The Discussion - Not a conversation for everyone -

[saxondragon]

I totally understand where you’re coming from and I think it’s too bad you guys can’t be compensated for your work. Taleworlds may have created the game, but if it weren’t for Prophesy of Pendor, I would have shelved Mount & Blade a long time ago. In fact, I had shelved it until I ran into POP 2.0 and started playing that. They laid the groundwork, but you have taken it to another level and given the players something much more compelling to play with.

In many ways I get the feeling that Taleworlds is shooting from the hip with many of their ideas in Warband, and many of the concepts, especially with Lord relations, don’t seem to be fleshed out enough and lack a certain logic. They lean far too much, in my opinion, to everyone hating your guts. The idea of adding marriage is a good one, but it has been pointed out before that they didn’t take it far enough, and the way they implemented it just feels hollow. I prefer the simplicity of the POP Lord relations any day. I won’t be touching Warband until the POP port comes out; I’ll just be playing around with 3.0 until then.

When I make a suggestion like adding The Fallen as a faction, I’m strictly doing it for my own selfish enjoyment. I do think it could be very cool, but somebody has to do the work, and I know it won’t be me.

One thing I am curious about though, is whether you guys are going to do anything with the bandit lairs in the port?

Hi Harry,

Again, thanks for the post. 

I would like to answer your questions in reverse order.

Bandit Lairs: I love this idea, and indeed, this was the original concept for the “treasure chests” in prophesy of Pendor: to have scenes that the player would discover, then have to go in and with a few followers fight something to claim.  We did not have the scene maker to do this and it fell by the wayside.

There are so many interesting ideas and concepts we can add to make this more enjoyable.  I look towards you, and many others in the community to bounce ideas off of, refine my own concepts and fine-tune features and ideas.

In regards to Taleworlds and the features that they are putting forth: well, it is complicated.  This is not like an author who is the person who single handedly is writing a book, but a team of people that have different skills, orientations, and ideas.  No one person can do it all.

The skills of the team and the concepts that they can bring forth and deliver upon will dictate the direction of the offering.

Just as with the first question I answered, we had a great concept, but we lacked the ability to easily implement it, thus the concept was dropped in favor of things we could deliver.

For the Taleworlds team, and any for-profit development team, this is complicated by pressure to get *something* out the door.  What I mean by this is they live, pay rent, put food on the table ONLY when they can deliver a product.  When they do, then what they make has to last them until the NEXT time that they can create something and push it out the door.

It is a very risky proposition for a Development team under these conditions, and while we all love gaming, and making games; working like this is full of uncertainly and risk.

I personally admire Armagan, his wife and the Taleworlds team.  They did something pretty amazing and I am an advocate of their accomplishments.

The team is very strong with the underlying engine and the concepts and code that run the engine. 

A highly successful team has strong people in the four broad areas.  Those areas are “programming”, “artwork”, “Game Design” and “Business”.  We can break each one of these areas down into sub-categories, such as concept artist, 2D artist, terrain artist, 3D artist/modeler, animator etc.  Each sub category has some parts of the first three areas mentioned.  The animator is part artist part programmer for example.

This is such a slippery slope of goals, opportunities and execution that it is difficult to guess and accurately pinpoint what is happening here.

If the Taleworlds team is aiming at creating a really strong one player offering, then yes, I would generally concur with your assessment with some of these new features and I would say that they needed a stronger writer/game designer to deliver/design better context to the game to improve immersion.

If they were aiming to lay the groundwork for a strong multi-player offering with the idea to expand on it later once they have a strong working concept, then they are exactly where they need to be.

Once they have the real time multi-player issues ironed out, then it is not overly difficult to then place an overlay which makes a RTS game that allows both tactical and strategic elements.  This then can be turned into a service offering (probably a multi-tiered subscription model) that solves most of the problems for the players and the Taleworlds team.

In order to be extremely successful, in game design or in any endeavor, you must play to your strengths.  I think Armagan has done that.

I will stop here for now..

Best,

Saxondragon

 

[HarryB]

The thing for me is that I’m not really interested in the multi-player aspect of Warband, so most of the work they do there is going to be lost on me. I get bored pretty quickly in multi-player for the same reason I get bored playing multi-player first person shooters - there isn’t any purpose to what you are doing. You just run around killing people and getting killed and then go on to the next map. I can play those games for 15-20 minutes tops before I quit.

I think purpose is one of the big edges that POP has over vanilla M&B. In POP there is a goal that you are striving for, and that goal is what keeps me playing. I will say this though, I’ve played POP 2.0 through 2.5 probably 4-5 times with new characters, but never actually finished the game. I would get to the point where my forces were so strong that I was just steamrolling over everyone and I would get bored and have to start over again. So, the funny thing is that having an overarching goal is important, but what makes the game fun is the struggle to achieve that goal, not the reaching of the goal itself. If you can walk the fine line of having the game be just difficult enough to provide a challenge, but not so difficult to be overly frustrating, you have a winner.

I think earlier, when I complained about the changes to archery, I lost sight of what made the game fun, and that is having a challenge. Part of me wanted the game to be “easy”, but that was just my own inner laziness, and having it easy actually destroys the reason I am playing in the first place.

