

Wing Commander's Chris Roberts returns to gaming with ambitious MMO - Reltair
http://arstechnica.com/gaming/2012/10/wing-commanders-chris-roberts-returns-to-gaming-with-ambitious-mmo/

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jiggy2011
So , Linux version?

The main thing that concerns me is the graphics, popular MMOs seem to have
always had pretty low system requirements.

Keeping an MMO running and compelling must have some pretty high costs so you
either need a lot of players (which high reqs might exclude) or a high monthly
fee.

~~~
RobotCaleb
He didn't mention Linux while I was there, but I'd be surprised if it did come
to Linux. PC gaming typically means Windows gaming. But, you knew that, I'm
sure. :) I wouldn't expect any big titles to come to Linux until Valve
validates that space.

What is your concern with the graphics? I don't know that I caught it in your
sentence.

No monthly fee for this game. Oh, your third paragraph is the concern in your
second? It seems he's doing a couple of things here.

First, he's appealing to a market by treating them as special[0]. This is a
good idea as PC gamers tend to invest pretty heavily in their kit and are
likely to support games that show off the capabilities of said kit. The games
can be both good and pretty, but sometimes even just pretty will be enough.

Second, concentrating on PC allows him to not worry about being burdened by
supporting consoles, which means he can push the tech even further. Which goes
back to servicing the gamers mentioned in point 1.

[0]
[http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jnwqezP86Ww/Td_WTq9dxoI/AAAAAAAAAi...](http://4.bp.blogspot.com/-jnwqezP86Ww/Td_WTq9dxoI/AAAAAAAAAiI/GUzKdsxq4XQ/s1600/pcgamingmasterrace.jpg)

~~~
jiggy2011
I wondered about Linux because it seems to be a common thing with crowdfunded
games as it seems to be a fairly popular OS with people who like kickstarter
and the like. He also mentioned that he liked the PC as an "open platform"
which made me hopeful (can't get much more open than Linux), the last Chris
Roberts game I remember playing ran under DOS so it's not like he has a legacy
of Windows development.

I didn't realise it was no monthly fee, not sure how the economics of that
would work. Running servers to host real-time fast paced space battles is
going to require some significant umphf and a very good network.

While you are right that there's a demographic of PC gamers who enjoy building
high end systems in my experience a lot of people who play MMOs like WoW tend
to run them on low end laptops as well as old desktops. Part of the appeal is
that you can get your less gaming inclined friend to start playing with you on
whatever POS they have lying around. I'm pretty sure blizzard keeps WoWs
graphics basic on purpose.

Perhaps this is a more targeted product for hard core PC gaming fans, however
if they want to make the graphics a big selling point they will have to keep
updating these as time goes on and video cards become more powerful.

That means they will have to either have very scalable graphical settings, or
will rely on their fans upgrading their PCs to keep up with the game. I can
imagine it would be pretty annoying to get into playing an MMO and then one
day have a patch come out that doubles the triangle count and means you now
get 5 fps.

~~~
RobotCaleb
This game is being built on CryEngine 3. AFAIK, while there is a Linux build
of that engine, I don't think it's been realized in anything you can play.

I got the distinct impression from hearing him speak that this isn't so much
of an MMO as it's a multiplayer game in a massive universe. He said that one
of the reasons they're able to put such high fidelity models into the game is
that you won't typically see many of them at once. He likened it to
Battlefield 3 battles vs everyone in a galaxy converging on one spot.

This also ties into your analog to an MMO. It isn't, I gather.

All that said, I'm not him and I haven't had a hand in making it. I wouldn't
mind a hand in making it...

~~~
jiggy2011
Interesting, perhaps it is possible that it will work in a more P2P fashion
with more isolated "instance" type servers for the combat and communal servers
for trading etc. Similar to guildwars.

All of the twitch-reaction type MMOs I have tried have tended to be fraught
with lag problems, the scaling issues if you have to run a single game world
where sub 100ms response times are required and you have 10K+ people connected
at any given time must be quite something.

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RobotCaleb
I was at his presentation. It sure is shiny. The ships look really cool and
I'm a big fan of the way they seem to control. I really hope this takes off.
Wing Commander sits in a special place in my heart.

~~~
saraid216
You know, this comment immediately makes me think of this:
[http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-
go-d...](http://www.codeofhonor.com/blog/starcraft-orcs-in-space-go-down-in-
flames)

Specifically, "As bad as Ion Storm was internally, there was a dark secret
that eventually unraveled. It wasn’t until years later, well after the 1996 E3
demo of Dominion Storm, and after StarCraft launched, that we discovered that
the Dominion Storm demo was a fake."

So not having been there, I have to ask: did you have hands on the controls?

~~~
CamperBob2
Disclaimer: I haven't seen either of these guys for 15 years. However, I was
at Origin in the early 90s, followed by Digital Anvil. Not everything we did
turned to gold, to put it mildly, but Chris and Erin didn't rig demos.

If they're doing that now, I'll be astonished. It wasn't in our DNA as a
company -- either company -- and that ethic came from the top.

