those players that love to be one of the few, the proud, the final supports of a once proud game.

Time will tell…

g afk