Author Topic: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter  (Read 19959 times)

Floride

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #20 on: October 09, 2013, 01:32:16 PM »
They don't even have the look and feel and mechanics nailed down, so how would they be able to communicate that? We're not kickstarting the *game*, we're kickstarting the *developers*.
You are wrong. It's the City of Titans kickstarter not the Missing Worlds Media kickstarter. If we were investing in a corporation as a whole, the add-ons would pertain to the company, not just one game made by the company. That said, we all want to see MWM profit and succeed from this project, and all the volunteers start to get paid for their enormous efforts.

And by picking out the semantics of a single sentence which I've tried to clarify, you missed my point entirely. Name one story arc. Name 3 zones. Name any level 50 powers. "No one knows for certain what our money will actually buy us." But I, as well as every other investor, are giddy with anticipation regardless. My point was that City of Titans will succeed because they are not ignoring the community-building needs of their fanbase. No other game is like CoH because no other game actively provides the means for people to chat across all servers, from any account, from any character, 24/7 even if the recipient is logged off, and organize into groups and sub-groups. And regardless of any story arcs or zone names or level 50 powers, the game will succeed because it will actively promote community-building.
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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #21 on: October 10, 2013, 02:18:41 AM »
I have to say... I was rather doubtful at the onset here--but... that was a very impressive little trailer. In other words--you have my attention. ;) I may need to look into how to fund my first kickstarter. :) Great work guys! It's beautiful and a world I would like to explore!

TonyV

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #22 on: October 11, 2013, 03:27:25 AM »
They don't even have the look and feel and mechanics nailed down, so how would they be able to communicate that? We're not kickstarting the *game*, we're kickstarting the *developers*.

I think you're misunderstanding the intention of Floride's post.  She's not saying, "We don't know what we're getting, so don't fund the game!"  She seems more to be saying, "Even though we don't know exactly what the final product is going to be, look!  People are funding the game!  Yay!"

As for what exactly we're Kickstarting, we're Kickstarting a little bit of everything.  Kickstarter has pretty strict guidelines on what exactly you can Kickstart, and one of those guidelines is that you can't use a fundraising campaign to start a company.  That's why nobody will come right out and say, "We're going to use this money to fund starting up Missing Worlds Media."  However, the practical situation is that while Missing Worlds Media exists as a corporate entity right now (thus the fundraising campaign isn't, strictly speaking, starting up the company), it currently has no products to sell to make any income.  So the money is in a very technical sense is going to be used to fund only the project: The copies of 3D Studio Max, Visual Studio, Maya, Photoshop, etc. that are going to be purchased are going to be used on this game.  The lawyer is going to be working on legal stuff directly relevant to this game.  The Unreal Engine, of course, will be used in this game.

But the practical situation is that once this game is done, Missing Worlds Media will still own x copies of 3D Studios Max, y copies of Photoshop, etc.  The ultimate intention is that once work on City of Titans is finished, the game will be self-sustaining in that income from it will pay for any future development costs, server costs, legal costs, etc.  But once it's done, this isn't the only product that Missing Worlds Media will ever produce.  When I say that I'm excited because this has a real chance to turn the industry on its head, I mean that I am hoping that Missing Worlds Media never has strings attached to any of its projects to investors or publishers, and that this is the first of a series of high-quality, AAA titles that are written and managed exclusively by gamers for gamers.

I have to say... I was rather doubtful at the onset here--but... that was a very impressive little trailer. In other words--you have my attention. ;) I may need to look into how to fund my first kickstarter. :) Great work guys! It's beautiful and a world I would like to explore!

I've seen a lot of people (mostly in comments sections in other places, not here, since I kind of clamp down on it here) who are skeptical and who decide to post derisive little comments trying to pee on our parade.

