Interesting interview with indie MMO developer

[OldRod]

http://www.over00.com/?p=1727

Neil Yates, the guy who wrote Dead Frontiers (never played it, but I've heard good things about it). Interesting interview about how he got started and how he did an MMO by himself

[hallsofvallhalla]

interesting article. Thanks for the link.

[Callan S.]

I played it when it was in flash. Kinda slow gameplay and I don't find random social contact all that fun, so solo and slow so I eventually stopped. It's nice that he makes enough money to live by, there's an example case for developers. It's interesting how he made single player versions of the MMO first - that's probably a good idea to start with a small model and expand.

[Jackolantern]

The whole blog the article is on is pretty interesting. The blog owner also made an MMO by himself that now has over 100k registered users, called Golemizer. Pretty interesting stuff! Thanks for sharing

[Callan S.]

Oh, I remember Golemizer, saw the adverts for it ages back. Nice to know that a different idea like that took off!

Though registered accounts...do they really stand for anything in themselves? Someone who played for five minutes and never played again counts as one, for example. It's a bit of a ingenuine statistic.

[Jackolantern]

Oh, I remember Golemizer, saw the adverts for it ages back. Nice to know that a different idea like that took off!

Though registered accounts...do they really stand for anything in themselves? Someone who played for five minutes and never played again counts as one, for example. It's a bit of a ingenuine statistic.

Definitely, but an empty game that no one ever tried would not even have that number, so it does at least say something about the game's history, if not about its present. I logged-in to it (yet another PBBG not requiring email verification) and saw a decent few people walking around in it.

[Callan S.]

I think a log of how many people have played 10 hours, or better yet 40 hours (the usual time of a single player game) or more would be a strong indicator. Or even two hours. I'm sure I probably clocked up a couple of hours. If a bunch of that 100k registrations did, that's a strong indicator.

[Jackolantern]

I think a log of how many people have played 10 hours, or better yet 40 hours (the usual time of a single player game) or more would be a strong indicator. Or even two hours. I'm sure I probably clocked up a couple of hours. If a bunch of that 100k registrations did, that's a strong indicator.

I think sometimes numbers like "100,000 players" are an attempt to dodge giving those numbers. It likely is a case of those numbers you mentioned not being all that impressive. Even if all of those 100k registered in the last 6 months, you are talking about maybe an average logged-in user count around 1000 (taking into consideration all of the people who signed-up but never really played, those who played a little while and then quit, and then the active players who just aren't logged in currently). I am not sure if this game even has that count of online users, since that 100k is probably over a couple of years at least. Not that I am knocking him, though! He created an MMO from scratch, released it, and has some amount of players playing it regularly, which is more than I have done so far haha.

[Callan S.]

I think sometimes numbers like "100,000 players" are an attempt to dodge giving those numbers.

I agree!

However, I think average concurrent log ins is too harsh a measure, myself. I think if someone played your game for forty hours a year ago and stopped, thats a significant amount of time (since it matches up with single player game lengths). The fact that they don't log in any more shouldn't go against you - you don't judge single player games that way, saying they were good, but because someone finished it and plays it no longer, that game is now crap.

So I'm kind of in a middle ground, not happy with total registrations or with average concurrent log ins. I'm picky, lol!

If I'm an average representation, that means the vast bulk of that 100k registrations played for atleast two hours. To me, that's pretty massive. Some authors of books would dream of getting that much attention!

[Jackolantern]

It definitely is hard to figure out a metric to give for the level of activity. For a lot of indies, you can't be too crystal clear, or your game will sound like a ghost town which will scare off players (even if your game mechanics make the game actually work better with a smaller community, the way Achaea does).

Maybe it is better to say nothing of that sort at all! After all, most players are going to assume an MMO has a decent amount of players playing it, and at least that way they have to log in to find out. And even if it doesn't meet their population expectations, maybe they will find they enjoy the game anyway and stick around!