On that note, one thing I think you might want to consider for the Warband port, to increase the challenge, is to take away the automatic friendships of certain lords when you behave honorably. The problem is that capturing some of the towns and castles just becomes too easy. I met one of the Ravenstern lords for the first time earlier today, and he had a positive attitude of 76 towards me even though I had never met him before. Well, needless to say I defeated him and then took him prisoner. When I talked to him, he swore an oath of fealty to me and PRESTO, Rane belonged to me. I kind of feel that I was robbed of the experience of beating the crap out of him a bunch of times to make him like me (lol), or laying siege to Rane and assaulting it. I then took Rane from him and now I have a huge force of Ravenstern troops, including around 90 Knights of the Dragon. I think I may give it back to him though, because I want to keep the game challenging.

Something to think about,

Harry

 

[Ichon]

I'm curious if you have any contact with Taleworlds unofficially or more? I've seen some distributors recently release "Official" mods online so there most be a licensing agreement and shared revenue etc. I'd think it is in Taleworlds interest if someone with the success PoP has had approached them but the numbers would need to be convincing to why they should go to the additional trouble.

Downloads of PoP 2.0 on are great for a mod but not sure how well it would translate into real money. Most additional mods released are priced around $1.99-2.99 so maybe not even worth it? Sales target could be based off Warband at the online retailers and the price point if there is a link to the mod when purchasing Warband or M&B.

I guess it depends how would you want to be compensated? The problem with mods is even if you are lucky enough to get financially compensated how to fairly spread that to all the people who contributed. Most mods I've seen get "Officially" promoted are the work of a single or at most 2 people.

I like POP much more than basic M&B but unfortunately I think its so different in concept from where Taleworlds started that if they ever did an official mod release NativeExpansion or something is more likely to benefit.

 

[saxondragon]

I'm curious if you have any contact with Taleworlds unofficially or more? I've seen some distributors recently release "Official" mods online so there most be a licensing agreement and shared revenue etc. I'd think it is in Taleworlds interest if someone with the success PoP has had approached them but the numbers would need to be convincing to why they should go to the additional trouble.

Downloads of PoP 2.0 on are great for a mod but not sure how well it would translate into real money. Most additional mods released are priced around $1.99-2.99 so maybe not even worth it? Sales target could be based off Warband at the online retailers and the price point if there is a link to the mod when purchasing Warband or M&B.

I guess it depends how would you want to be compensated? The problem with mods is even if you are lucky enough to get financially compensated how to fairly spread that to all the people who contributed. Most mods I've seen get "Officially" promoted are the work of a single or at most 2 people.

I like POP much more than basic M&B but unfortunately I think its so different in concept from where Taleworlds started that if they ever did an official mod release NativeExpansion or something is more likely to benefit.

Hello Ichon,

I appreciate the post and engaging in this conversation.  Thank you.

Have I had any contact with Taleworlds?  Armagan and I have swapped a few emails in the past, nothing recent. 

If I have given the impression that I desire or advocate that PoP be sold, packaged or otherwise used for direct profit, I humbly apologize.  This offering is only intended as a not for profit, community project. 

Besides that, the current models for published mod compensation are woefully skewed.  The only person who makes anything on them is the publisher. 

Lets raise the conversation up a notch and ask the question, what would it take to make efforts like this to be profitable in a way that everyone (publisher, developer, mod-maker, and consumer) win?


The first step in this conversation is to ask what are the barriers for the mod-maker to create a mod in a way that can be sustainable. 

The next question is what do the Publishers need?

Followed by, “What does the Development House” require?

Most importantly is “What do the consumers demand?”

I am going to stop here, and see what bubbles up in this conversation.

Best,

Saxondragon

 

[Fawzia dokhtar-i-Sanjar]

What is required? 

First off, a great engine, which we can only borrow from Armagan/TW/M&B so we are limited to its capabilities.  The Warband engine exceeds the capabilities of the V 1.011 engine.  Engines cost a LOT of money either to develop or to "rent" or "buy" the use of.  CD Projekt Red (the Witcher) is in the process right now of developing their own game engine for the next Witcher release.  The cost of such a project is astronomical, in terms of money and time.

All aspects of a "for sale" game require a lot of dev money.  (Just the voices for the PoP 3 companions, renting a recording studio and the licensed music cost well over $1000.00, which costs were paid by a couple of us on the team.)  Hiring voice actors, etc. and licensing music for a for-profit venture costs vastly more.  (One music license for just one piece of music for only non-commercial use can cost between $20.00 and $50.00 - the licensing cost goes up hugely if the music goes into a for-sale product.)

Selling a mod like POP 3 is impossible because the work in the mod (voices, original art for armor, weapons, horses, buildings, all the writing, all the original coding done by SD and MV) belongs to the people who did it,  not even mentioning payment for imagination and creative efforts.  (Sysyphe spent the past year working on the Empire towns and the D'Shar villages, for example, and Abyss spent months on the weapons.  I've worked since last September on the companions and voices and music.)  Not all of them would wish to sell their work for about half a cent on the dollar, expended by them in time and effort, if that.  The music which is not licensed is free-use for non-commercial projects with attributions and could not be used, so the entire music score would have to be replaced.  That took 6 months work to locate, compare, coordinate, cut, etc. plus some remastering.