I just want to say, it's refreshing to see a comment like this from someone who expresses trepidation, but is still supportive.  When I read this comment, I thought, this is exactly how I wish the naysayers were: basically saying that yes, I have doubts, but I think it's a nifty idea, and I'm willing to give them a chance to prove themselves.  I just wanted to post a message saying thanks, you're doing it right.  :)

MWRuger

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #23 on: October 11, 2013, 04:50:07 AM »
I used to work with this team and I can tell  you that they are extremely serious about the game and about doing a professional job. They have already invested nearly a year of time, talent and energy.

Kickstarter can be worrisome, especially when you don't know the people involved or the companies involved.

But you do know these people. They are you. You teamed with them, You fought them in PvP, You argued with them on the Forums, You bitched about  regen nerfs and ED together.

They didn't start this to get a job in the Biz, they did it because they wanted the city, the community and those relationships to survive. They have invested countless hours and received not pay, but more work. The reward for doing a good job is a harder job. They have have bought in with a commodity more precious than money, time.

Now it's our turn. I know it's hard out there, money's tight. But do whatever you can. You can always make more money but time cannot be recovered. Let them know that they invested wisely.
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Floride

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #24 on: October 11, 2013, 05:13:48 AM »
I think you're misunderstanding the intention of Floride's post.  She's not saying, "We don't know what we're getting, so don't fund the game!"  She seems more to be saying, "Even though we don't know exactly what the final product is going to be, look!  People are funding the game!  Yay!"
Exactly! Thanks Tony.
Although... it's what HE was saying.
ROFL! Man, you must really be overworked these days. I think we need to kickstart a nap for TonyV! ;D
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JaguarX

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #25 on: October 11, 2013, 05:49:26 AM »
I used to work with this team and I can tell  you that they are extremely serious about the game and about doing a professional job. They have already invested nearly a year of time, talent and energy.

Kickstarter can be worrisome, especially when you don't know the people involved or the companies involved.

But you do know these people. They are you. You teamed with them, You fought them in PvP, You argued with them on the Forums, You bitched about  regen nerfs and ED together.

They didn't start this to get a job in the Biz, they did it because they wanted the city, the community and those relationships to survive. They have invested countless hours and received not pay, but more work. The reward for doing a good job is a harder job. They have have bought in with a commodity more precious than money, time.


That is the kicker. WE, here, know them, but many outside of here don't know them any more than they know Janny Wurts on a dating relationship level.

Triplash

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #26 on: October 11, 2013, 06:02:53 AM »
Man, you must really be overworked these days. I think we need to kickstart a nap for TonyV! ;D

NapStarter! I love it! :D

This should be a thing! Someone make this a thing!

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #27 on: October 11, 2013, 12:32:38 PM »
I was glad to see this when it started, and even more pleased when it was funded within just a few days.  Congrats!  I would've posted sooner, but for some reason the McAfee Agent at work thinks this site is Evil and forbids access to it.
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MWRuger

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #28 on: October 12, 2013, 01:14:48 AM »
That is the kicker. WE, here, know them, but many outside of here don't know them any more than they know Janny Wurts on a dating relationship level.

She's married anyway. But the point is that they may not know the individuals, but they are all fellow players. Just look in the mirror. They are us.
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JaguarX

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #29 on: October 12, 2013, 01:43:48 AM »
She's married anyway. But the point is that they may not know the individuals, but they are all fellow players. Just look in the mirror. They are us.
Yeah, exactly. Although that don't stop some people and she wasn't always married. 
 Although the natural side of me, seeing how people can get in games and on forums, just because they are gamers don't mean more trust. In fact if I was to go by that, I wouldn't trust them with anything besides pushing their own personal agenda.

I think they should try to relate to people a little bit more than punchline of they are us, mirror thingy, gamer. Because what is they are us? They are COX players and only looking out for COX players? SWOR friends? Because until recently, not many COXers acted like WoW players for example and COX players were the same and didn't have much nice to say about them. So are they for all gamers, regardless of playstyle whether a person like PvP, or prefer to solo, or like grind, hate grind, want gear, love dungeons, despise dungeons, loved forced teaming? Or they are "us" only to th extent of what they like to play?


