Bekers is at it again...

My skepticism was that Katrina is an alt for Starr. I don't disagree that he might be some kind of industry insider, though I've encountered plenty of blowhards who are great at speaking with authority, but are really just gamers who have zero clue what they're really talking about... So I'm not sure one way or the other.

In fact, there are many gdc talks where Raph Koster points out that the $10,000 whales are normally the hardcore pvpers who "buy to crush" (it's no coincidence that a variation of that phrase is one of Crowfall's slogans: play2crush), so I question the veracity of Katrina's claims that a hardcore pvp game isn't economically viable in 2015. I'll put a link to that presentation when I can get to my pc

Edit to add:



^Okay, so at first blush, this appears to echo everything Katrina is saying. People don't like being shamed, hardcore pvp games drive away more casual players, players should be protected from being shamed, etc.

I don't dispute any of those things. What I *DO* dispute is that pvp games with a hard edge aren't profitable or viable in 2015.

Raph clearly points out that the type of players who would gravitate toward a hardcore pvp game are the same types who would pay big bucks to crush their foes (yeah, I know, P2W). Still, Katrina (and others) take the stance that there is no place for pain in SotA because it will drive away the hordes of mouse-clickers who are so bad at the game they will never stand a chance against a player with truly predatory instincts.

Katrina cites sub numbers for UO, EvE online, and then compares those to the millions playing WoW, clearly making a case for SotA to stay carebear-friendly because otherwise, it will miss out on all these WoW players who are apparently just waiting in the wings to rush to play SotA upon its release. This is where I take exception to Katrina's reasoning.

SotA's devs and sycophantic fanboys keep chasing this WoW-type crowd. They keep insisting that they must avoid shaming bad players because then, the game just won't be profitable (after all, this is 2015 and we all know that no hardcore pvp could possibly be successful in 2015 blah blah blah). Yet, in the same posts, Katrina talks about playing EvE for 8+ years, and cites its hundreds of thousands of players.

Last I checked, SotA's backer-numbers are quite low. Katrina calls EvE (with it's hundreds of thousands of players) and other hardcore pvp games "niche" games, but then what does that make SotA? (micro-niche, perhaps???).

SotA would be LUCKY if it had 100k players at its launch (despite insanely optimistic predictions of 300k to 3million by fanboys like Lazarus), and I can't imagine the retention will be that great when the majority of the "elder game" in SotA appears to revolve around little more than dress up barbie and virtual LARP-fests.

Yet, they still want to put all their eggs in the carebear basket, making the game all about grinding and buying your way to social status, with absolutely no risk or danger because "it's 2015 after all, and shame isn't profitable." Yet they think the path SotA is on *IS* profitable???

From my point of view, SotA will be LUCKY to have the numbers of players that EvE has when it launches (let alone 6 months after launch). SotA would probably even be lucky to have the number of players that a truly niche game like Wild Ones has (and it still might turn a profit as long as those players were pouring money into it because they are crazy pvp whales who "buy to crush").

Yet, they are all so convinced that risk and pain are so abhorrent that they water down everything in their game and rail against any hint that the game have a more hardcore and dangerous edge to its world.

They shoot down every posts by people like Tupelo with condescending *sighs* and holier than thou attitudes. <-- both which are sources of SHAME that are sure to drive people away (::gasps in horror:.

They are betting on the carebear crowd, they are somehow confident that the ugly, poor excuse for a game they have backed is going to be able to draw away some of those 12 million WoW players. They are delusional.

What I want to see, several years from now, is how Crowfall is doing relative to how SotA is doing (if they both have even released by that point). Crowfall, at least in some respects, is catering to the hardcore pvp crowd (admittedly, players can select different campaigns with different rulesets, effectively segregating themselves away from hardcore pvp if they so desire). So, I wonder just how badly it's going to do compared to SotA in light of Katrina's dire predictions toward all things hardcore pvp (despite his own admission that EvE is still alive and kicking, despite its reputation for being the "wild wild west" of MMO's).

While CF still gives a playing field to the hardcore pvp whales, it seems like SotA fanboys shun any suggestion of doing something like that because its player base consists of a bunch of mouth-breathing, mouse-clicking grandma and grandpas who have the reaction speed of a slug.

