Interesting, now if only SEGA follows this >_>

Reading Shakespearean quest text everytime I needed to start a quest? I'd be yawning too.

Although the rest of the concept sounds pretty cool.

6- Dont make a game about Shakespeare...

Tip 6: Don't try to make an MMO.

250,000 to get to these conclusions. Woah.

Tip 7 : the intarwebz is a cruel world.

Wait, there's a game with a realistic War of the Roses economy out there? Why was I not informed? The idea of getting quests from "that Falstaff guy" would...well, I'd put up with 2.8 metric #4)#$)((*# of inanity for something like that.

The reason why most designers don't do that level of realism is that most designers don't understand to that level of realism. Realism, in itself, is fun - it's ineptly melded mechanics to achieve that realism that slows it down.

To some extent, I'd say that the MMO model isn't the one to aspire to. WoW has that locked down so well, unless you're wiling to be a copy, I'm not sure that it's worth the effort to show your face.

And yes, I'm drastically unhappy this game isn't flying.

@KroKan:

This is exactly why people think the gaming audience is vapid, short witted, and lowbrow. Why can't there be a game about Shakespeare or one of his works. Shakespeare plays often involved gratuitous amounts of sex, scandal, violence, and comedy, all while being incredibly written by the hand of a true master. They had everything that would keep the common man embroiled in their plots, all while maintaining a level of literary prowess that keeps them fresh and relevant 400 years later.

Why should we expect less from our games?

Personally, if i want to read shakespeare... well i just wouldnt , i'd read something more uptodate like john lecarre BUT if i did want to read shakespeare it wouldnt be while i was gaming.

would be fun to import a level 70 frost mage onto that game and see how there level 14 lute playing and tier 3 sonnet writing fairs up muhahahaha

@Slatz_Grobnik:
I don't think that level of realism should be something to be striving for. You have to balance every product out, something that is extremely hard to program. Plus an economy that is 'realistic' also is pretty vulnerable.
Due to the possibility of glitches, exploits or plain grinding in games, you don't want your economy to be totally effected by this. (Or at least I wont, can't speak for others ;)

I still think that games should stay games. At least if you want to appeal to a broad audience. Economics are pretty complex in detail. And the more complex your feature, the more time you have to put in it.

"start small"

Thats the single best advice. Everywhere I see people that start with a MMORPG or a Total Conversion. And FAIL.

Most programmers sould start with a Tetris clone. And most moddelers, with a "walk simulator" or a race game, or maybe a RTS game. Nothing complex that takes ages to finish and is never released.

Interesting that despite this professor Castronova wanting to make a realistic game based around William Shakespeare, he chose to replicate the economy of a period that ended about 100 years before Shakespeare achieved any sort of notoriety.

Ona side note, Shakespeare may have been a great playwrite, but nobody actually wants to read his scripts, in the same way that very few people today would go and buy a transcript of a muscial, or even the latest blockbuster, for reading pleasure.

@A_Zombie: i laughed.
At the end of the boardroom meeting as this guy delivers his presentation to sega suits, theres silence.
Someone coughs.
"Yes?" Says the chairman to one of his VPs
"How bad can we make the cameras?"

@cybereality:
I don't even think that one has to be explicitly stated. It should have been obvious. But for these guys, I guess it wasn't. They made a lot of dumb mistakes. Me and my friends have tried to make up game designs. The things we have learned:

1. Don't try to make a working economy in a non MMO. Everybody has tried, nobody has succeeded. It's pretty much impossible.

2. Don't be over ambitious (guess these guys came to the same conclusion).

3. Make it deep and intricate enough to satisfy hardcore gamers, but accessible for a wide audience (this is why it's hard to make games).

We don't have much programming/modding experience between us, even if we do have about 40 years of gaming experience, but we found these rules out pretty quick.

@PATSCRU: I absolutely agree that they should be able to make games like that. The problem is, either you want it or not, a Shakespeare MMO will be driven to a core fan base and the chances of it pleasing to anyone else are extremely low.
I believe that when he started creating the game he did set his ambitions too high, he can not expect that kind of game to be an instant worldwide success.
Shame is, it took him that much time and money to realize this... either he learns a really good lesson or stop making MMOs at all, it will save him the time and the money.

Also, betting on something like this when the game industry is with out any doubt, turning into casual gaming hybrids more and more every day...

Research dude... research.

*sigh*
Maybe it's just me, but I think it's really sad that an interesting, original project like this is going to turn into Yet Another Hack-and-slash MMO Game.

#8 Even if it IS a crappy game, you can always buy your way to favorable reviews at a certain game site...

Castronovas career is built on studying MMO's. It's not tooooo much of a surprise to find that he struggled to make one. Its like an english teacher writing a novel. Further more, shouldnt you start with something a little smaller like a web adaption of space invaders, not a MMORPG. He might have saved $250,000 by learning that games are freakin hard to make no matter how small.

@Yon Von Tleilaxu Kuxthom Thenxon: I agree with that point. When programming a small game, even if it's just Tetris, you encounter problems on a small scale wich if not dealt with in a reasonable manner there would go completely out of hand on a larger scale.
F.ex how would you store information about the tetris blocks postition, score, winning conditions etc. If you master the concept and successfully deploy it in a small project, it's easier moving up from there...instead of making a big mess :P

60 hours per week as regular working time?
As if anyone wants to work 12 hours a day (or 10 hours a day inclusive saturday) when it isn't Crunch time.

Who the hell said a browser MMO is easy to do? If you compare it to a client-based MMO, yes, but not regular games.

Just needs more action, that's all.