As you can see from comments on this forum, even though our mod is a free gift to the community, a lot of people have been highly critical of it, too.  One can only imagine how much nastier the posts would be if, God forbid, they'd had to PAY for it.

You can also see - from other posts - what the "market" wants, a highly disparate number of features not necessarily compatible with what the Dev Team wanted or even with the features listed.  We'd have to do a market study of sorts and go for the majority, which we actually did prior to starting PoP 3, right here on the Forum.

I doubt we could have assembled as dedicated and diverse a team for what a commercial venture would pay, as compared to the team we have who do it for fun and love of M&B and its possibilities.  Game design, by and large, is for big companies, and those who do it on an indie basis need to keep their day jobs!

 

[saxondragon]

Good post, thank you.

You have succinctly pointed out, under the current structures why it is impossible.  What would need to change to make it possible?

This is a hard question as I am asking for a different view, a view of a future that does not exist and it involves changing the rules and structure of the current operating models.

Best,

Saxondragon
 

 

[Fawzia dokhtar-i-Sanjar]

Primarily, in terms of what needs to change, is that you or I would have to win the lottery, I think!    And be willing to use the lottery win to finance a highly risky venture which might suck up a lot of money and not yield a sucessful commerical venture.

Or, for a company like Bioware to charitably make us a gift of their engine or allow its use for a reasonable rate in a for-profit
venture?

SD, I know you and others here are fans of MMORPGs - I personally detest them, and also Warband multiplayer.  My reasons for this aversion can be easily found in the posts of some M&B players on this forum.  I've no interest in playing games with many of those people, because their attitudes and perceptions are highly disparate from my own.  I also have no interest in grinding, kill-fests, acquiring superhuman powers, wearing silly-looking fantasy armor or in fighting with stupid-looking fantasy weapons.  For me, a good game is like a good book - it requires a good base plot, expert and compelling execution of that plot and it has to hold my interest over a long time.  I only keep the books which I want to re-read at least once a year; the same with games.  M&B did that, more for the mods, I'll confess, than for the vanilla game, though without it, all the best of M&B would not be possible, so I never forget that or fail to offer mental thanks to Armagan and Co.

 

[Sarpedon]

Lets raise the conversation up a notch and ask the question, what would it take to make efforts like this to be profitable in a way that everyone (publisher, developer, mod-maker, and consumer) win?

The first step in this conversation is to ask what are the barriers for the mod-maker to create a mod in a way that can be sustainable. 

The next question is what do the Publishers need?

Followed by, “What does the Development House” require?

Most importantly is “What do the consumers demand?”

I am going to stop here, and see what bubbles up in this conversation.

Best,

Saxondragon

First, the barriers for mod-makers strike me as a smaller scale version of the barriers faced by a team like Taleworlds when they first conceived the M&B.  As SD mentioned, earlier in the thread, the pressure to release something can torpedo fulfillment of artistic vision.  But M&B was first described to me on the Stainless Steel forum of Medieval TW as a way to fight as if you were a single soldier on the MTW battlefield.  Here are the chief boot-strapping qualities that first made M&B get off the ground.  I hope by identifying aspects of what made it a success (barriers that existed and were overcome), we can close in on SD's question about barriers to sustainable mods.

First, there needs to be a shared vision or mission about the project itself and at least a small understanding about what the endeavor will entail in terms of what resources you will need. (Create a medieval themed battle-campaign with basically a thin role-playing aspect, but a strong emphasis on individual character development and army composition)
Second, an ability to sacrifice elements of your artistic vision in order to meet the needs of a publisher/audience/your own development team. (Keep a bugged claimant quest,  not really develop the land/history or individuality of NPCs).
Third, a willingness to engage with your audience.  Sustainability means interaction with all parties involved so that the happy-medium can be achieved.  (EDIT: And an ability to sort through it all -something I feel PoP crew is great at)
(These are at the for-profit level of design).

Creating a sustainable mod means building off the given platform by identifying areas of improvement (which is based on the second element of the above) and then supplementing it with the first and third (primarily the former) qualities.  The scope of course changes depending on what one is trying to implement. 

A hallmark of M&B has been the ‘work-in-progress’ feel to it that begets a talented crew of modders spending countless hours on countless projects –but the fundamentals of the game remain very attractive.  This WiP feel to M&B does have the ingredients for a resentful community who spend hours improving the broken elements of the original platform just to sustain an unrefined original game.
I am afraid I have trouble speaking to anything from the publishers standpoint.  I wish I knew more about how the iphone-apps compensation structure worked.

 

[Sarpedon]

Primarily, in terms of what needs to change, is that you or I would have to win the lottery, I think!    And be willing to use the lottery win to finance a highly risky venture which might suck up a lot of money and not yield a sucessful commerical venture.

Or, for a company like Bioware to charitably make us a gift of their engine or allow its use for a reasonable rate in a for-profit
venture?