MWRuger

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #30 on: October 12, 2013, 04:03:19 PM »
They are all of those things. Just like us, they have different points of view. But they want to bring an MMORPG Superhero role-playing game back to the COX community. That is the overriding goal that they are trying to achieve.

Frankly, the cynicism of gamers always surprises me. I have been gaming on computers since 1981, we have more options, more games, more experiences to enjoy, then ever. Plus, we're mainstream compared to when I started.

As a man of 52, I expect people in thier 20's and 30's to have a little more hope and faith than I do, but I am constantly reminded that it isn't so.

So JaguarX, do you really not trust TPP or are you just debating for the sake of debate?

I can't restore your faith in anything and I have no desire to meddle in someone else's beliefs, so if your really mistrustful, then you are. I'll say no more.

If you're just debating because you like to, that's fine, but pointless from my point of view, so I'll leave you to it. I would rather so something else.
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JaguarX

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #31 on: October 12, 2013, 04:21:51 PM »
They are all of those things. Just like us, they have different points of view. But they want to bring an MMORPG Superhero role-playing game back to the COX community. That is the overriding goal that they are trying to achieve.

Frankly, the cynicism of gamers always surprises me. I have been gaming on computers since 1981, we have more options, more games, more experiences to enjoy, then ever. Plus, we're mainstream compared to when I started.

As a man of 52, I expect people in thier 20's and 30's to have a little more hope and faith than I do, but I am constantly reminded that it isn't so.

So JaguarX, do you really not trust TPP or are you just debating for the sake of debate?

I can't restore your faith in anything and I have no desire to meddle in someone else's beliefs, so if your really mistrustful, then you are. I'll say no more.

If you're just debating because you like to, that's fine, but pointless from my point of view, so I'll leave you to it. I would rather so something else.

Neither. I never said I didn't trust TPP. I simply said that is not the basis I wish to judge them by because gamers from some I come across are not very trust worthy. And  people have different experiences. Some all good, never so much came across a troll others not so good. Mine is probably in between. Even withing the COX community especially in the old forum, the mentality of "Agree with me or you're a troll and should leave" was rampant. The troll word there and early after nov 30 here got thrown around so much that it was near meaningless. "Don't agree with me, you're a troll." mentality. Hell some people still done it recently especially in Massively articles.  Now, if that is what they are, then why would I trust them looking on even keel manner? That don't inspire confidence that they have best interest of the players in mind.  Although I do trust them, doesn't mean I trust them with everything and anything. And just pointing out, even judging by various places and comments from other gamers, who may actually not trust TPP, the "They are us, look in the mirror" thing is probably not going to fly. And based off my experiences from what I seen with gamers and how they act and how intolerable they are to different ideas that wouldn't be a good basis for me to judge whether or not I trust them, like even you, you assumed I didn't trust them and it's being cynical because you completely trust them and thus everyone should or else the yare debating to be debating.

And yeah they want to bring the super hero game back to the COX community. Keywords being it seems the COX community which means, as gamers on a whole, they may not be "us" per se, depending on the person as many people, even some that put money into the project are not or haven't ever played COX and some didn't think COX to be that great when they tried it. Which in some minds seems to be that they when they say "us" they simply mean the old COX community and the rest of the gamers are either irrelevant or just an ATM.

Every question about MWM or trust is not a debate. They are not infallible and quite frankly I don't know them at all. From here, they are simply a group of people, that from what I can see, is dedicated to making a game. And that's from me being part of the cox community. Outside here, they are not very famous so of course people wont immediately trust them. That is not being cynical, that is being realistic these days where online scams run amok. Not saying they are one. But usually the most untrustworthy people are known to get uptight when someone question their trustworthyness. To me, I think they stand up guys. But out there, some people don't know them at all and they are merely another group of people making an interesting game in a world that isn't filled with 100% saints. The best thing to do is instead of getting offended and uptight when someone question or have doubts, simply show them what make them trustworthy without the silly punchline. Even NCSOFT stated goal was supposedly be to give the best service and care to it's customers and we seen how that turned out.