We were well accustomed to competing with the latest rigged demo from any of
several companies that are either entirely forgotten now, or remembered with a
snarky chuckle. Our business was basically to ship what other people were
promising... eventually, anyway. :)

~~~
jiggy2011
I loved the early 90s Origin games, they are certainly the ones I remember the
most fondly. I spent _days_ in Ultima 7 just wandering around completely
aimlessly talking to random NPCs and looting dungeons.

Were you there during the development of Ultima 8 and 9? Not to be rude, but
if so _what the hell happened there_?

Was it simply an emphasis of technology over gameplay and story?

These reviews made me chuckle.

[http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/02/01/ultima-7-the-black-
ga...](http://spoonyexperiment.com/2011/02/01/ultima-7-the-black-gate-review/)
<http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/01/31/ultima-8-pagan/>
<http://spoonyexperiment.com/2012/05/29/ultima-9-ascension/>

~~~
CamperBob2
I left shortly before U6 came out, so couldn't speak firsthand about anything
that happened afterward. A lot of nasty things have been written about the
effects of the company's acquisition by Electronic Arts, and most of those
things are true. The culture clash was massive.

Around the time U9 was being developed, Ultima Online was also becoming the
Next Big Thing, and I imagine that splitting development resources between
those two huge projects couldn't have done any good. One of them was bound to
win more mindshare and attract more funding and in-house talent.

Ultima V was the very last one I played all the way through, personally, and I
wouldn't be surprised if that's true for Richard as well.

------
xsmasher
I can't help thinking of Richard Garriott's Tabula Rasa, which did not do
well.

<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tabula_Rasa_%28video_game%29>

For the youngsters: they're both alums of Origin Systems, storied PC game
developer and home of Wing Commander and Ultima.

~~~
mhd
First thing I thought of, too.

And your post reminded me that there are people out there who don't know the
glory that is Lord British. That dost sadden me.

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jjm
Wing Commander Privateer[1] was one of my favorites back in the day. A chance
to do the same but in a MMO like environment would be awesome.

[1] <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wing_Commander:_Privateer>

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Reebz
One does not simply build a sandbox. A sandbox evolves like an organism to
those who inhabit it. It's taken EVE over 10 years to get to it's current
level of polish. Good luck to him, but the article reads with too much
overconfidence.

------
thraveboy
Sweet! I can't wait for the Android and iPhone releases of this.. :)

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mattmanser
I can't say I agree with this at all:

 _Roberts writes on the game's newly launched website that he hopes this
dynamic will create a tiered social structure where dedicated players can
really distinguish themselves from casual players, and where different
factions will be in conflict._

Anyone remember the titles you could earn in WoW PvP but could only be
achieved by tiny percentages? Or Titans in Eve?

Stupid system, stupid idea, stupid to introduce it. Why reward tiny segments
of active players for living unhealthily in your game?

~~~
Karunamon
>Why reward tiny segments of active players for living unhealthily

Spending the effort to gain high-tier rewards in a game and living healthy are
_not_ mutually exclusive.

~~~
jiggy2011
The thing is, you would either need to make those high-tier rewards accessible
to everyone in which case they lose a lot of their shine. Or you need to
design it so that only a very small % of players will be able to achieve them.

There are those who are willing to play an MMO for 16 hours a day, so if you
make them rare enough these are the only people who will be able to achieve
them.

I remember Star wars galaxies, I didn't play it much myself but I remember
"play as a Jedi" being a big selling point and apparently this was in reality
only possible if you were literally willing to devote your life to the game.

They changed it some years later so just about everyone could become a Jedi
and there was much uproar from what I remember.

~~~
betterth
What BS. Why on Earth should games be sterilized down to ensure that all
players receive an equal treatment? That's not how it works, not at all,
because primarily: You can't control players, and players affect each other's
experience.

But even past that, you seem to be saying that all MMO's should be designed
for the lowest common denominator.

Why make guild raids when casual players can't get into top tier guilds?

Why make 40 man dungeon raids when casual players can't find groups larger
than 5?

Why make the game have 80 levels when casual players, on average, will only
reach 60 of them?

My real question is: Why punish avid gamers by condescendingly referring to
their passion as unhealthy?

It seems to me that attempting to force every player into one paradigm is a
great way to alienate everyone except players who that paradigm was designed
for.

If you make a game that appeals to casual gamers -- do not be surprised when
hardcore gamers skip it!

This is the beauty of the MMO: content for everyone and theoretically, the
hardcore gamer's contribution to the game world will ripple out and affect
other gamers, not only psychologically (I want to be that good) but
materially, as they affect economies and other systems...

~~~
ben0x539
"Lowest common denominator"? Really?

After listening to this kind of argument from World of Warcraft players for
ages, I have a serious problem with equating time investment with being more
deserving of having fun. It's about taking pride in the ability to put up with
arbitrary timesinks that serve the game in no way but to prolong it, and that
rhetoric is ultimately justifying game design that is designed to waste the
player's time as much as they will put up with.

Somehow Blizzard managed to brainwash people into rationalizing their sunk
time, and now they really believe that having to spend hours not having fun
before you can have fun is necessary to make a game rewarding, because there's
no other element of the game that is rewarding to them anymore.

~~~
betterth
Your reply once again proves that you're incapable of understanding the
players, and instead of attempting to understand, you're judging and insulting
them and how they freely choose to spend their time.

Seriously just because you don't like something doesn't mean people who do are
brainwashed. That's extremely pretentious and offensive and I really have
nothing more to say to you.

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saraid216
I would be interested to see what the results of the crowdfunding are; I'd
like it validated that such an MMO would be profitable.