SD, I know you and others here are fans of MMORPGs - I personally destest them, and also Warband multiplayer.  My reasons for this aversion can be easily found in the posts of some M&B players on this forum.  I've no interest in playing games with many of those people, because their attitudes and perceptions are highly disparate from my own.  I also have no interest in grinding, kill-fests, acquiring superhuman powers, wearing silly-looking fantasy armor or in fighting with stupid-looking fantasy weapons.  For me, a good game is like a good book - it requires a good base plot, expert and compelling execution of that plot and it has to hold my interest over a long time.  I only keep the books which I want to re-read at least once a year; the same with games.  M&B did that, more for the mods, I'll confess, than for the vanilla game, though without it, all the best of M&B would not be possible, so I never forget that or fail to offer mental thanks to Armagan and Co.

@FdiS
You are bordering a discussion I have been meaning to continue with the creator.  Maybe that one will make the forum in good time.

@ SD OK, let's broaden the lense then.
I see a successful product as developing a highly adaptable engine (which, I agree with Fawz, that we shuold never fail to be thankful for) with a mission that includes a nod to the modding community.  That is an deliberate decision on behalf of the developers and publishers to embrace the modding community and establish a means for them to pay for their work.  It might require a level of 'open-sourcing' on things like voices, music etc. where licensing of music, sounds etc. and cooperation from the publisher and devloper with the modder in procuring rights to this or that piece.  Mods could be distributed at pre-agreed prices and arrangements by the Publisher, the ownership issue is the crux, and that would require sit-down legal hashing out.  Ultimately, each separately distributed mod would act like a limited partnership between the engine developers, publisher and modders.  The publishers could be a huge resource with their capabilities to the smaller mod community, but it means they could really be in a 'screwing-over the little guy' position.

 

[Tsunami]

Lets raise the conversation up a notch and ask the question, what would it take to make efforts like this to be profitable in a way that everyone (publisher, developer, mod-maker, and consumer) win?


The first step in this conversation is to ask what are the barriers for the mod-maker to create a mod in a way that can be sustainable. 

1)The next question is what do the Publishers need?

2)Followed by, “What does the Development House” require?

3)Most importantly is “What do the consumers demand?”

4)I am going to stop here, and see what bubbles up in this conversation.

Best,

Saxondragon

I cannot answer 1, 2, and 4...but i can answer number three. The consumers want MORE. if you ask a consumer what they would love to have, the simplest way to put out what they would be describing is "more"...the quest to have more is innate in all of us..  No one is content with how things are now; everything must always be better. The only way to answer this question rationally without the lethargy of human nature is through informed crowd surfing. Take a group of few individuals (fans that have no idea about computer programming), inform them on a project (ex. PoP) RECOMMENDED at least to rudimentary knowledge. on that point, leave this group and work on something or take a break and go back to this "collaborative team" in 1 hour or hell, whatever time schedule you want and see what they have "brainstormed" rationally and logically.

take this list to the actual dev team. see if you guys can develop those that you like. the list should be broken down into "wanted", "hopefully wanted if possible" and "Good luck". the last one being something that has a slim possibility of being created through the esoteric coding/programing knowledge,  the middle being hopefully being able to create and the wanted being most likely to be able to be built.

no company actually asks the ENTIRE community and fanbase what they want. all that will give is a headache and a throng that will turn violent off each other because of irrational "internet" thinking (he/she cant touch me so i am going to make fun of him and his foolish idea). it is like a quote from Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire: "He who defends everything defends nothing." this quote applies here because the DEV team can't simply make personal requests...in military translation...spreading yourself to thin.

Back to the original topic, once the dev team looks at the list..adds things and takes things away, posts a poll about it the the community. to see what people want most. give the people some, but not all. or else your setting yourself such a high bar that cannot be accomplished.

easiest way to find what consumers want; kind of like a republic/aristocracy/bureaucracy.

Oh and please do not make it official. we love the work and no1 feels like going through the god damn f***ing paperwork required by today's society. not even you, the reader. offical, unoffical who cares. unoffical= rectitude of satisying your fellow men. offical= still rectifying...but on a scale of -5 to 5 it would be between -2 to 3 depending on majority rule and complaints -.-...bound to be alot

btw...root of all evil is money

and one quote everyone should look into, by Emerson, the best of the transcendentalist movement: "Money often costs to much"

think about it...you might get it..or not....if not...

READ IF YOUR A MORON, or lethargic...i would probably go with lethargic as it will not hurt your self esteem as much

Spoiler

to hell with money if it requires this much time and effort just so i can get criticized by the community/boss more

 

[saxondragon]

@Fawzia –
No, I am not necessarily a fan of MMORPG’s, but the model that they represent and how it plays to certain players to fulfill certain psychological needs.  I am referring more to McClellands Theory of Needs (n Achievement, n Affiliation, n Power) as a model for understanding why people play. 

The current MMOPRG model is, in essence, a service based business model and I am fairly certain that this is the only way we can solve the big problems.  I will elaborate on this in a bit.  Do not fall into the trap of thinking that a service based model excludes a single player offering.

Yes, we are not to the point of implementing something (the lottery reference), but rather if we did have the capital to move forward, what would we do?  In other words, let’s focus on the “What are we going to do” rather than “how are we doing to do it”.

We are of one mind regarding the current state of MMORPG game play, and you comment on the experiences you have had with most MMORPG’s run concurrent with the post from Tsunami.