In the end regardless business person family. If I'm not sure of the trust or someone else isn't even if I already completely  trust them, and when someone inquire about that trust and see but they respond in hostile manner, or dodge it, then even if it's family and I trust them, doubts start to form and then I start to question "I trust these guys, but when it comes to trust questions, they get crabby. Am I trusting the right people?"
« Last Edit: October 12, 2013, 04:35:40 PM by JaguarX »

Arcana

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #32 on: October 12, 2013, 08:45:08 PM »
I just wonder how they plan to get servers without selling out to some large company....unless things have changed, maybe it's not as hard as it was 8 yrs ago...I don't know.
Much, much easier.  At some point they will obviously need subscribers to fund the actual operation of game infrastructure: servers and bandwidth and such.  But the current costs of doing so today are about 10% of what NCSoft was paying to do it with City of Heroes if not less, which was run on *highly* inefficient systems (of course, the infrastructure was first designed in 2001).

Today, if I had to guess, based on what I know about how the systems worked, I could have run all of Freedom (the server) on a budget of about $2000/month without even really altering how the game servers worked.  And that's not a wild, random guess either.

Segev

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #33 on: October 14, 2013, 04:23:25 PM »
Costs for large things like servers for the entire game are one of the reasons we're looking to ramp up through a few iterations of staggered-release products. That is, we're releasing the costume creator first because it won't have nearly the demanding requirements of the full video game. We can demonstrate what we have, spread word some on the product, and get a solid feel for how many people to expect on that first day when full game servers go live. Not only is that estimate important for making sure we can handle the load, but it helps us make sure we can budget appropriately to pay for what we need to be physically capable of handling the load.

And I've said it elsewhere, but I want to assure you that, even if you can't afford a "big" number of dollars to back the project, we've funded: we'll get what we're pledged, and it is enough that extra only helps MORE. But what I said about estimating how many people to expect applies to the KS, too: that "backers" number is, at this point, in some ways more important than the dollar amount. (Don't get me wrong: more money is always better in this kind of endeavor!) So even if you can't afford more than the barest minimum bit of backing, if you back us for that bare minimum, it is a big help! And yes, please do spread the word. Let people know that we're eager and grateful for any amount, because the buy-in that is demonstrated by the numbers of backers is very important to our ability to demonstrate to the gaming industry just how well this new model can work!

JaguarX

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #34 on: October 14, 2013, 04:44:29 PM »
Costs for large things like servers for the entire game are one of the reasons we're looking to ramp up through a few iterations of staggered-release products. That is, we're releasing the costume creator first because it won't have nearly the demanding requirements of the full video game. We can demonstrate what we have, spread word some on the product, and get a solid feel for how many people to expect on that first day when full game servers go live. Not only is that estimate important for making sure we can handle the load, but it helps us make sure we can budget appropriately to pay for what we need to be physically capable of handling the load.

And I've said it elsewhere, but I want to assure you that, even if you can't afford a "big" number of dollars to back the project, we've funded: we'll get what we're pledged, and it is enough that extra only helps MORE. But what I said about estimating how many people to expect applies to the KS, too: that "backers" number is, at this point, in some ways more important than the dollar amount. (Don't get me wrong: more money is always better in this kind of endeavor!) So even if you can't afford more than the barest minimum bit of backing, if you back us for that bare minimum, it is a big help! And yes, please do spread the word. Let people know that we're eager and grateful for any amount, because the buy-in that is demonstrated by the numbers of backers is very important to our ability to demonstrate to the gaming industry just how well this new model can work!

Indeed. Numbers and dollars and consistent numbers and dollars once it gets started.


