Blizzard's next project, Star craft 2 or Diablo 3?

[Smiley]

Absolutely.... The unique-ness in the medieval games today is fading...
I'm getting really tired of swords and magic..:!!!
What I want, is either a ghost from SC with a 14 Canister rifle, blowing away unsuspecting victims, or a protoss warrior slicing and dicing Zerg!

[Kinnicus]

Starcraft 2 would kick sooo much ass. I would just like ot see starcraft redone in 3d, nad new graphices, but to get a whoe new game would be "fantastic" yay.

I hate Diablo II.....and the expansion pack....I used to love them, to play them everyday, used to be kick ass.....But all you do is go through the game, kill the baddies, and once their dead, go back and kill them again in hopes of getting a unique or set item off their myteriously-brought-back-from-death-the-first-time-you-killed-them bodies.


Baal was so fukin easy, diablos a bitch, I swear to god If they come out with anothre diablo game, I will go to the store, and shit on the display, you have my guanrtee
-Steve

p.s. Diablo I is ok tho, I still play it sometimes, the expansion pack ; Hellfire, for that is cool too.

[Saint_Proverbius]

The market has grown. Therefore there is more money in it. Inevitably, this attracts more providers.

No, it doesn't. The market hasn't grown all that much and now MMORPGs are starting to charge $15-$20 a month for them, which will hamper that growth. It will also insure that people don't play more than one MMORPG per month because of the price of admission.

The unsuccessful providers will fail and lose money. For successful ones, there is more money to be had than ever.

Not true, because the market is only so large, the growth rate isn't that large, and the more and more MMOs that are released, the less people there are to go around between them.

[Araanor]

Firstly, WoWC and Diablo 1/2 are done by different teams, heck, they aren't even in the same city!

The duping problem is removed by unique item numbers and more checks. It would hog resources and it isn't something they want to do when Battle.net is free, hence half-ass solutions. I'm not sure how protected Diablo 2 is today.

[Rosh]

Firstly, WoWC and Diablo 1/2 are done by different teams, heck, they aren't even in the same city!

Origin had an amazing set of development, not confined to one building. As did a couple of other dev houses that went MMOG. Those outside could be coaxed to move towards the parent section or culled off when the MMOG does well and the others games don't draw in as much money (like in MicroForté's case). But that's theoretically, as you're going to see another instance of the dot-com bust, but this time with MMOGs.

The duping problem is removed by unique item numbers and more checks. It would hog resources and it isn't something they want to do when Battle.net is free, hence half-ass solutions. I'm not sure how protected Diablo 2 is today.

Not very, really. The unique items bit sometimes didn't work or it also caused other problems. Just scour the D2 forums at some fansites for miraculously vanishing stuff when they log in, and not through broken-into accounts, either.

Plus, that was the best way to implement a check on their "secure" games? Sorry, but that's lazy as shit, rather than come up with solid item handling routines.

If they did such for a commercial server versus the free Bnet, it would result in the specs being more and perhaps even more of a nightmare to the point of gaining a nickname like EQ did through it's beta - EverCrash.

[VasikkA]

They'll probably make a Diablo for the consoles.

[Lynxer]

SC2, definitely. I would like to see the same concept with new graphical support and an enhanced storyline including no other then the 3 races mentioned in the original.

[Smiley]

They'll probably make a Diablo for the consoles.

Oh jesus christ let THAT not be true!!!!

[VasikkA]

They'll probably make a Diablo for the consoles.

Oh jesus christ let THAT not be true!!!!

Well, think about it. Console markets are bigger than PC. And a hack n' slash game like Diablo would easily be transformed into a Xbox or PS2 game, even into a game that runs on all platforms PC included. That's where the money is and that's where Blizzard probably goes. The last Blizzard games haven't been too revolutionizing as they were before so they'll probably develop their large titles, war/starcraft and diablo and go into the console market.