"Is this an AK I see before me?
Its handle toward my hand..."

3 - Don't make a MMO.
Ooops.. some people already wrote that. Let me think.

4 - Don't make a MMO.
5 - Don't make a MMO.
6 - Don't make a MMO.
And the most important:
7 - Don't make a MMO.

Hope this get the message trough internet.

@Tadashi:

That was a pretty short week when I was a graduate student.

Arugh this concept would have been so much better as a Fallout-style RPG. The stories have to be closed-ended. They're plots and climaxes, not instances.

@phicaluk:
So how much did you learn in these 4 hours you didn't work, slept or were traveling between your home and your working place?

You don't need people working 60 hours a week on it. The only reason game developers would push their staff to do that is because they're paying for staff and equipment so they want to hit a deadline so they don't sink money down a well. I've met plenty of people here at UF who have put together games without slaving away at it for 60 hours a week while taking other classes and what not.

Granted, stopping for mid terms or whatever will be tough on game development. That's entirely reasonable, but expecting 60 hours a week from start to finish as necessary to create a good game in the academic setting does not really make sense when I've seen some of the TAs for my Comp Sci classes make pretty good games without spending that much time a week on them.

@A_Zombie: Amen.

@PATSCRU:

It is not that I dont like Shakespeare, just that games should be more fun and less literature.

Reading and gaming are very different things. I love reading,
but I do it to relax, to work my mind, to imagine... I play games for fun and action; like most of us.

Go IU!

It seems there are three or four "big" MMO projects being developed here in Bloomington.

@deviantCharles: I completely agree. I find this particularly upsetting that a post discussing steps to avoid making a "crappy" game falls into the industry flaw of assuming overworking your team is a sure fire way of getting more quality of them. WRONG.

Scope the project correctly, create an efficient schedule and allow your team members to have an outside life other than game development and you'll be surprised what can be accomplished.

Gorman is right, I'm a gamer in academia and I run into this attitude among game studies folk from time to time. I'm sure the game was as much fun as you would expect, given that it was designed by a social scientist, not a game designer.

They forgot the most important lesson of all. TEST THE GAME AT ALL LEVELS.

As soon as they implemented that realistic crafting system, they should have had a game tester test it. Not once, but a hundred times - to see if it was fun from the first time up until the last.

They should have had a game tester talk to NPCs over and over again. They would have immediately found how boring it was immediately.

And the worst thing that they should have done was PLAY VIDEO GAMES. Look for what works in other games. Imitate it. Improve on it. WoW isn't giant heaps of innovation. They took every good idea out there and packaged it. And it works.

@Tadashi: It's actually pretty easy to spend that much time at work if you're doing something you enjoy.

@Cpryd001: A program full of people studying MMOs? Trust me, they do play video games. Lots of them.

What a fricking waste of $250,000 research dollars! WHAT A FRICKING WASTE!!! WTF! Look at the game Cloud. Did require ANY of the above to make? No. Did it take $250,000? No. Was it better than what they came up with? HELL YES.

They just have no talent, imo.

While Fun is the key factor, I'm willing to forgive a less fun game if it has a story that draws me in. For example, I wouldn't exactly call the Xenosaga series fun, but that didn't stop me from playing then until 3:00 AM. Same with most Final Fantasys.

Oh, and a side note, I'd kill for a Macbeth game that was similar to Assassin's Creed.

The biggest disconnect they overlooked in their entire thought process:
People who like MMOs don't like Shakespeare. If they do, they don't like it in their MMOs or Games.
People who like Shakespeare don't like MMOs general. If they do, then they don't like MMOs or Games in their Shakespeare.

Additionally, you can't use Shakespearian literature as a base for an MMO. The subject matter alone doesn't allow for it to be a fun game! If you're trying to make some realistic medieval economy/war game, that's one thing, but to base it all around some of the most complex and eloquent writing there is... Uhg...

People who seek out MMOs are essentially looking for an enjoyable, instantly gratifying experience.
People who are looking for Shakespeare and education are not looking for an MMO.

Uh, did they use the Aurora engine for this or is that a random NWN screenshot?

THat's really great advice. Thanks for posting.

Academic Gaming......how tragic.

Get a Full-Time Staff
"I love my students, but they just don't have the schedule to do this. I have a very able lead designer and an excellent lead artist, but they had to pause for midterms. You need a core group of 60-hour-a-week people."

This guy is at a uni, and he isn't using grad students? What? Or did he mean that his students had to take time off to grade the midterm? Maybe the grant wasn't big enough for grad students (damn overhead!). When I hear "60-hour-a-week people", I pretty much think, "grad students?", but that's not what I think when I hear "Full-Time Staff".

How about tip number 6:

Don't use the NWN Aurora engine and take nearly all your content from the still active NWN modding community and claim that you made an MMO yourself. It's shameless that there's no credit given to the people whose work was used in this project on the project's site.

What exactly was the grant money spent on? The game was made by Bioware, much of the scripting was taken from other sources and no custom art was used.

The developers world need more comic heroes and fewer tragic heroes making games.

Here's two from me:

1) Enough with the fucking acronyms and colonized titles.

2) The more options for control customization, the better.

I've always found MMO design perplexing. You're creating a game that you want millions of people to play (and pay a monthly fee)... so why not start a game and around the beta level just let people rip it up and tell you how much it sucks and what you should do to make it FUN. Notice the word: Fun.

@EmeraldCockroach: No offense, but since your comment is in barely-readable English, you might want to spend more time reading, whether it's Shakespeare or anyone else.

@KroKan:

Exactly!!!!!