Forums » Suggestions
Hold off on marketing until...
...We have more content. Attracting newbs to the game isn't the problem, it's keeping them interested.
And when I say content, I don't mean new ships or weapons, we have plenty of those. I'm talking about missions; things to keep newbs occupied and immerse them in the game world. What about faction specific mission trees with 4-5+ missions following an actual, consistent thread? I know I'll probably get lynched for saying this, but mission tree structure is something EV:Nova really got right (and yes I know it was a single-player game, my point is that even though the missions were simple, they were compelling because they followed consistent story threads that took you all over the universe).
Here's a few suggestions for missions and overall first-impression stuff, all of these threads are good reads imho:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7053
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8199
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7908
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8134
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8604
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6352
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8321
And when I say content, I don't mean new ships or weapons, we have plenty of those. I'm talking about missions; things to keep newbs occupied and immerse them in the game world. What about faction specific mission trees with 4-5+ missions following an actual, consistent thread? I know I'll probably get lynched for saying this, but mission tree structure is something EV:Nova really got right (and yes I know it was a single-player game, my point is that even though the missions were simple, they were compelling because they followed consistent story threads that took you all over the universe).
Here's a few suggestions for missions and overall first-impression stuff, all of these threads are good reads imho:
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7053
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8199
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/7908
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8134
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8604
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/6352
http://www.vendetta-online.com/x/msgboard/3/8321
indeed, couldn't agree more.
I was asked to do a review of vendetta for a belgian mac games site, but i've told that person that it is better to wait a month or maybe two with that, simply because of these reasons. I will however do the review, but after vendetta matures a bit. Personnaly i think this is healthier for the game, because now, a lot of the times it still feels like a beta test and i can imagine a lot of people getting a litle pissed of when paying for a beta.
*edit: still, I must give props to the devs, you a re doing a great job guys, and I am realy starting to see some form in the game. This is going to be a milestone RPG if you keep improving at the same rate it is going right now. BTW, once the bigger money is rolling in ;) are you going to invest in extra team members, who might for example concentrate on stuff like walking around in stations and so on??
I was asked to do a review of vendetta for a belgian mac games site, but i've told that person that it is better to wait a month or maybe two with that, simply because of these reasons. I will however do the review, but after vendetta matures a bit. Personnaly i think this is healthier for the game, because now, a lot of the times it still feels like a beta test and i can imagine a lot of people getting a litle pissed of when paying for a beta.
*edit: still, I must give props to the devs, you a re doing a great job guys, and I am realy starting to see some form in the game. This is going to be a milestone RPG if you keep improving at the same rate it is going right now. BTW, once the bigger money is rolling in ;) are you going to invest in extra team members, who might for example concentrate on stuff like walking around in stations and so on??
I'm just waiting for a Serco/Itani Romeo/Juliet mission storyline.
Phaserlight is right. The game definitely needs more beginner-level content. The new trade missions are nice, but there's still no story. I'm not sure the devs even appreciate the problem with the existing intro content: most of the recent additions have been geared toward higher-level play (Capture the Cargo, bounties, the in-development capitol ships).
Look at this from the point of view of someone trying out the demo: once you learn the interface and try out a few of the missions, there's nothing really new to do except head for grey space. Home-system space needs to be more interesting.
[EDIT]: Improving the game's documentation seems like it'd be a better investment of time and money than marketing does, at this point.
Look at this from the point of view of someone trying out the demo: once you learn the interface and try out a few of the missions, there's nothing really new to do except head for grey space. Home-system space needs to be more interesting.
[EDIT]: Improving the game's documentation seems like it'd be a better investment of time and money than marketing does, at this point.
You will note that there isn't much marketing happening at all. I think the devs know what they are doing at this point. I can assure you that they fully appreciate the content issue.
Vendetta is not done, there's no secret there. Guild was forced to charge a nominal fee in order to continue development at the current speed. It's an unusual choice born of an unusual company under unusual circumstances.
Vendetta is not done, there's no secret there. Guild was forced to charge a nominal fee in order to continue development at the current speed. It's an unusual choice born of an unusual company under unusual circumstances.
amen FM.
look for more investers!! then you will have the money to do and get what you need.
I can assure you that they've thought of this already.
Venture capital has all but dried up in the past few years. Investors want a sure thing as far as getting their money back. Those who are willing to take a chance want a fat return. Guild, although awesome, is a small and unproven company that has only brought one product to market (VO). Although *I* am confident that Vendetta will one day be synonymous with the space sim/MMORPG genre, it doesn't look like a sure thing to investors - many of whom are twitchy about anything online these days. It also doesn't look like something that will take off like a rocket and make everyone fabulously wealthy...yet.
While Guild Software is a fledgling company, the individuals who make up Guild haven't just fallen off the turnip truck or emerged from the woods. They've been working in the computer industry and have knowledge and contacts to draw from. Let's give them a little credit for getting us this far.