[Araanor]

Origin had an amazing set of development, not confined to one building. As did a couple of other dev houses that went MMOG. Those outside could be coaxed to move towards the parent section or culled off when the MMOG does well and the others games don't draw in as much money (like in MicroForté's case). But that's theoretically, as you're going to see another instance of the dot-com bust, but this time with MMOGs.

I'll elaborate: Some years back, Blizzard bought a development house named (I think) Condor. They remained at their location and was renamed Blizzard North. Condor's game in development was Diablo. After it's release they started working on Diablo 2.

World of Warcraft is being developed by one of the main Blizzard's teams.

To me, Blizzard means stable, balanced, polished and very enjoyable gameplay. Blizzard North does not.

[Slave_Master]

Well, Diablo was a pretty stable game by itself. I think that they just didn't do anything about the hacks because it was free. They weren't getting any money from Bnet, so they didn't care. Diablo is a fun game, if it is what you like. Even then, it does get old quickly. But I don't think Blizzard North is responsible for the players on MP cheating the hell out of it.

But I would agree, Blizzard does make better games than the North division.

[Rosh]

World of Warcraft is being developed by one of the main Blizzard's teams.

To me, Blizzard means stable, balanced, polished and very enjoyable gameplay. Blizzard North does not.

Blizzard itself, yes, I believe you. However, in the QA world, Blizzard main would be rather stupid if they allowed a sleazy hack to be patched in perpetual without having someone else take a look at the code and find fixes. North might develop the game, but I'd lay good money that Blizzard itself does most of the QA on it and also looks to improve it. It's either that, or they're idiots.

Also given that Blizzard might also be a bit...virgin when it comes to MMORPGs might be another point. There's much more to take into account than RTS games, and they might pull it off, they might not. Are they going to make the mistake of not using a dumb client, or are they going to try to take some of the load off the server? Remains to be seen, but if they screw up with that they might run into some problems.

I don't recognise any of their people from the MUD development community nor other MMORPG projects in the past. Origin and many others have had team members who were into MMO development before they worked on UO. It's also going to be a bit...amusing to see how they try to balance out twinks versus casual players. Most of the lure of the game and regular subscriptions comes at a scaled difficulty and addictiveness, as any EverCrack addict could tell you.

Some aspects of WoWC do have my interest piqued, but there's also aspects that do raise my doubts.

[Dark Xenomorph]

On the subject of console ports, Blizzard did port SC and Diablo to console! How dare they! Diablo went to PS and SC went to N64. N64? eww!
And they werent very good i hear. diablo just fell of the market while SC did horrible as a RTS on a console,..

[Rosh]

A friend of mine has a game shop, and gave me one of the rental copies of Diablo to try for a while.

It sucks ass, and is the waste of an entire memory card's worth of space.

StarCraft came out for N64? I have never heard of that. Might be a good thing, considering the N64 controller is designed for mutant chinchillas to fornicate upon and little else.

[Crow of Ill Omen]

Ever hear of the dot-com bust or are you still living under a rock? That's what happens when you have a high-cost medium with a finite resource and it implodes upon itself.

No. That's what happens when you have an industry that is all investment and no revenue, inflating its share-price through speculation rather than returns. The fact that you do not understand what happened during the internet bubble burst, or why it happened, does not surprise me.

In addition, the MMORPG industry is more than a decade old, even if you don't wish to consider text-based or ANSI a "MMORPG".

Ah yes, this may explain why you're having trouble. You really don't undertsand the concept of "market" at all, do you? Here's a clue: commerce.

What was the first commercial MMORPG, would you say? According to stratics and MMORPGcafe it was 3DO's Meridian 59, released in 1996. More than a decade ago? No.

Nowhere did I say that Blizzard wasn't going to make any money off of it, but it looked doubtful that they might have a rampant success as one person put it "a license to print money".

... and this year's award for frantic back-peddaling goes to ... Rosh!

Congratulations.

[some guy named Bob]

Personally, I never cared for Diablo 1 or 2. It took time from fallout. SC was a kick ass game and the expansion pack made it even better. I would like to see SC2 in about 2 to 3 years. It is obvious as to what races will be added to the game, xel naga (NPC or otherwise.)

