MMORPG - COH profitability

[HarvesterOfEyes]

Certainly, in fact it cannot have been any part of the original CoH pitch. CoH released in the US approximately 9 months before WoW. It wouldn't be reasonable to expect anyone demanded that a game rake in as much money as WoW would eventually do in the years before its release.

Causes must precede effects.

[Little Green Frog]

I can also see more MMOs being developed in Asia, Eastern Europe and Russia due to developer costs, as a way around the costs.

While it is true that industrial manufacturing tends to gravitate towards countries that can provide cheaper labor costs, I am yet to hear about a case when a software studio was chosen by a producer for a project citing this as the main reason. Developer costs usually make a fraction of the money poured into a title, as teams tend to be rather small and time frames for an average gaming project rarely exceed 5 years. Talent and availability seems to be a far more important factor.

Edit: Just reminded myself of sequels to successful games. When publishers want to milk certain franchise, they sometimes employ smaller studios to make new games when the primary team is not available or the cost of developing a full blown continuation is deemed too high. Still, this has rarely anything to do with their geographical location.

[Kuriositys Kat]

Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks.  I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul.  Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work.  Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".

OW... my ribs... plus the cats are scared

[Little Green Frog]

No save coh should be involved, because that's out of context -- but consumer awareness isn't.  The general themes should be "why reward a publisher with a bad history of yanking games with your money?" and "Can you have that  much confidence in the longevity of the game?"

You speak wise words.

[srmalloy]

I agree. It is not Xenophobia on OUR part, but THEIRS that is the issue. We the players and community never even considered whether the nationality of NCSoft was an issue before the announcement of the shutdown. For days and weeks even after that it never came up. It finally came up when all attempts at communication were rebuffed and we were trying to figure out ANY reason for that or any of their other decisions.

Actually, that's not entirely true; fairly early on I made a couple of posts where I pointed out that, within the parameters of Korean culture, what NCSoft did made sense to them -- for example, firing someone out of the blue on a Friday so that they don't have to come in to come in to work and face their coworkers with the spectre of their failure hanging over them, so getting them out of the office abruptly like that preserves their face.

[Bliz]

Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks.  I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul.  Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work.  Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".

The women and floppy boobs in that game is all incredibly disturbing.

[Lily Barclay]

The women and floppy boobs in that game is all incredibly disturbing.

I know. And boobs don't even flop like that. Side to side? Really?

[HarvesterOfEyes]

What do you think is the significance of goose-stepping while wearing bunny-ears?

[Xieveral]

Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks.  I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul.  Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work.  Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".

S-sexy chicken suits???

Admittedly, the very last outfit doesn't look bad but I'm so sick of trappy "pretty boy" characters and the catwalk strut makes everything over the top stupid.

[golemjoe]

Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks.  I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul.  Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work.  Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".

The guy at 2:35 looks like he killed Big Bird and made an outfit out of the bloody feathers.  Definitely not family friendly. Not that most of the others were either .. ;-)

[Golden Girl]

What do you think is the significance of goose-stepping while wearing bunny-ears?

Because NCsoft wants to celebrate Easter with Nazi imagery.

[DrakeGrimm]

...none of this information surprises me, if verifiable. It does, however, piss me the hell off.

[houtex]

Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks.  I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul.  Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work.  Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".

My.  Goodness.  That is.... awful. 

Don't get me wrong, as a full blooded 'merican pig bastidge, I likes the jiggle physics to a certain extent, but... wow, that's just cartoony.  And the proportions of everything... Ugly.  Just... messed up.  Like CO is.. hands, hips, head size... hurts to look at.

Why is that, anyway, that they can't get proportions of character bits semi-decently right?  Seems like CoH and STO got it right, but B&S and CO can't get hands done right...

Anyway.  Ridiculous.  Reminds of '/r/iam14andthisisfunny' type programming.  Immature, that's it.

[Axonius]

My.  Goodness.  That is.... awful. 

Don't get me wrong, as a full blooded 'merican pig bastidge, I likes the jiggle physics to a certain extent, but... wow, that's just cartoony.  And the proportions of everything... Ugly.  Just... messed up.  Like CO is.. hands, hips, head size... hurts to look at.

Why is that, anyway, that they can't get proportions of character bits semi-decently right?  Seems like CoH and STO got it right, but B&S and CO can't get hands done right...

Anyway.  Ridiculous.  Reminds of '/r/iam14andthisisfunny' type programming.  Immature, that's it.

Whew. Thank goodness. I thought I was being an anatomy snob because of the hands in CO. Looks like I'm not the only one that is disturbed by that. Really been trying to get use to it.

[Victoria Victrix]

Whew. Thank goodness. I thought I was being an anatomy snob because of the hands in CO. Looks like I'm not the only one that is disturbed by that. Really been trying to get use to it.

No, you are not.  Those hands in CO frighten me.  I'm not sure who their artist is but...I will be charitable and say that I do not care for his style.

[JaguarX]

I think there is a way to resize them in CO to fit better

[TimtheEnchanter]

Whew. Thank goodness. I thought I was being an anatomy snob because of the hands in CO. Looks like I'm not the only one that is disturbed by that. Really been trying to get use to it.

TBH I thought the hands in CoH were oversized too. Though it's almost irrelevant because the only time I notice it is when I do extreme closeups, which almost never happen during gameplay.

There are much more obvious issues with B&S though. Didn't even need to zoom in to notice the oversized hands... or any other oversized... parts....  8)

[Victoria Victrix]

Slightly off topic but I can't stop laughing over the absurdity of how it looks.  I present the Xmas costumes in Blade & Soul.  Note the sashaying down hill may not be safe for work.  Also the guy's expression at around 2:35 with the big fluffy feather like coat just screams "sure honey of course I love this".

I know nothing says Xmas to me like stripper stars on your bewbs and butt, and big chickenskin pimpcoats.

[CrimsonCapacitor]

I know nothing says Xmas to me like stripper stars on your bewbs and butt, and big chickenskin pimpcoats.

*wonders what Xmas is like in the VV homestead*

;D

[Victoria Victrix]

*wonders what Xmas is like in the VV homestead*

;D

It involves a pole.