@Tsunami
Thanks for entering the discussion.  You nailed the underlying issue of “MORE”, and I would like to elaborate a bit.  What I feel we want as players is Value.  We are not currently satisfied with the offerings that are being presented to us holistically in the gaming space.  They are not engaging, are not fulfilling and generally lack meaning. 

Tsunami, your point about money and evil is well taken.  I have seen more prospective projects that would have been wildly successful, tank because of greed.  I will come back to this point later.

@Sarpedon and Fawzia nail the concept that an engine must be provided.  I think that is a given. 

@Sarpedon
Excellent points.  Yes, we must start out with a shared vision and that is partially what this discussion is about.  The vision and the end goal is all important.  To reach that goal we have to identify the underlying problems, and then solve them.

I look at the current model of how game developers make games and I play this conversation in my mind between a prospective writer and guild master from hundreds of years ago.
-----------------------------------
Guild Master: So you want to write a book eh?

Writer: Yes, it is my dream.  I have all of these great ideas and the story goes like..

Guild master: Stop.  I do not want to hear it, you are wasting my time.  Here, take this axe and this pick.  Go out and cut down some trees and mine some iron.  Preferably the trees should be made of harder wood so to support the printing press you are going to make.  Then take the pick, go find a deposit of Iron and chip off enough chunks to refine down into what we will need for the gears and to set the lettering.  When you have done that, come back and talk to me.

Months or years later the prospective writer returns having spent a great deal of time and effort building a printing press. 

Guild Master: You have returned.  That is good.  Yes, I see you have built a respectable press.  Now, go out and learn to be an artist and learn about how to bind books, create glue, and create the covers.  Talk to me then.

The writer leaves, spends months or perhaps years learning these skills then finally returns.
Guild Master: Very good.  Now you can write your book.  When you have completed the first few chapters, come see me and we will determine if we will distribute your book for you.  It has to be good or else we will not package it and send it out.

Writer: Wait a minute!  I have spent two years putting together this printing press, learning how to set type, making the type, learning how to bind books, inclusive of how to decorate with art the cover, and now, you want to hear about the book?

Guild Master: Of course.  You have to show me that you are serious!  Now I will listen to you.
Writer: But all I wanted to do is to write a book! 

Guild Master: That is not how it works.  You must create the book first, and to do that you have to have a good printing press, and it must look good so you need artists to make the cover and it has to be well bound so none of the pages fall out.  Only then will I talk to you.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
My contention then is that the model is not optimal and is not designed to take advantage of the current technology available to us.

I will yield my thoughts on these basic questions.

What are the barriers for the mod-maker to create a mod in a way that can be sustainable?  The barriers are effort and reward.  It is not sustainable.  It takes too much work for only intrinsic rewards to be a viable option.  Every main mod maker will eventually move on.  The problems involve too many different aspects of creating an offering, from artwork, coding, scene making, music, sounds, voice acting etc.  How can this be synthesized?

The next question is what do the Publishers need?  They need a way to reduce the risk with publishing an offering. 

Followed by, “What does the Development House” require?  The need a steady income and a way to create more quality content than currently exists and to relieve the pressures of living release to release.  This also means reducing the risk and uncertainty the development house lives with day in and day out.

Most importantly is “What do the consumers demand?”  Tsunami nailed this:  We need MORE, which translates to Value.

I am going to stop here, and see what bubbles up in this conversation.

 

[Mad Vader]

From a developer point of view, I doubt that any money that could theoretically trickle through a publisher and get split by the team could pay the going rate for skilled programming.
It may mollify some angry/abandoned significant others, but that's all. If you are willing to do it for free, you'll probably give your best.
I don't have any numbers, but it's hard to see anybody getting rich soon on mods. While sometimes download counts look impressive, many people would not be willing to actually pay for mods, so it's a relatively small, niche market.

I suspect there is a way to make this work that requires some sneaky, stealthy charging models (charging by the hour? per battle? ) that will make people more willing to pay far more than they initially expected.

I'm sure that there are success stories out there that could show the way - so please share them.

 

[Ichon]

Primarily, in terms of what needs to change, is that you or I would have to win the lottery, I think!    And be willing to use the lottery win to finance a highly risky venture which might suck up a lot of money and not yield a sucessful commerical venture.

Or, for a company like Bioware to charitably make us a gift of their engine or allow its use for a reasonable rate in a for-profit
venture?

SD, I know you and others here are fans of MMORPGs - I personally destest them, and also Warband multiplayer.  My reasons for this aversion can be easily found in the posts of some M&B players on this forum.  I've no interest in playing games with many of those people, because their attitudes and perceptions are highly disparate from my own.  I also have no interest in grinding, kill-fests, acquiring superhuman powers, wearing silly-looking fantasy armor or in fighting with stupid-looking fantasy weapons.  For me, a good game is like a good book - it requires a good base plot, expert and compelling execution of that plot and it has to hold my interest over a long time.  I only keep the books which I want to re-read at least once a year; the same with games.  M&B did that, more for the mods, I'll confess, than for the vanilla game, though without it, all the best of M&B would not be possible, so I never forget that or fail to offer mental thanks to Armagan and Co.

@FdiS
You are bordering a discussion I have been meaning to continue with the creator.  Maybe that one will make the forum in good time.