The storyline is something like this:
The zerg sence the come of the xel naga (foreshadowed in the bonus level and epologue), and start to ready themselves. The other races misinterpret as an act of war and fighting starts up again. The xel naga and thier protos/zerg hybrid army arive and ally with the protos. During the fighting, the humans try to find a way to control the hybrid army similar to the way they tried to control the zerg. The zerg are crushed and the xel naga turn thier attention to the humans "Infestation." They would see us like the zerg going from planet to planet, taking what we want, and leave a desolate wasteland behind. The protos will disagree with the xel naga and join the humans. when the dust settles the humans will be on top and only protos refugees will be left.

this is only my prediction based on foreshadowing and patterns in the game.

[Rosh]

No. That's what happens when you have an industry that is all investment and no revenue, inflating its share-price through speculation rather than returns. The fact that you do not understand what happened during the internet bubble burst, or why it happened, does not surprise me.

I know what happened, but I guess you were too stupid to put the parallel into place.

What happens when you get a lot of developers and a finite market? Many developers build something up upon the success of a few and draw in investments like wildfire. What then when some start crashing down? Would quite resemble the dot-com crunch, but on a more selective scale. Free/donation MMOs are feeling this harder now now (particularly with some broadband providers biting the dust and being swallowed by AOL), and some commercial are starting to feel a bite. Even AO was almost a disaster (well, it was one in many eyes), and DAoBT wasn't anything of note save for a RvR system. Many who flocked to it later left it in boredom.

Also, it's ironic that yet again you hang yourself with your own post. This is becoming a habit of yours. The internet boom was brought about by speculation - much like a lot of the gaming industry is. Much like most of the MMO industry is, in pointing at UO/EQ/AC/etc. and saying they are making money, so by jumping the bandwagon you'd be making money by default, too.

Ah yes, this may explain why you're having trouble. You really don't undertsand the concept of "market" at all, do you? Here's a clue: commerce.

Here's your clue: Limited market and rapid overgrowth of supply. Too much supply when the demand is filled by other sources leads to a financial demise. Price competition in light of bandwidth costs would be nearly impossible, as would many other factors not found in conventional commerce.

What was the first commercial MMORPG, would you say? According to stratics and MMORPGcafe it was 3DO's Meridian 59, released in 1996. More than a decade ago? No.

And yet you swallow the fallacy about graphical being the only form of MMORPG like some marketing chimp. Bravo.

MMO is defined as a persistent server "world" with a wide audience, hence why Diablo isn't considered one since it's not really a "world". In effect, an server to which a mass of users could log into the game. Multiplayer is a term often used for under about under 50 players at a time. Massively starts from the 100's and upwards, although there are some "MMORPGs" with very few players, so the "Massively" part has become defined as a misnomer.

Islands of Kesmai was a perfect example of an early MMORPG. Same thing with MUD1, Gemstone, etc. With a price tag of $12 an hour (later downed to about $5), I would hardly call Islands of Kesmai "non-commercial".

Pretty much the same way some would consider Wizardry a CRPG, yet it was created long before that term was ever invented and before a lot of these newbies and their sketchy version of history.

Of course, what could I and my friends and prior co-workers know? Most of us have been working and playing in the industry since about...1985-6. One of which has a rather astute column.

... and this year's award for frantic back-peddaling goes to ... Rosh!

Congratulations.

Nice try, moron, but here goes since you have the inability to read:

I hope WoWC isn't a flop, as I've seen more than one company get it's soul sucked out when they did a MMORPG title, and I'd hate to see that happen to Blizzard.

That's a marketing fallacy. Since the market is becoming saturated, the number of players per game is becoming a bit slimmer. They should have a substantial amount, but it's not likely going to be an obscene amount. It might also draw away from their other operations to keep up the MMORPG.

