I don't mean a copy of the game, I mean the whole thing. What if you bought MxO off SOE the way they bought it off Warner Brothers/Monolith? Say you came into a fortune (won the lottery, whatever) and had enough money to buy the whole thing and comfortably support it for a few years. I'm talking $100 million here, which has been on offer in the EU lottery (in pounds 
) a few times. What would you do with the game?
I'd buy MxO off SOE. I'd try to hire the current Devs (who knows, they may want to stay with SOE even if I owned the game and offered them higher salaries), some of the old ones if I can track them down and more besides. Some of the Devs would be tasked with keeping the game running at a basic level (cinematics, missions, occasional LE appearances), while the majority of the team would be assigned to start the game from scratch. A better engine would be built which wouldn't scare any future Devs from tampering with it, so all those lovely features people have been suggesting would be possible. Instanced dungeons, new fighting style, melee weapons, faction/org hideouts, real White Hallways, complex crafting, out-of-game chat etc. We wouldn't release the game until we had all those features. This isn't ever the case in other games because they don't have so much money they're willing to spend on just the initial development.
All it takes are enough developers and the right staff to manage them. Imagine all those professionals working on the game, but a gamer like myself in charge, knowing full well what I/we want from the game.
Then we'd splash out on mass marketing and reel in the subscribers. The game would be so good we'd have at least 100,000 subscribers (minor compared to what other games get). What's that? £1 million a month? Easily enough to pay for staff and servers, I'd've thought. But we'd have more subscribers than that eventually, 'cos this would be better than any of the other MMORPGs - the only reason an MMORPG'er wouldn't want to play the game would be because it's not their favourite genre. Heck, I'd halve the subscription cost, and hold regular competitions to win free months.
What's more, I'd personally oversee the different departments, watching all the little things like making sure CSRs are friendly and fair, the Web team apologises if they botch things up, keep players informed as to what's going on, etc.
Bearing in mind, of course, that this wouldn't be run like a normal business: they want profit. After the initial expenditure, I'd only be after enough money to keep it rolling indefinitely.
It's all reliant on a miracle like winning $100 million on the lottery, but still... one can dream.
) a few times. What would you do with the game?I'd buy MxO off SOE. I'd try to hire the current Devs (who knows, they may want to stay with SOE even if I owned the game and offered them higher salaries), some of the old ones if I can track them down and more besides. Some of the Devs would be tasked with keeping the game running at a basic level (cinematics, missions, occasional LE appearances), while the majority of the team would be assigned to start the game from scratch. A better engine would be built which wouldn't scare any future Devs from tampering with it, so all those lovely features people have been suggesting would be possible. Instanced dungeons, new fighting style, melee weapons, faction/org hideouts, real White Hallways, complex crafting, out-of-game chat etc. We wouldn't release the game until we had all those features. This isn't ever the case in other games because they don't have so much money they're willing to spend on just the initial development.
All it takes are enough developers and the right staff to manage them. Imagine all those professionals working on the game, but a gamer like myself in charge, knowing full well what I/we want from the game.
Then we'd splash out on mass marketing and reel in the subscribers. The game would be so good we'd have at least 100,000 subscribers (minor compared to what other games get). What's that? £1 million a month? Easily enough to pay for staff and servers, I'd've thought. But we'd have more subscribers than that eventually, 'cos this would be better than any of the other MMORPGs - the only reason an MMORPG'er wouldn't want to play the game would be because it's not their favourite genre. Heck, I'd halve the subscription cost, and hold regular competitions to win free months.
What's more, I'd personally oversee the different departments, watching all the little things like making sure CSRs are friendly and fair, the Web team apologises if they botch things up, keep players informed as to what's going on, etc.
Bearing in mind, of course, that this wouldn't be run like a normal business: they want profit. After the initial expenditure, I'd only be after enough money to keep it rolling indefinitely.
It's all reliant on a miracle like winning $100 million on the lottery, but still... one can dream.