@ SD OK, let's broaden the lense then.
I see a successful product as developing a highly adaptable engine (which, I agree with Fawz, that we shuold never fail to be thankful for) with a mission that includes a nod to the modding community.  That is an deliberate decision on behalf of the developers and publishers to embrace the modding community and establish a means for them to pay for their work.  It might require a level of 'open-sourcing' on things like voices, music etc. where licensing of music, sounds etc. and cooperation from the publisher and devloper with the modder in procuring rights to this or that piece.  Mods could be distributed at pre-agreed prices and arrangements by the Publisher, the ownership issue is the crux, and that would require sit-down legal hashing out.  Ultimately, each separately distributed mod would act like a limited partnership between the engine developers, publisher and modders.  The publishers could be a huge resource with their capabilities to the smaller mod community, but it means they could really be in a 'screwing-over the little guy' position.

Hi- interesting you heard about M&B on SS forums at TWC same as me. Similar interest base I suppose.

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There are interesting open source models starting to develop in various forms but the issue with games that none of these new forms have to deal with is the original engine. Due to the massive costs involved a game engine is not something which can be easily developed/found/given.  The developers who are smaller and whose core mission is to make games "they" want to play are the most mod friendly and aside from NTW/Oblivion seem to have the largest modding communities.

For example the Youtube collaborations are an interesting form of an open source online community creating something new.  They still have recording production costs etc on the higher end of that form but still their work is unique to the creators. They aren't taking something as specific to the final product as a game engine,  not to mention in music it can be more acceptable that "all art is imitation" not that you can totally rip specifics but you can create something similar enough to recognize the original source/influence. 

Wikipedia and the development of open source Linux are other examples where compensation has been brought up numerous times but so far no one has succeeded in how to implement it because much of the base material they are working with is either public domain(wiki) or privately created but made open source software(Linux).

The case of Linux is interesting in that it differs from game engines in that rather the creating potential competitors to their profits the creators of Linux were hoping to establish something that could compete with the biggest players in their industry with the help of the community. IE- their model depended on the community to attain the end goal whereas for many game developers supporting mods with donations of anything could be seen as competition to their bottom line.

I think any successful application of large scale open source work/creation would absolutely have to have a vision that is articulated so well the various contributors are willing to see their own work subsumed into the greater whole. A model of monetary compensation would work only if all the people involved were professionals and/or willing to be compensated at an unknown amount. Most open source collaboration occurring now that is compensated monetarily is quite aggressive- IE, open bidding or acquisition of the talent by specific recognition of skills needed for a project.

I guess it comes down in large part to how creators define themselves. Those who think of themselves as artists are willing to put their best work out and let the public/consumers decide its value. Then there is the investor model- individual contributions get returns based on risks and the management cost. Finally the worker bee model which is most common in the software design world where the queen bee(developer/publisher) decides what is going to get done and there is a set compensation schedule for all the workers in the hive and it is a very closed process so there is little waste and less rewards shared outside the hive.

Perhaps someday an open source collaboration could be done which combines 1 and 2 of the above. Some developer decides to risk trying something new and builds a base engine which it lends out to artists/creators willing to put work into something for which there is no guaranteed return and then let all the competing visions loose and the consumers decide what the ultimate creation of each visionary team is worth. The developers of the original engine take a percentage fee of all the revenue just like a investment management company(bit more complicated than that actually).

The real problem is for something like that to even have a chance of success there would have to be support in a large name publishers marketing channels or a truly innovative marketing effort otherwise a large enough segment of consumers would never be developed for the various creative visions to be targeted at. That is why the alternative of mods siphoning an already established consumer segment but with limited control over the basic engine is what has occurred up till now.

As well the question of constant revenue stream(subscriptions) or retail revenue is still being debated and would be as important to compensated modding as it is for the development/publishing side of the triangle. Or revenue model not yet seen because the technology isn't implemented in a way consumers can trust.

 

[Fawzia dokhtar-i-Sanjar]

Dragon Age is already doing exactly that, MV - you have to pay five bucks or so for Bioware points to download another small related adventure mod for the game - their productions, not modders' productions.  I just spent $5.00 on an hour's worth of play - Leliana's adventure in Denerim prior to coming to Ferelden - and I guess, in terms of the fact that I could not buy a couple of pints of good ale in a pub for the same amount, and derive any more enjoyment from that in an hour or so, made it worth the purchase.  Still, I recognize it for the scam it is. 

Edit: Not scam, precisely, but they are in effect, charging $5.00 for content quite possibly in development for the original game but not completed or left out, so they are making commercial lemonade from lemons.  In the case of M&B, if somebody just fixed all the bugs in it, like the ongoing claimant quest problems, that should be salable on a one-shot purchase basis, but the modder who did it would not get paid and the real beneficiaries would be Taleworlds and Paradox Interactive.

I could see something along the lines of paying an annual subscription fee to Taleworlds, for example, for the privelege of downloading mods, but while that would benefit Armagan and Paradox Interactive, it would hardly benefit those of us who did the actual work.

To me, it all comes down to getting hold of an engine the same way as Linux was developed - perhaps a community project to develop a game engine which everybody could use, one versatile enough to be used for a variety of games, and which was simple enough to use that it did not scare off potential game creators.  It would require a vast, ongoing community project encompassing scene makers, modellers, code writers, animators to create a "base file" game which included the aforementioned things and the engine.  Not exactly easy to organize, worse than herding cats, but something similar to the OSP.