Thereafter is where you started your mouth-stuffing and usual straw men whilst having no clue about what you're talking about. Where did I say that they "aren't going to make any money from it"? Nowhere. That's a gross exaggeration on your part and entirely contrary to what I said, a far cry from saying they aren't going to be as wildly successful to the point of "having a license to print money".

Get lost, troll.

[Crow of Ill Omen]

I know what happened, but I guess you were too stupid to put the parallel into place.

You obviously don't understand the differences if you are insistent on drawing that parallel. The .com bust had many causes outside the actual .com's (hence the reason a whole lot of non-.com business was taken down too, but there was one very significant weakness within the .com model itself - lack of revenue. Noone paid to use .com's except a limited number of advertisers; selling online was done at a loss and not enough people were buying; sites were built on speculative investment from venture capitalists, who eventually lost confidence, pulled out and caused the whole thing to come crashing down.

The difference between this and the MMORPG market, which should be obvious even to you, is MMORPG's have a large (and growing) number of end-users willing to regularly pay cash for the service. It is also not reliant on the moeny from greedy, opportunistic venture capitalists and therefore not as easily affected by the vagaries of stockmarket confidence.

It is becoming a very competetive market. Lucrative markets tend to get this way for a very simple reason: when a lot of money is up for grabs, a lot of people start grabbing.

Too much supply when the demand is filled by other sources leads to a financial demise. Price competition in light of bandwidth costs would be nearly impossible, as would many other factors not found in conventional commerce.

Utter rubbish. The companies running MMORPG's successfully will make more money in future, not less. Diminishing returns would be considered a failure (particularly by the shareholders).

These companies are not entirely at the mercy of the market. It's a two-way street and they will find ways of increasing their returns (different pricing models, licensing schemes, knock-ons, whatever).

In addition, the MMORPG industry is more than a decade old, even if you don't wish to consider text-based or ANSI a "MMORPG".

AND

And yet you swallow the fallacy about graphical being the only form of MMORPG

I'm sure others have noticed you doing this type of thing, but I thought I'd draw attention to it. Even though you do go back and edit your posts later, you speak so much nonsense, you can't cover it all up.

The text ones, which you orginally invited me to exclude, but later back-pedalled on when I proved you wrong, are called MUD's and were called MUD's during the entire course of the extra decade you tried to tack onto the beginning. The term MMORPG arose to specifically differentiate the newer, graphical, larger-scale ones from the old text-based, smaller-scale ones. That's the reason you half-assed attempt to justify calling a handful of players "massively" doesn't work and why you fall back on the ludicrous claim that the term "massively" is a misnomer. It's only a misnomer when misused in the way you attempt.

Of course, what could I and my friends and prior co-workers know? Most of us have been working and playing in the industry since about...1985-6. One of which has a rather astute column.

You present yourself to be some kind of professional in the MMORPG world, but you come across as a backroom amateur developer, who understands very little and masks what little he does know under layers of insullting and self-contradicting gibberish.

Let's apply the real test of your professional ability: which successful MMORPG do you work for at the moment? Failing that, which commercial publication dealing with MMORPG's do write for? If the answer to both those questions is, as I suspect "None," stop vaguely refering to imaginary professional credentials as if you're some kind of qualified expert.

Since it is inevitable that you plan some side-stepping or back-peddaling rather than answering the question directly, I'll remove one obvious avenue: I do not claim to be any kind of MMORPG professional. I do not try to add weight to my claims in this way. My logic stands or falls without the "you must believe me, I did a bit of work on MMORPG's/MUD's" factor.

---------------

Now let's get back to the point. I say, and have said all along in my completely unedited posts in this thread: WoWC will be a big hit and make Blizzard a lot of money. What do you say?

[Rosh]

The difference between this and the MMORPG market, which should be obvious even to you, is MMORPG's have a large (and growing) number of end-users willing to regularly pay cash for the service. It is also not reliant on the moeny from greedy, opportunistic venture capitalists and therefore not as easily affected by the vagaries of stockmarket confidence.

It is becoming a very competetive market. Lucrative markets tend to get this way for a very simple reason: when a lot of money is up for grabs, a lot of people start grabbing.

