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$25 a month? Like all the other mmo's that have hired large crews , get real man. Stop being fanboys and get a reality check here. Hire a larger crew , get it right , get it sold and make some money.
You are obviously completely unfamiliar with how this game has come into being.
It started as a project between four high school friends. They financed themselves. They never got the backing of a major publisher or game studio. At one point, they very nearly closed the project down.
Now there's four of them working off income from a tiny playerbase at prices below that of every other MMORPG. You can't just magically hire people unless you can pay them.
Simply put, this game is a community supported project. The devs are working within the constraints imposed by the size of that community - there's only so many of us, paying $9.99 a month. There's probably about 200 people paying at the moment, so $2,000 a month. For four people, hosting and office space. How the hell do you hire another person?
It started as a project between four high school friends. They financed themselves. They never got the backing of a major publisher or game studio. At one point, they very nearly closed the project down.
Now there's four of them working off income from a tiny playerbase at prices below that of every other MMORPG. You can't just magically hire people unless you can pay them.
Simply put, this game is a community supported project. The devs are working within the constraints imposed by the size of that community - there's only so many of us, paying $9.99 a month. There's probably about 200 people paying at the moment, so $2,000 a month. For four people, hosting and office space. How the hell do you hire another person?
Bite the bullet , hire more folks , and in several months time pump out a game that has a much larger playerbase and substantially more income. That story is sweet and fluffy and sounds great , little guy triumph over the ills of the big corporations. But lets talk reality here and the realization of these guys project. Hire the crew , take out the loans and take a gamble on your vision. I think we all want to see VO succeed , however this snails pace is losing more customers and creating bad pr more than anything else. Get it together.
Taljin why dont you pay for the extra developer? Then again you might want to read some history of the project before you go talking about it.
Thought I was helping pay by subscribing to the game.
ah yes. 120 dollars a year will pay for a developer.
if they are a third world child working in a sweat shop.
if they are a third world child working in a sweat shop.
Thats why you hire more folks , finish the game and get on with it. It's a buisness buddy , and when you go into buisness for yourself you take a gamble. The nature of this buisness is subscribers , you can't tell me that the Dev's are'nt in this to make money. You gotta spend money to make money . This is not an insult ,it's the way it is.
when you write a lot of crap, you need to research it first. otherwise people will dismiss what you say. thats just the way it is.
You sure are an angry fella.
/me bows to Taljin's insurmountable genius.
Taljin, every other MMO out there is backed by a major publisher, who pay for stuff. Like say, NCsoft (Lineage, City of Heroes, Guild Wars, et al) who spends about $15,000,000 USD per game on marketing alone (not counting development). God knows what Blizzard spent on development and marketing.
We have no backing whatsoever. We started the company in '98, and built the engine prototype, and tried to sell it to, quite literally, to every publisher on the planet. We failed, and nearly went out of business. The only other publishers who even tried this "type" of game.. ended up famously pulling the plug before long (EA killed Earth & Beyond even when it was a moderate success, Simon and Scheuster backed out of EVE.. but thankfully EVE was already pretty independent, 3DO completely ganked Jumpgate's launch). The publishing industry generally considers "Online Space Games" to be "Bad".
We have not had much luck finding serious independent investment. We would love to "get real" and hire more people. We make pretty miniscule salaries as it is (I would make more at McDonalds), but we hang on because we want to improve the game and hope to grow the userbase. I have personally spent every dime that I have on this game (about $250,000) and my family has already chipped in everything they could, just to keep us alive back in Jan/04. You cannot get "loans" on a software company, as banks desire collateral that they can sell in the event of company failure, and would have no idea what to do with a few hundred thousand lines of source code.
The "reality check" is that this game now exists, and survives, solely based on the support of its userbase. I could spend my time running around, trying to find money for us. But I did that, without success, for many years. So, now I stick to what I know I *can* do.. make the game, and hope that They Will Come.
We have no backing whatsoever. We started the company in '98, and built the engine prototype, and tried to sell it to, quite literally, to every publisher on the planet. We failed, and nearly went out of business. The only other publishers who even tried this "type" of game.. ended up famously pulling the plug before long (EA killed Earth & Beyond even when it was a moderate success, Simon and Scheuster backed out of EVE.. but thankfully EVE was already pretty independent, 3DO completely ganked Jumpgate's launch). The publishing industry generally considers "Online Space Games" to be "Bad".
We have not had much luck finding serious independent investment. We would love to "get real" and hire more people. We make pretty miniscule salaries as it is (I would make more at McDonalds), but we hang on because we want to improve the game and hope to grow the userbase. I have personally spent every dime that I have on this game (about $250,000) and my family has already chipped in everything they could, just to keep us alive back in Jan/04. You cannot get "loans" on a software company, as banks desire collateral that they can sell in the event of company failure, and would have no idea what to do with a few hundred thousand lines of source code.
