Monthly Archives: April

What are you willing to pay for an MMO? There was an interesting conversation “Monthly inflation” on this issue at Tobold’s excellent MMORPG blog lately, adhering to subscription-fees players are willing to pay for their favorite MMO and the inflation of subscriptions for World of Warcraft and the like.

Currently, typical MMO-subscriptions come at around US$ 12 to 15 (in Europe, prices are ranging around 15 Euro, respectively). There is indication of the popular upcoming Warhammer Online raising the bar even higher, probably to around between US$ 15 and 20. Most operators of MMOs have increased their monthly fees by around 30 percent in the recent 5 years, generally speaking from US$ 10 to US$ 13—which seems to be acceptable to the majority of commenters on Tobold’s posting. It’s interesting though to see what people would agree to pay (or not pay) for:

Two or three commenters find a fee of US$ 15 to 17 as high as they would go if they are not able to put enough hours into gameplay per week. Changed counters that he would be willing to pay more if it resulted in fewer immature players. Another commenter even alludes to his or her reluctance to certain prices for WoW if Blizzard’s profit margin is too high. Tobold’s opinion is “that future MMORPGs will cost more than $15 per month, probably already starting with Warhammer Online. And people will pay up, maybe under protest, but pay they will.“

While the games-industry saw quite some lively discussions about monthly subscriptions vs. microtransactions, to us (obviously, combined with a free to play-approach) microtransactions still seem to be preferable, enabling you to “pay as you go” instead of making you play longer to get the most of your subscription.

Bossies are a native species of oxen on Qubus’ Island, a short article about them with a concept-sketch and a Flash-mockup can be found here. The above image is the final draft of various bossies rendered in 3D. Broken bossies and mini-bossies (to the right) can be encountered at farmsteads and are usually quite harmless. However, unbroken bossies (left) met in forests and remote plains will occasionally attack wanderers.

Yesterday Hipihi, the Chinese answer to Second Life, entered open beta with a somewhat international downloadable client (pc-only). As Virtual Worlds News presumes: “It sounds like, based on an interview with UgoTrade, that the goal is to mix English and Chinese names, encouraging interaction between HiPiHi’s diverse audience.“ However, the english launch seems to come premature, with several key user interfaces still in Mandarin (the revamped Mandarin/English-version seems to have scraped an older, already existing english version, dating back a few months). As a commenter on virtual Worlds News describes: “Unfortunately, the PDF user guides giving English-language translations of the Mandarin are now difficult to use, since they refer to a UI that is now defunct.“ 

According to China Web 2.0 Review, development of Hipihi started in 2005, with a slightly bit different direction: Back then, Hipihi was divided into a Hipihi World and (a somewhat Cyworld-comparable) Hipihi Home. Development then focused on the SecondLife-like Hipihi World, eventually partnering with Intel and IBM. The Chinese start-up has a funding of US$ 3 million under the belt from Japanese investor NGI Group. 

While Techcrunch accuses Hipihi of cloning Second Life, it will be interesting to see wether Hipihi will suffer from the same problems troubling the original.

BTW, at the meantime, release of PlayStation Home has been pushed back yet again.

Confused about all the different locations on Qubus’ Island already mentioned here? This is a map overview of the island (click here for a larger version). While the center of the island sports one of the important villages, several other landmarks are located around the coastal areas. Since the island needs to offer enough space for quite a few settlements, the map is heavily scaled down, depicting only a rough version of the landscape.

The game doesn’t start with such complete overview though. The island-chart is subdivided into several so-called map-extracts representing the parts of the island which a player can access. In addition to their initial map-extracts new players can buy further extracts with in-game currency, enabling them to travel to uncharted regions of Qubus’ Island.

Later in the game, new regions of the island will be unlocked, both to accomodate more settlers and to provide more insights into various places connected to the story of Qubus’ Island. 

The chain-wielding coffingeeks infest barren places on Qubus’ Island. Players will eventually encounter them while venturing for building materials. It is rumored that coffingeeks are the restless souls of deceased marauders, sick of just pushing daisies. The real reason for such undeadish activities on the island remain unknown though.
The image here shows an attacking coffingeek. The nocturnal coffingeeks cart around in their protective caskets, which only opens when they attack. During that split second coffingeeks are most vulnerable.

Missed the Virtual Worlds 2008 conference? Don’t miss the extensive wrap-up at Virtual Worlds News and GigaOm.
At the start of the year, industry-leaders predicted that 2008 would see an explosion of virtual worlds and thus a differentiation of the whole market. It doesn’t come as a big surprise that the market development meets the forecast. It’s interesting though, that market allocation happens by technicalities rather than content; most developers target kids and youngsters, that’s where the money is at. Differentiation comes in terms of 3D versus 2D or walled garden versus portable data. Otherwise the vast majority (like Freggers) offers stuff that is strikingly similar to what Sulake already did 5 years ago—with the occasional different, branded experience like Nick’s SpongeBob. Now, where’s the innovation in that? 

Another mechanical contraption gone mad: beware of the drillbots. They are the working-horses of Dr. Qubus’ little workshop of Horrors. Equipped with a razorsharp drill head and a turbine rotor, they relentlessly hover the island’s caverns and shafts to mine for ore and powerplants. The loot is stashed into their belly-bowl and then transported to Qubus Mansion, to fuel the island’s many machines. Unfortunately the majority of drillbots seemingly didn’t took notice of the absence of their master, so they can still be met invariably in subterranean dungeons.
While drillbots are not considered as inherently dangerous, their programming makes them stubborn and chunky. They especially dislike co-drillers to be robbed of their cargo and thus are better left alone when encountered. 

Think that innovation in game-design mainly comes from the indies? Inside Innovation has an article about Blizzard on innovation: “11 innovation lessons from the creators of World of Warcraft”. The lessons boil down to very basic and important stuff, like “rely on critics”, “make continual improvements” and “demand excellence or you’ll get mediocrity”. A good read, even though Colin Stewart under the point “create a new type of product” seems to indicate that Blizzard had invented the revenue-model of monthly MMO-subscriptions – which is inaccurate (as some commenters already pointed out). 

via Slashdot

Qubus’ Island is a prime destination for adventurers and settlers, but also a magnet for the mysterious, as proven by the lot of unworldly hivelike structures pocking the island. Explorers who visited these sites tell tales of menacing encounters with nightmarish, manlike creatures. The rubbery beings are known under the name of Bogeymen. Their origin is unknown, but it is obvious that they are a fiendish race and tend to attack everybody who dares to approach their hives. Rumor has it that players themselves can be turned into bogeymen by a curse.

Those who like to learn more about the Bogeymen should meet Ben the mad banker, a hermit who has his permanent encampment somewhere near the Shattered Temple.

Dating from April 1st, but most likely not an April Fool’s Prank: Gamasutra features a piece in which Julien Wera, former MMO community liaison of Flyff and Rappelz talks about the art and science of game community management:

“Some people in our industry say, “Players come for the game, and stay for the people”. That’s not totally true. Indeed, some players may begin playing a game simply because it’s attractive to them, but very often they just go from a game to the other to follow the people they play with—their friends, their community. We can call it “community migration”, and it’s a very common fact in multiplayer gaming.“

Read the full in-depth article at Gamasutra.