And when there's not enough money or resources to go around when the competition is stiff...do the math. Yes, the number of users is growing, but it's not growing proportionate to the number of new large-scale development projects. Which has been mentioned several times already. What then happens when there's not enough resources (players) to go around every since project to help them meet the point of profit?

I hope you have enough sense to figure that one out.

Utter rubbish. The companies running MMORPG's successfully will make more money in future, not less. Diminishing returns would be considered a failure (particularly by the shareholders).

These companies are not entirely at the mercy of the market. It's a two-way street and they will find ways of increasing their returns (different pricing models, licensing schemes, knock-ons, whatever).

Do you really think a few thousand players could be expected to pay back the development costs and also keep the bandwith provided to the point where people would not be fed up with lag and go elsewhere? Calculating required bandwith and users from month to month is extremely hard in a MMORPG, and some either skimp or over-buy.

In addition, the MMORPG industry is more than a decade old, even if you don't wish to consider text-based or ANSI a "MMORPG".

AND

And yet you swallow the fallacy about graphical being the only form of MMORPG

I'm sure others have noticed you doing this type of thing, but I thought I'd draw attention to it. Even though you do go back and edit your posts later, you speak so much nonsense, you can't cover it all up.

The text ones, which you orginally invited me to exclude, but later back-pedalled on when I proved you wrong, are called MUD's and were called MUD's during the entire course of the extra decade you tried to tack onto the beginning. The term MMORPG arose to specifically differentiate the newer, graphical, larger-scale ones from the old text-based, smaller-scale ones. That's the reason you half-assed attempt to justify calling a handful of players "massively" doesn't work and why you fall back on the ludicrous claim that the term "massively" is a misnomer. It's only a misnomer when misused in the way you attempt.

HOLY SHIT, BOY! Learn to fucking read already! This has got to be your most pathetic piece of shit flamebait to date. I did not "invite you to exclude" them. "even if you don't wish to consider text-based or ANSI a "MMORPG"" in the context used would mean "even if you don't want to consider them a part of the MMORPG community, they still are". In the context I used it in, I had guessed (and rightly so) that you believe like some and go with "MMORPG = graphical". If I was going to exclude them, I would have said "In addition, the MMORPG industry is more than a decade old, even if you don't consider text-based or ANSI a "MMORPG"." - which would be not what I meant or wrote, and it's still technically correct either way.

Even if I do edit my posts, it's often to fix a small typographical error here and there, and I'd invite you to find a post of mine in this thread where I've edited after you've replied. Otherwise, you're full of shit as usual.

Differentiating graphical with a whole new term was at most a marketing ploy, but in many venues M*s are considered MMORPGs by technical nature. Much like Wizardry is considered a CRPG before CRPG was even coined. Your "logic" with the graphical differentiating would get, at least, a laugh from most developers. A MMORPG is technologically and also structurally mostly the same as MUDs that have their own specialised clients or not, much like Gemstone III has. In a technical manner, if you've ever looked into the back-end, they are so very close together. Too bad you swallowed Stratics' and the rest of the newbie bullshit. Meridian 59 was NOT the first commercial graphical MMO - the first was the original Neverwinter Nights (1991). Which STILL makes it over a decade, even by your own crackhead "definition". Oops, now don't you look like a self-defeating idiot that doesn't have a clue? Again, it seems. Or is that "still"?

http://www.skotos.net/articles/BTH_17.shtml

The Clue Patrol makes a visit to your home, dipshit.

Let's apply the real test of your professional ability: which successful MMORPG do you work for at the moment? Failing that, which commercial publication dealing with MMORPG's do write for? If the answer to both those questions is, as I suspect "None," stop vaguely refering to imaginary professional credentials as if you're some kind of qualified expert.