The "reality check" is that this game now exists, and survives, solely based on the support of its userbase. I could spend my time running around, trying to find money for us. But I did that, without success, for many years. So, now I stick to what I know I *can* do.. make the game, and hope that They Will Come.
If you build it, they will come...
Incarnate, what about increasing the monthly subscription by 1$? 11$ instead of 10$ isn't that much of a difference to a single player, but when you have 1,000 subscriptions...
Incarnate, what about increasing the monthly subscription by 1$? 11$ instead of 10$ isn't that much of a difference to a single player, but when you have 1,000 subscriptions...
ahh cool, i clicked reply and in the 3 minutes i've been reading this thread incarnate hit post on his reply that covered almost everything i wanted to say. thanks inc..
as to taljin:
the only thing incarnate didnt really mention was that a large percentage of the alpha testers who were with guildsoftware when they were trying (and failing) to market the engine ASKED the devs to charge for VO when it looked like thier choices were release a largely unfinished game or close up shop and give up.
I dont consider myself a consumer when it comes to VO. I consider myself an investor. my return on investment isn't cash, or stock options, or anything remotely tangible like that however. My return on investment is (hopefully) getting the game *I* want to play at the end.
I'm an old Elite player, moved on to wingcommander, descent freespace, the X-wing series.. I always wanted a MMO version of those games, particularly elite. So far, Vendetta Online appears to be the only game that even comes close.
The fact that they take suggestions from the userbase and take time out of thier sundays to read and reply to the message boards is a significant amount of icing on the cake.
as to taljin:
the only thing incarnate didnt really mention was that a large percentage of the alpha testers who were with guildsoftware when they were trying (and failing) to market the engine ASKED the devs to charge for VO when it looked like thier choices were release a largely unfinished game or close up shop and give up.
I dont consider myself a consumer when it comes to VO. I consider myself an investor. my return on investment isn't cash, or stock options, or anything remotely tangible like that however. My return on investment is (hopefully) getting the game *I* want to play at the end.
I'm an old Elite player, moved on to wingcommander, descent freespace, the X-wing series.. I always wanted a MMO version of those games, particularly elite. So far, Vendetta Online appears to be the only game that even comes close.
The fact that they take suggestions from the userbase and take time out of thier sundays to read and reply to the message boards is a significant amount of icing on the cake.
Hey phaserlight how about you shut up.
:P
:P
For our hard-core supportive people, they probably wouldn't mind an extra $1. But for all the other people who are really just giving it a shot.. I don't think they'd respond well to a price increase of any kind.
Our whole plan has been to improve the game (in the ways generally outlined in my long rambling previous post) and then try and do some serious marketing (guerilla or otherwise) to gain some more users. I think that's probably still our best bet. So, in the meantime, we do what we can with what we have.
Our whole plan has been to improve the game (in the ways generally outlined in my long rambling previous post) and then try and do some serious marketing (guerilla or otherwise) to gain some more users. I think that's probably still our best bet. So, in the meantime, we do what we can with what we have.
taljin: shut the **** up :/
Inc: I dont even play anymore i'm just keeping the subscription to help you guys out, if i wasnt living in the dorms and paying for collage on my own i would get another subscription...but i cant :/
Inc: I dont even play anymore i'm just keeping the subscription to help you guys out, if i wasnt living in the dorms and paying for collage on my own i would get another subscription...but i cant :/
Truth hurts sometimes Tna. Also I think your in College* not in a collage .
It never fails.
When your caught saying something that noone else agrees on your last resort is to correct someone's spelling.
Never fails.
hehe it's so hilarious cause its true!
ALPHA"S BACK ME UP!
You've read enough posts to come to this conclusion.
It's like "OH I'VE GOT SOME DIGNITY STILL CAUSE I CAN SPELL!!!"
When your caught saying something that noone else agrees on your last resort is to correct someone's spelling.
Never fails.
hehe it's so hilarious cause its true!
ALPHA"S BACK ME UP!
You've read enough posts to come to this conclusion.
It's like "OH I'VE GOT SOME DIGNITY STILL CAUSE I CAN SPELL!!!"
i just like how he ignored the response of the lead developer to correct TNA's spelling.
of course TNA's profanity, obscured or not, wasnt overly useful and certaintly didn't add anything to the discussion, so i guess i can see where it would be a prime target for an attack.
of course TNA's profanity, obscured or not, wasnt overly useful and certaintly didn't add anything to the discussion, so i guess i can see where it would be a prime target for an attack.
I say things constantly people disagree with , no big deal. But I disagree with someone telling me to stfu because of an opinion. Thats just rude. Everyone makes mistakes , no worries. Also you gotta admit, being in college and mispelling it is pretty good irony. But your right , I should'nt correct folks when I'm not perfect myself.