Gotta put the back into it if to show the gaming industry that this new model can work and know the bigger picture that even 100,000 players and 2.5 million in three months is not considered game changing industry eyebrow raising success. No, in fact it's just another shot at and ammo for "See it don't work." Look fantasy games average 300,000 players min. and 6-10 million a quarter min. and those are considered fringe in the fantasy game and over all mmo game world. 100,000 players and 2.5 million is pennies not considered success in the overall mmo world. In the super hero niche genre, oh yeah it's considered setting the world on fire. Industry wide, not so much. 

Thus merely up and running and barely scraping by with a few thousand players and a few hundred grand a month in profits with a pack of volunteers isn't going to cut it. Aim huge. Even if fall short, ya still hit the big mark. But aim for pennies, then pennies is what happens.

Segev

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #35 on: October 14, 2013, 06:48:48 PM »
JaguarX, I'm not sure what the take-away from your post is. This is not in any way a statement of disagreement; I literally am not sure what you mean. It sounds positive, and I usually like what you have to say (even when I don't agree with it), so I'd appreciate a clarification, please.


Attempting to reply to what I think I understand from it: With the KS, we've aimed "low" because we wanted an achievable number that would still get us what we needed to actually continue. We're aiming to do this with as much honest boot-strapping as we can. Not "shoestring budgets," but "do this in stages that can each make enough money to support the development of the next."

You're right, we've got a long ways to go if we want to be so big that we actually shake the gaming industry. And that would be awesome. As ever, we're aiming to boot-strap by starting with just being "big news" in the superhero niche of the industry.

If you're talking about backer numbers, however, yes: we absolutely are aiming as high as we can get. And the best part is that our greatest strength - this community - can help the most with this aspect. We likely won't have millions of KS backers, but I have a personal hoped-for goal of 10k or more. It's a big hope, but it would be enough that we could plausibly claim we expect roughly 100,000 players within a month or so of final launch, and that kind of number DOES impress at useful scales. (The thinking being that about 10% of a relatively dedicated audience will care enough about the subject to actually respond to "show your support" requests. Especially if that support asks for even a small amount of money. If 10k people were willing to put up at least $5 each just on the promise of the game, it isn't hard to imagine that 100k people would pay something to play it. And, better, with any sort of F2P aspect, even more likely will at least give its free side a shot!)

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #36 on: October 14, 2013, 10:58:11 PM »
I for one am just happy to see progress to having a super hero game to play. I hope things move rapidly and soon we can play.
« Last Edit: October 16, 2013, 05:26:36 AM by Optimus Dex »

JaguarX

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #37 on: October 14, 2013, 11:19:05 PM »
JaguarX, I'm not sure what the take-away from your post is. This is not in any way a statement of disagreement; I literally am not sure what you mean. It sounds positive, and I usually like what you have to say (even when I don't agree with it), so I'd appreciate a clarification, please.


Attempting to reply to what I think I understand from it: With the KS, we've aimed "low" because we wanted an achievable number that would still get us what we needed to actually continue. We're aiming to do this with as much honest boot-strapping as we can. Not "shoestring budgets," but "do this in stages that can each make enough money to support the development of the next."

You're right, we've got a long ways to go if we want to be so big that we actually shake the gaming industry. And that would be awesome. As ever, we're aiming to boot-strap by starting with just being "big news" in the superhero niche of the industry.

If you're talking about backer numbers, however, yes: we absolutely are aiming as high as we can get. And the best part is that our greatest strength - this community - can help the most with this aspect. We likely won't have millions of KS backers, but I have a personal hoped-for goal of 10k or more. It's a big hope, but it would be enough that we could plausibly claim we expect roughly 100,000 players within a month or so of final launch, and that kind of number DOES impress at useful scales. (The thinking being that about 10% of a relatively dedicated audience will care enough about the subject to actually respond to "show your support" requests. Especially if that support asks for even a small amount of money. If 10k people were willing to put up at least $5 each just on the promise of the game, it isn't hard to imagine that 100k people would pay something to play it. And, better, with any sort of F2P aspect, even more likely will at least give its free side a shot!)