So I must be working on a project currently in order to be valid? Interesting, to say the least. On a professional scale, I've worked on commercial as well as non-commercial. Of note, I've seen what UO did to Origin firsthand. I've also been on the alpha teams of other MMORPGs, contractual agreements only allow me to list T4C as one of them until sometime next year for one, and indefinitely for some of the others (including non-MMO titles). Elsewise, I can list my involvement in the MUD community in both sectors, most notably about my highly-adoptable particular judicial system for M*s that have a significant amount of Imms in various roles. Currently, it's on three SCA member's MUDs and one of their MUCKs and a few dozen others I haven't been bothering to keep track of since I have other things to do.

Lately, I've been working with a few other MUD rats to work on an entirely new codebase that is freed from some of the limitations DIKU has while also exploring out more functions that could have been worked better (and some have). A refreshing setting, a run-time editable help index, run-time editing of areas, and also the ability to create and integrate items and monsters into the world on the fly and during operation. This may be expanded to include classes, skills, etc. depending on how much time we have.

Since it is inevitable that you plan some side-stepping or back-peddaling rather than answering the question directly, I'll remove one obvious avenue: I do not claim to be any kind of MMORPG professional. I do not try to add weight to my claims in this way. My logic stands or falls without the "you must believe me, I did a bit of work on MMORPG's/MUD's" factor.

Like the "graphical = MMORPG" fallacy. Why am I not surprised. Your "logic" has been proven ludicrous on more than one occasion here, repeatedly after you stack up straw men and also mouth-stuff in a poor show of debate. I'm rough, but I'm not an underhanded shit like yourself.

The reason why I noted my experience is because I, unlike you, have a clue. I've done it for years, I've done it for money and for fun. I've been around all aspects and I'm looking forwards to new aspects of the MMOG field. Neocron and a few others with new elements are refreshing, but some fail while concentrating upon those elements, like DAoC. They have lost quite a few players because they have a level ceiling that can be reached easily and afterwards boredom sets in and not even RvR can hold for some.

Now let's get back to the point. I say, and have said all along in my completely unedited posts in this thread: WoWC will be a big hit and make Blizzard a lot of money. What do you say?

As I've said before you skewed it out of proportion in your trolling. They might be successful (and there's a few mentions of problems they may face), but not obscenely successful as "a license to print money" would infer.

Also, don't think I haven't noticed how you conveniently dodged out of addressing where I mentioned that you stuffed my mouth like a chickenshit before.

[Crow of Ill Omen]

And when there's not enough money or resources to go around when the competition is stiff...do the math.

Again the demonstrated inability to understand markets. It's not math, it's markets. An accurate prediction cannot be formed by taking the number of games on the market and setting it against the number of players.

For instance, MMORPG's run in trends. Success breed success, so that popular take-up leads to more take up. Similarly, low take-up puts people off. Many of the unsuccessful ones will get almost zero revenue share, and therefore not eat into the potential profits of the successful ones.

Another example is the advertising budget and experience of the companies. Many of the plethora of smaller games do not have the capital to invest in sufficient advertising or the know-how to use it. Hence, it is possible the game with most potential will never reach the audience. Big fish like Blizzard are at a huge advantage on this and many other points.

Do you really think a few thousand players could be expected to pay back the development costs and also keep the bandwith provided to the point where people would not be fed up with lag and go elsewhere? Calculating required bandwith and users from month to month is extremely hard in a MMORPG, and some either skimp or over-buy.

I haven't run the numbers, and neither have you. Clearly, Blizzard didn't embark on their project without considering the costs against the returns. I assume their estimates are more knowledgeable, comprehensive, accurate and worthwhile than the factors you pluck out of the air and sling into the pot.

One thing to remember is that they're not buying bandwidth retail. They may not be buying it at all if they partner with someone or do a deal with a telco/ISP.

I did not "invite you to exclude" them. "even if you don't wish to consider text-based or ANSI a "MMORPG"" in the context used would mean "even if you don't want to consider them a part of the MMORPG community, they still are". In the context I used it in, I had guessed (and rightly so) that you believe like some and go with "MMORPG = graphical". If I was going to exclude them, I would have said "In addition, the MMORPG industry is more than a decade old, even if you don't consider text-based or ANSI a "MMORPG"." - which would be not what I meant or wrote, and it's still technically correct either way.