IDK, I'm ranting now and the original point I wanted to make is kinda lost in the above madness, but hopefully some of what I said above is still relevant. I guess I'm just trying to say that I believe there is still a market for hardcore pvp games and that they aren't as impossible to turn a profit on as the Katrina Bekers of the world would have us believe.

What is impossible to turn a profit on is an ugly, poorly built pile of excrement like SotA which upsells you at every turn, which has devs and a community who are dishonest and arrogant beyond belief, and is populated by players who condescend to anybody who expresses a desire for the game to deviate so much as a hair from what the "community" wants.

Millions of people play LoL and DotA, and EvE.

It's simply not true that there aren't enough people for a good ole hardcore MMORPG. Only a lobotomized fool would think otherwise.

I've read Raph's blog for a long time.

His writing style and attitude towards those he disagrees with is nowhere near as snarky or condescending as Katrina's...

He's a smart, thoughtful guy who normally carries all that he knows with a lot of humility. Nothing like Katrina's posts...

The casual gamers that are in favor of safe zones, with no full loot, nothing hardcore anywhere, well they have no idea what they are talking about and will spew out anything to try hard support their cause. In reality there are far more people out there waiting for the next hardcore full loot game, whether it's a fps or mmorpg, people want it. Wow is never a good example of judging what players want as really, it was the only mmorpg out there to play for a pretty long time, people never really had a choice as there wasn't really anything else, other games came and went pretty fast. Pretty much everyone I know, whether it's friends in life, from twitch, twitch streamers, or other random gamer's that I run into, everyone seems to want to get away from the wow pussymode, that some kids got conditioned into and get back to a hardcore game with killing, full loot, random other things to terrorize other players. I've never seen so many sheltered casual gamer's before I entered the shroud community, it's like all these sad individuals couldn't handle it anywhere else and decided to band together here. If you want to know some truly more realistic statistics, it's that what we have left now in the Shroud community is pretty much the amount of people that are in favor for a safezone, no full loot, no hardcore carebearville, the majority of the hardcore gamer's have already left. I know countless people that won't even try Shroud because after looking into it, it was to carebear for them, that includes some big twitch streamers with 5000-30000+ viewers. I myself don't play the game due to two main reasons, the combat is the worst ever, not complex enough for me, offers no advantage for skilled players and that is is not full loot, that it isn't hardcore, it's the medieval sims full of middle aged casuals that that have been waiting their whole life to suck up to RG.

Some of my favorite moments in UO were when I first started playing it, soloing around and getting killed by other players, losing everything and feeling rewarded when I set out to obtain new stuff. It added excitement to the game, like there was a purpose to stuff, that I actually had to have a strategy, that I couldn't do exactly what I wanted right there and now. You had to learn, be aware and plan, this is nothing like today's game's where you can stand around freely in the middle of anywhere and have a rp session, if anyone disturbs it you get banned. Boring.

What u guys doin? Its 2:20 am here in Russia, Im lyin in my bed listening to the police frequencies on my Baofeng radio and reading the forum.

What are you talking about? It's 4:20 in the afternoon here. ;-)

Heil Russia, one of the few places on earth left with signs of intelligence.

On my phone so this post will probably suck.

SOTA is a niche game, unfortunately they didn't clearly specify which niche.

You get the high knowledge who pvers claim to know what gamers want but they are clearly not hard core pvers, the top groups completing raid group content number crunching every ability to maximize dps hps and tank up time. Writing strats for each encounter. SOTA doesn't have this content so does not cater for this niche.

You have the original Ultima crowd trying to relive their childhood capture that rp experience the world interactions and story. They don't want flashy graphics cutting edge cut scenes they want a living breathing world and let their imagination run wild with their character at the Centre of it. We have seen pass poor character interaction with npc no story what so ever a world that has more loading screens then crash bandicoot and lifeless dull towns. Not much for them.

Pvpers portrayed as rabid wolves eating their own young raping and pillaging across the country side griefing every poor soul they come across (griefing itself is a loaded word the definition has definitely changed. The battle cry of the inept). Lured to sota with a uo experience, meaningful combat that has an impact and rewards tactics groups or gifted individuals with spoils (looted or rewards ) . Nope not there. We have a controversial system that could be interesting but fails free aim introduced as aneeded after thought and lacks any impact.

