Post by Morreion on Dec 4, 2013 13:48:38 GMT -5
The Game Archaeologist: The bizarre death of Wish [Updated] (Massively)
Eschewing the MMO design of the time in both sandbox and themepark games, the Mutable Realms team wanted to take Wish in the direction of the industry's pen-and-paper forefathers by bringing back the role of the hands-on game master.
In Wish, the quests wouldn't be set in stone and available in a website's database somewhere. Instead, the devs created a powerful set of tools that would allow them to create complex and interesting quests within minutes and then drop them right into the game world. Some quests could be given out by criers or other NPCs, but the team of around 20 GMs had the main responsibility of going into the game personally to deliver missions to players...
The game debuted to the public at E3 in May of 2004, receiving generally positive if not comprehensive press coverage. Massively was not there because someone had yet to invent Massively, so that's our excuse.
By several accounts, Wish grew in beta testing size and popularity, becoming one of the more anticipated MMOs of the time. As the closed beta test wrapped up, the larger community looked forward to the start of the open beta on December 1st, 2004. However, Mutable Realms announced a one-month delay while the team worked on bugs, pushing beta 2.0 to January 1st, 2005 instead.
And then it happened. Ten days and 60,000-plus beta testers later, Mutable Realms posted a letter stating that the game was to be shut down, and the studio made good on its promise mere hours later...
What threw everyone for a loop is that Wish appeared to be doing just fine. It had a respectable 60,000 players 10 days into the open beta and no real red flags giving warning as to imminent doom. Mutable Realms' only other official statement was sent to fan sites, where the studio explained, "Even with the most optimistic projections, we could not possibly get enough subscribers for Wish so that it could sustain itself."
So maybe that's it. Maybe it was popular, just not popular enough, and the bean counters ran the numbers and figured that everyone would be irreversibly broke before the game turned a profit. However, it's an explanation that not many people accept.
Wish: What Went Wrong? (About.com)
Easily the most complained about and passionately debated aspect of the game was the use of a point and click (PnC) movement system, with no options for keyboard movement controls. MR made it clear that this was not going to change as it was fundamental to their "single world" (no separate servers or shards) technology. They went to great lengths to make the system easy to use, and implemented the best pathing I've ever seen in a game. Even within cities, you could click on a location several staircases and bridges away, and your character would run to it without a hitch. It was a little difficult indoors, but coupled with decent camera controls and auto-run, it was actually one of the better PnC systems I've used. In fact, compared to Shadowbane, which has no pathing whatsoever, it was downright dreamy...
...The cancellation took me by surprize because Wish seemed to be coming along fairly well. Although there were a few issues that needed to be addressed, they really didn't strike me as anything that would warrant abandoning the project entirely. I was hoping that Wish would carve out a niche for itself among the mammoth MMORPGs that rule the day. Unfortunately, it now serves as yet another indication of just how difficult it is for a small company with a limited budget to be competitive in this genre.
The best MMORPG that never came to be (tehK)
Ah, my favourite story. Rumours were circulating that a plague would threaten the southern part of the game world. Indeed a lot of players first took the death of all the NPCs for a mere bug, but the newspaper proved us wrong again. That such a thing could be part of a planned event was something completely unheard of. While all players were desperately trying to find a solution, Mutable Realms laid back and watched. Only a few days later, we could read the blackmailing letter in the newspaper: For a huge sum of gold (decidedly more than any of us had) the plague would be stopped. Also, the time and place of the handover could be found there.
It became a huge playermob. Everyone wanted to be there when the messenger of the blackmailer arrived and all were discussing the situation quite vocally. But before the messenger could even open his mouth, two players had already attacked and killed him. Negotiaions were over. The reactions of the players was great and above all authentic. Everybody had an opionion, all were looking for a solution. We had a true enemy who we wanted to engage, but unfortunately nobody knew where or how. Again the Live-Team helped: A deserter from the blackmailer’s ranks told us his whereabouts. The mob started to move, it was amazing.
The Great Digital Hype (The Escapist)
Wish was an MMOG cancelled in January of 2005, despite very good beta sign-up numbers and a slew of online media coverage. We bore all the trademarks of a small independent developer. One of these was my serving simultaneously as the Co-Lead Game Designer, Assistant Producer, World Designer and Community Manager, and I was hardly the only one wearing multiple hats...
Wish had no single cause of death, but overhype played a huge role. Our statistics didn't lie. At every step of the way, from signing up for beta, to downloading and installing the client, to playing the game for more than an hour, we lost huge percentages of players. In case we didn't trust the stats, tons of players told us about their departure on our forums, as well.
On message boards, people had spent months retelling the tales of the first beta with Live Content, and by the time our next beta hit, those of us who actually created those events didn't even recognize the tales being told. The community had gotten carried away with itself, and we'd encouraged it...
For small and mid-sized developers, this battle can never be fully won. Usually, simple economics means they're going to produce mid-quality titles. What they need to recognize is what niche their game fills and try to attract a community that respects that. A decent game can be sunk if the community expects more than what's delivered and simply doesn't buy it on principal.
The dangers of overhype can't be ignored...