More back-pedalling. I notice you often use the phrase "learn to read" directly before you attempt to put some weird spin on something you said in an attempt to save face.

Differentiating graphical with a whole new term was at most a marketing ploy, but in many venues M*s are considered MMORPGs by technical nature. Much like Wizardry is considered a CRPG before CRPG was even coined. Your "logic" with the graphical differentiating would get, at least, a laugh from most developers. A MMORPG is technologically and also structurally mostly the same as MUDs that have their own specialised clients or not, much like Gemstone III has. In a technical manner, if you've ever looked into the back-end, they are so very close together. Too bad you swallowed Stratics' and the rest of the newbie bullshit. Meridian 59 was NOT the first commercial graphical MMO - the first was the original Neverwinter Nights (1991). Which STILL makes it over a decade, even by your own crackhead "definition". Oops, now don't you look like a self-defeating idiot that doesn't have a clue? Again, it seems. Or is that "still"?

http://www.skotos.net/articles/BTH_17.shtml

The article does a good job of explaing how MUD's eventually became MMORPG's (although she calls them MMOG's). She makes a good case for viewing the MUD's as first generation MMORPG's. This is a technical point, and in no way implies identical markets.

The market for MUD's, or 1st generation MMOG's if you like, comprised amateurish vendors (eventually becoming professionalish vendors through experience), and a very restricted audience of players (some of them required a specific ISP, many of them only had a single live server, most of them already had an active interest in PnP RPG's).

Even the article you posted states that the MMORPG's (or 3rd gen MMOG's, whatever) opened a new market.

The key differentiators for this generation are:

• The first widespread use of low, flat monthly rates for MMOGs opened up the genre beyond the early adopters who could afford to pay an hourly rate;
• The first widespread use of the decentralized Internet for playing MMOGs, which made the games available beyond the proprietary online services and opened them up to the masses on a worldwide basis;
• The introduction of professional-sized development budgets and development teams to online games. One could argue that News Corporation’s buyout of Kesmai and Interplay forming an online service division in 1994 started it, but we didn’t see the true effects until 1996, when games such as M59 and Mythic’s Rolemaster: Magestorm were published;
• The beginnings of a true methodology for developing and managing persistent worlds and online games in general. This something we’ve been missing, but with both EA and Sony investing hundreds of millions of dollars, we pretty well had to start coming up with some processes to at least lower how much of that money ended up wasted.

It opened a new market (the masses). No longer did the player have to be a desperate RPGer or friendless internet geek and no longer were they served only by other geeks - an element of professionalism was introduced into development.

The market is new. When asking "How do we attract, serve, satisfy, charge, support and keep our market share?" the answers for MMORPG's are entirely different from the answers were for MUD's. Some of those questions weren't even relevant to many MUD's.

Your mistake is thinking like a (bad) developer. You can't get past the technical similarities to see the commercial differences.

So I must be working on a project currently in order to be valid?

No, but if you insist on trying to add weight to your argument by constantly referring to industry experience, it is inevitable that someone will ask for more than just vague references.

As I suspected, your answer amounts to "None" to both of my questions. Let me ask you this: do you see T4C (which I have played) as one of the competitors crowding thesame market as WoWC?

but some fail while concentrating upon those elements, like DAoC. They have lost quite a few players because they have a level ceiling that can be reached easily and afterwards boredom sets in and not even RvR can hold for some.

You believe Mythic to have failed with DAoC? Have you checked their profits? They've dominated the MMORPG market for the last 10 months and have exceeded 200 000 players. I bet Blizzard are hoping to emulate that kind of failure.

As I've said before you skewed it out of proportion in your trolling. They might be successful (and there's a few mentions of problems they may face), but not obscenely successful as "a license to print money" would infer.

So ... according to the position you have now reached with your extensive back-pedalling, we're in complete agreement. I don't think they'll need to print their own money, either. They'll be busy taking everyone elses.