What do we have left? The casual the rpers. I put these two on same category. They just want something they can jump into create their own world have a little progression feel good and jump out. They don't take time to learn the game master certain things yet demand access to every part of the game for either rp reasons or casual game time just to experience the world.

A niche game cannot afford to water down aspects. They need to choose their audience and run with it.

Back to the age old wow argument. Wow is a perfect storm of back story all gamers knew (I'm 31 my first rts was war craft 1 I obviously gobbled up blizzards offering and gratefully begged for more) funding and timing. On release it offered the player to experience azeroth first hand! On top of that raids were hard core gear was hard to get. Pvp took a while to stand up. But funk that mmos were new and for the first time offered to a wide audience. Wow becomes the benchmark solely coz of saturation. Fast forward 10 years they have tired difficulty lvls for dungeons they have transmog for rpers they have Pvp for rewards and Pvp seasons. Is it perfect? No but it caters for all players you can be a casual player and see the whole story and content. The back story is amazing and wow still has many stories to tell. Still subs dwindle that's because gamers are not as homogeneous we were 10 and 15 years ago. There is a spoiling of choice. It's why we see so many mmo these days.

Eve is a great game. Devs work well with community it's just a slow time consuming game.it's definitely in the niche and is a great example of how hard core Pvp and pve can work. Ultimately though it isn't everyone cup of tea.

People sprouting metrics statistics etc aren't looking at the full picture. There is so much to success of games 10 years ago then today. Just look at the amount of net users now compared to then,the age of gamers and numerous social aspects. Pre 9/11 nazis post hajis. Perfect example.

Becker is a condescending fuckwit it is not a dev never has worked in the industry or did on the fringe. Anyone taking an argument of superiority on a net forum is doubtful.

Kb and grim. You guys seem similar to me. You're both technical guys and I assume you have been successful enough. Your confident in your own skin and I think you have families mortgages etc

Assassin is extremely educated or wealthier then normal dude. Wide read I wouldn't of known English was your second language. Sharp wit.

Insane and dewd. Gamers who hate how industry has gone play wide variety of games. Thought out opinions. I admire you satirical ability.

Common thing we all have is we are confident in who we are we know who we are and where we are going. We do to need to become keyboard warriors to validate our self worth or latch on to the coat tails of the next best thing. When people have a beef with us and post on this forum at us we laugh we concede good points and often talking to the bloke who comes to this forum. We don't need to be superior or right.

Sota is full of people like beckers. And when you have a gaming community like that you get a game like sota. Me me me types big online presence nothing in the real world never really achieved anything.

I wouldn't care people can go do what they want but when they falsely advertise Uo blatantly peddle something it's not and basically abuse the original (naive ) spirit of Kickstart i get shirty.

OK so I haven't written an argument in a long time and I lost my way. Point is niche is good. Player social background is important. Function over form for smaller games

On the devs playing double agent roles subject, they've been doing this for a long time now and have even admitted it a couple times. I have no idea who the developers are that do this but I do have a few people in mind that I think that are developers. I've been baiting them whenever I can get away with it in hopes to get concrete evidence.

What if u r missin somthin very important here? Listen.
RG made Ultimate Collector. The game sucked yet he got some ideas from it. What if he made The Ultimate Collector specifically for his fans, the fans of the Ultimas? so, well, he made it. The game doesnt even need meaningful pve, pvp or story. All it needs is shit to collect, shit to buy with irl monies. Houses, pets, clothes, furniture, shit like that.
Dont forget that RG himself is an avid collector of all kinds of medieval/historical stuff.

One would think, with the amount of money this guy has, he would want to make a game for the people, not another cash cow... that's what i would do if i was a millionaire.

I know all the Moderators have to have double accounts, I assumed that the Devs do as well, but I must have missed where they have admitted it!

I just found it funny that Katrina is so adament on some of the things the Devs always are using for excuses and that she used the same somewhat unique word that star uses in multiple cases within 15 mins of star posting a reply with that very same unique word...

But then again... Katrina Bekers(KB) and then Kuno B... WAIT WHO ARE YOU REALLY KUNO!