Yeah I already knew why the target of that chosen. At one point in the past I thought they was aiming for 4 million off kickstarter and thought they was off their rocker. But then got corrected it was 320,000. ok that was more doable and sounded more likely.


The rest you are spot on man.


But overall what I'm saying is don't stop at 2 million don't get complacient, dotn get cocky, because I nthe big leagues 2 million a year is pennies and many companies would call that failure. Want to show success? Either do it with money or players. Money is easier to show. Players is harder because then you'll still have your nutcases who take it upon themselves as their job is to run people off, but over all must be warm and welcoming and not to people that simply think alike or they should leave. That's bad for business. Seen a lot of that in COX and while it wasn't the main factor it sure wasn't helpful and many of those people did simply leave and that is less money and less population. But players bring in money which brings in players.

Keep going as far as possible whether it's raking in $2 dollars a year or $23 million a quarter. Keep going and keep trying to get more and more people to play and join and never should there be as many statements of "If you don't like it just leave" as there was on the forum and in game of COX. If the goal is to show success then we have to get there by broadening the base and that wont suffice with a few thousand and maybe 1 million or two a year because only savecox people are welcomed. And I don't mean merely by saying "oh they are welcomed to come." I mean by the reaction of when they actually do come. Have to leave that mindset behind if success is to be found. We want people saying, "hey check out this new game." instead of "Hell, I aint coming back to this game ever again. The people here are too closed minded." Or "The yare no different than corporations. A few buddy groups are paid attention to and everyone else is ignored. They seen the last of my dollars." Or even worse "those crazy savecox still at it again? Well gald they got their own game now." It shouldn't be about savecox getting their own game it should be to show the industry savecox people or not hat ncsoft and hope they burn or not that corporate backing is not needed to be successful. But the inner clique savesox mindset will have to be dialed down a bit. And not saying they shouldn't be pissed at NCSOFT and they should for as long as they can remember. But just as they like to be respected to be angry at NCSOFT they must learn to respect those that may not be as angry or don't even know the situation or don't care and think it's another gamer closed by a corporation and this is the chance to be in a non-corporate, successful game.   


In super short- Want success to get noticed? Don't pigeon hole it to one set of mindset players aka savecox hate ncsoft players. Show some player number backing. Yes it showed the community have the pockets now how about the numbers.

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #38 on: October 15, 2013, 03:40:34 PM »
Agreed.

Honestly - and I know it's not a popular opinion around here - I don't think NCSoft did anything immoral or even unethical. I think they made a stupid business decision, and we at MWM are out to prove it by gleefully snapping up what they left behind and growing something that might just change the "standard practices" of the gaming industry. I'm not saying this with wild-eyed prophetic vision, but it is something I agree with TonyV on: if we can pull this off, if we can get big, we can demonstrate that there is a better, stronger business model than the one that's been followed, and that it's centered on focus on the customer. As an MMO, the customer is the community, and the community is the product we're selling to itself.

That sounds sneaky or conniving; forgive me, it's just my red-side nature showing. ;)

The truth is, it's an accurate statement, but what we're providing is a playground, a gathering place, and tools to make your fun within this community what you want it to be. We're creating stories and adventures as the main feature, because we ARE building an MMO, but what sustains an MMO is the community, so we are definitely focused on making the game a fun and easy-to-access experience with powerful tools for customizing it to play exactly how you want to play it, and to customize your access and accessibility to other players so you can interface with the part of the community you want while being open where you want to and not having to deal with people who would otherwise drive you off.

Floride

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Re: City of Titans (The Phoenix Project) Kickstarter
« Reply #39 on: October 15, 2013, 05:01:04 PM »
...I agree with TonyV on: if we can pull this off, if we can get big, we can demonstrate that there is a better, stronger business model than the one that's been followed, and that it's centered on focus on the customer. As an MMO, the customer is the community, and the community is the product we're selling to itself.
Huzzah! (enter the same sentiment worded differently here) Huzzah!
History shows again and again
How nature points out the folly of men