 

[Ichon]

Primarily, in terms of what needs to change, is that you or I would have to win the lottery, I think!    And be willing to use the lottery win to finance a highly risky venture which might suck up a lot of money and not yield a sucessful commerical venture.

Or, for a company like Bioware to charitably make us a gift of their engine or allow its use for a reasonable rate in a for-profit
venture?

SD, I know you and others here are fans of MMORPGs - I personally detest them, and also Warband multiplayer.  My reasons for this aversion can be easily found in the posts of some M&B players on this forum.  I've no interest in playing games with many of those people, because their attitudes and perceptions are highly disparate from my own.  I also have no interest in grinding, kill-fests, acquiring superhuman powers, wearing silly-looking fantasy armor or in fighting with stupid-looking fantasy weapons.  For me, a good game is like a good book - it requires a good base plot, expert and compelling execution of that plot and it has to hold my interest over a long time.  I only keep the books which I want to re-read at least once a year; the same with games.  M&B did that, more for the mods, I'll confess, than for the vanilla game, though without it, all the best of M&B would not be possible, so I never forget that or fail to offer mental thanks to Armagan and Co.

I agree with you here. I've been playing computer games since elementary school back when a computer used cartridges and the screen was a black and white tv. In all that time never gotten into MMORPGs or the alternatives prior to that on the BBS's or pen and paper gaming. I think it correlates that I read books alot(well used to- not between different life commitments and playing games in spare time I read less than ever) but reading is an adventure in solitary imagination. Not having other people impinge on what I'm creating in my head.

Which to me also relates to the question of identifying what people want in a game/mod. I doubt many people have much idea what they want aside from genre/cost. I didn't know I'd want M&B until I played it and then going from that to POP wasn't something I actively thought about or conceived of the various elements POP added to basic M&B. I'd guess most debates and criticism in mods aren't over what is lacking but how specific features were or weren't implemented according to how the individual person thought it would be. Rarely is there criticism for a feature not even included. In that sense the creators of the additional content have quite alot of freedom to make what they want, not satisfy the urges of the people who use it for free but if users of a mod become consumers who paid for a product that freedom to create goes away to some extent and the marketing and support becomes more important.

 

[Gulatr]

To be a good Product the Mod\Game\MMORPG needs to have a moderate learning curve. It needs to be simple enough for the average player to enjoy.

When you guys charged into making this mod your main goal was "Greater Challenge", stated many times, and the finished product is exactly that. The level of difficulty is suitable for experienced players, new players will feel frustrated getting ass-whooped time after time.

As I see it, mass production favours simplicity, look at the top sales charts.

Fawzia- I know what you mean about annoying people on MP and in the forum, talking Lot's of superficial crap with little thinking behind it. But we are surrounded by such people in Real Life as well  .
On the other hand there are many friendly individuals that like to play fair in MP and give constructive criticism on the forums.

 

[Fawzia dokhtar-i-Sanjar]

You are quite right about the good people on the Forum, and I was not talking about them.  I have a number of online acquaintances on this forum whom I consider friends.  I was also thinking of the "average" players in the "average" MMORPG.
I am probably oversensitive on the subject because, not being a kid, I have a short fuse for trolls and general stupidity.  It seems a waste of time to have to wade through their stuff to see the good and constructive posts.

What got us through PoP 3 was precisely what you cite - an end goal which all of us agreed upon, though I can tell you that the ways and means of achieving said goal was constantly under discussion/argument for months.

The other topic not addressed here under marketing is the age group and gender to which one targets the product.  Those of my age group tend not to be gamers, and women tend even less to play games like M&B, so I may not understand what motivates the "average" consumer of a game like M&B, since I'm both older and female.  It would be interesting to know what age group and sex the "average" M&B consumer falls into, and more interesting to know which mods appeal to which age and sex.  My guess is that for younger guys, it would be more bloodshed, more bennies, sex, etc.  For the older ones of both genders, more interesting plot, more strategy, outcomes based on decisions made, moral choices to be made - not just rushing out to kill everything that moves in the goriest way possible.  (Two of my younger friends are right now working on on beheading and dismemberment for the Warband port of PoP 3 - they are excited, I think it is yucky to see somebody's head cut off and the neck fountaining blood, but it will probably have enormous appeal to most players.)

Edit: I should add here that a lot of my favorite games (including War Rider) began as rather screwed-up Indie games (like The Witcher, which was a mess initially and in Polish to boot), and games in the old-style like Eschelon Book 1 and 2,  both of which which are like the old turn-based early games, with some fancier touches and graphics.  I still play the older versions of Age of Empires or Rise of Nations just for the contrast with those games and today's games, amazing how far gaming has come.

 

[Galagros]

You are quite right about the good people on the Forum, and I was not talking about them.  I have a number of online acquaintances on this forum whom I consider friends.  I was also thinking of the "average" players in the "average" MMORPG.
I am probably oversensitive on the subject because, not being a kid, I have a short fuse for trolls and general stupidity.  It seems a waste of time to have to wade through their stuff to see the good and constructive posts.