Venture capital has all but dried up in the past few years. Investors want a sure thing as far as getting their money back. Those who are willing to take a chance want a fat return. Guild, although awesome, is a small and unproven company that has only brought one product to market (VO). Although *I* am confident that Vendetta will one day be synonymous with the space sim/MMORPG genre, it doesn't look like a sure thing to investors - many of whom are twitchy about anything online these days. It also doesn't look like something that will take off like a rocket and make everyone fabulously wealthy...yet.
While Guild Software is a fledgling company, the individuals who make up Guild haven't just fallen off the turnip truck or emerged from the woods. They've been working in the computer industry and have knowledge and contacts to draw from. Let's give them a little credit for getting us this far.
We're always walking the ragged edge of "market enough to stay alive, but not to spread around that our product is really kind of incomplete". It's.. umm, unfortunate. I envy the resources of people like Blizzard. But anyway, we have gotten this far, and we're trying to do a lot of work now to tie all the disparate elements together and make things more cohesive.
If we had the finances we would utterly love to hire more people. We would also love to be more than barely scraping by ourselves, but at least we're momentarily self-sustaining. We'll just keep pushing to try and make it cooler and hopefully the userbase will reflect that.
The investment situation is pretty much like Forum Mod says.
If we had the finances we would utterly love to hire more people. We would also love to be more than barely scraping by ourselves, but at least we're momentarily self-sustaining. We'll just keep pushing to try and make it cooler and hopefully the userbase will reflect that.
The investment situation is pretty much like Forum Mod says.
ok, cool. i'm glad that guild software is self-sustaining. players like Phaserlight and I just want to see this game do well, and are trying to help in whatever way we can.
I just thought that i would point out that the reason im playing (and paying for) this game is marketing. If it werent for that banner add on macgamefiles i wouldnt be here now. So while it may not be time for mass marketing yet, (beginner missions, advanced missions, missions, missions, missions) i felt that it would be good to tell of a marketing success story.
A friend of mine who reads tons of mac oriented web content sent me a link to VO, probably from the article on apple, and I checked it out and have been playing it since, even quit EQ to play VO. Just an FYI =)
incarnate et al,
I heard an NPR (National Public Radio for those outside the States) piece the other day about how EA signed a deal to pay the NFL $900M USD over the next 15 yrs for the *right* to make football games. When one of the industry interviewees went on to state how garage game development is dead due to the massive amounts of money involved in today's computer gaming world, I simply smirked and thought of the herculean effort Guild has put forth with a core team of four(!) people.
For all the resources that the "big guys" put into their products and marketing, Guild blows them away with bang for the buck and development team -- player interaction. If only the VC's would tone down their ROI expectations to pre-dot-com levels, you guys would have serious investor interest.
As things stand now, let the VO community know when you want to do an all-out marketing blitz. I have a feeling that you will get a ton of existing player referal business.
I heard an NPR (National Public Radio for those outside the States) piece the other day about how EA signed a deal to pay the NFL $900M USD over the next 15 yrs for the *right* to make football games. When one of the industry interviewees went on to state how garage game development is dead due to the massive amounts of money involved in today's computer gaming world, I simply smirked and thought of the herculean effort Guild has put forth with a core team of four(!) people.
For all the resources that the "big guys" put into their products and marketing, Guild blows them away with bang for the buck and development team -- player interaction. If only the VC's would tone down their ROI expectations to pre-dot-com levels, you guys would have serious investor interest.
As things stand now, let the VO community know when you want to do an all-out marketing blitz. I have a feeling that you will get a ton of existing player referal business.
speaking of player referal, perhaps there could be player referal built into the game. Ex. if you get one person to sign up and become a paying user, you get one month free, or 50000cr or something like that. just an idea.
ingame:Dasus Vanos
ingame:Dasus Vanos
Or a million credits like in EnB!!!!!!!!! That gave me incentive enough.
/givemoney Devs 2c
/givemoney Devs 2c
while the quality of gameplay should be enough incentive to generate player referals... I sure like the idea of in-game credits! :-D
Getting real-world cash for referals could create fraud issues and would sap the dev team of much needed resources, IMHO.
Getting real-world cash for referals could create fraud issues and would sap the dev team of much needed resources, IMHO.
Hey, that's a cool idea. There should be something extra on both sides of the deal also, like the referal gets an extra two hours on their trial, while the referee gets 100k creds in game.
I would say the refered person has to actually sign up for a paid subscription before the person who did the refering gets the reward. But this is a cool idea.
actually my idea was that the person would only get the reward when the person that they referred signed up for at least one month. good point lead about the fraud i hadnt thought of that (well i did but not untill after i made the post)
Well, 100k in-game credit is really not that much. And free gaming months just eat away the precious income that keeps Guild going. I'd be happy with something sentimental. For example in the game Saga of Ryzom all of us beta (and alpha) testers gained a unique character title "Elder of Atys" that had no special game function. A referee medal for all your characters? This would be persistent and wouldn't give the sponsor any unfair advantage.