What got us through PoP 3 was precisely what you cite - an end goal which all of us agreed upon, though I can tell you that the ways and means of achieving said goal was constantly under discussion/argument for months.

The other topic not addressed here under marketing is the age group to which one targets the product.  Those of my age group tend not to be gamers, and women tend even less to play games like M&B, so I may not understand what motivates the "average" consumer of a game like M&B, since I'm both older and female.  It would be interesting to know what age group and sex the "average" M&B consumer falls into, and more interesting to know which mods appeal to which age and sex.  My guess is that for younger guys, it would be more bloodshed, more bennies, sex, etc.  For the older ones of both genders, more interesting plot, more strategy, outcomes based on decisions made, moral choices to be made - not just rushing out to kill everything that moves in the goriest way possible.  (Two of my younger friends are right now working on on beheading and dismemberment for the Warband port of PoP 3 - they are excited, I think it is yucky to see somebody's head cut off and the neck fountaining blood, but it will probably have enormous appeal to most players.)

I would have to agree with you on certain ages/sexes preferring different games or at the very least different aspects of games. You're probably also dead on with the female gender generally preferring other types of games to action games. From my limited experience (with females members of my gaming guild) I'd say 1/4 to 1/3 of them like action games whereas the rest prefer to focus on story. I also have preferences when it comes to certain game aspects, so a middle-of-the-road approach probably isn't the best. You need to pick a specific end goal and a style for achieving that end goal. Stick to it and don't compromise so much that your specific vision ends up not being so specific anymore.

 

[HarryB]

Well, I think it’s pretty clear that for a mod to be sustainable, the people working on it need to get enough compensation to keep them able and willing to continue updating it and creating new content. If the publisher is taking too big of a cut, then why bother? The publisher (Taleworlds in this case) certainly deserves a cut, because they have laid the groundwork, and any mod is piggybacking off of work they have done. In the case of Prophesy of Pendor, I would think it would be in Taleworlds best interest to be supportive of you, because quality mods like PoP are a rarity. Most mods really aren’t that good or deep, and that should come as no surprise because they are almost always done for the fun of it in people’s spare time. A mod like PoP though, can keep players interested in the game and coming back for more if quality content can continue to be generated. This is certainly good for the publisher, so, if they were smart, they would support you simply out of self interest. As far as the specifics of negotiating a contract though, that is out of my league.

What do the consumers demand? I would say, try to put out a game that is challenging, but not to the point of being so difficult as to frustrate too many people. It’s a fine line to walk. Something that may be a good idea is to provide levels of difficulty that the player can choose at the beginning of the game (for PoP I might suggest Challenging, Harder than Hell and Bat **** Crazy ). Of course, I have no idea how you would implement that, but if you were working on it full time…

I don’t know if this would be possible with the current engine, but how about having a random map generator create a new game world at the beginning of every game? Let’s say you had 10 different factions in the game. When the game map is created initially, there may be 6 factions, chosen at random, on the map, then, at random times you might have invasions from factions that got left out, ala Sword of Damocles. This would certainly increase variety and add life to the game.

I’m just shooting from the hip here and I should probably stop, but there are tons of things that could be done. The hard part is actually taking the idea and implementing it properly so that something that is genuinely fun to play is created. Clearly, things like this are beyond the scope of what a mod developer could create in today’s environment, but if they were properly compensated and working full time, who knows what they could come up with.

Harry

 

[Fawzia dokhtar-i-Sanjar]

I think one reason I don't like Warband is because it is so heavily slanted towards a male player and against female players.  (That is going to be fixed in the POP 3 port to Warband, that I swear!  It will be enjoyable to make use of the kick animation when talking to blatantly sexist lords, I think.)  I like both a good story and the fighting, personally, but the battles have to require strategy for me to enjoy them, the game must be challenging to both my brute force/whack the bastards inclinations and to my brain.  If there is not a good story to back up the battles, the whole thing seems a pointless slaughterfest to me.

Edit: HarryB - levels of difficulty are achieved in PoP 3 the same way as in M&B, by setting one's difficulty levels - how much damage to friends, how good is the enemy AI, how many participate in a battle.  I'd agree that playing it on the hardest setting, with Battle Sizer cranked up to just below CTD level, is "bat-**** crazy!"  But a lot of fun.

We could do a lot more with the game world in M&B if it were possible even to map chain, but the engine won't support it.
With the new expanded Warband map, you'd be surprised what can be accomplished, and the bandit camps are good for some better stuff than just Warband bandit camps, as well.

My chief objection to Warband (other than the lords' sexism and the spastic sword on horseback animations) is the fact that companion development is utterly neglected.  This is an area which is extremely easy to rectify and I cannot think why Armagan didn't do something about that.  Even if, for sentimentality and for continuity, the old npcs remained in place in Warband, it would have been quite easy to add to their backstories, give them some personality quirks, shift some of the likes/dislikes they have and their reasons for them.  I take great pride in PoP's companions because they are unique, there is a character set for a variety of interests on the part of the Player, and because they are sometimes funny as well as just *****ing obnoxiously about each other.  That is really one of the easiest things to do in a mod - create a new companion, face code, backstory and dialog for the npc.