If "The Dark Ages of Camelot" is a good example of the smooth sailing of online game development, then the release of "Shadowbane", which was originally scheduled to come out at the same time in 2001, can be said to have gone through twists and turns. One and a half years after the release of "The Dark Age of Camelot", that is, in March 2003, this work that attracted the attention of countless players officially unveiled its true face, but it was not only flowers and flowers that greeted it. Applause, overwhelming criticism followed.
This mixed reputation is the only game of Wolfpack Studios, but it has only been in operation for 3 years, but the unprecedented attention that the game has received before and after its launch has made the online game industry realize the importance of product success in marketing. Although the ending of "Magic Sword" is not perfect, the exploration and innovation of Wolfpack Studios in the game development process is still very nostalgic to this day.
Wolfpack Studios was created by five veteran MUD players, the main founders are J. Todd Coleman and Joseph Hall (Josef Hall). They played a game called Chaos during their college years. I met James James Nance, Patrick Blanton, and Robert Marsa in the MUD game. Several game friends in Texas often organize offline gatherings. . At a party in 1998, due to the rise of graphic online games, everyone had a discussion about how to add graphics and sounds to make a dream MUD, and the prototype of "Magic Sword" was born.
Although J. Todd Coleman and Josef Hall are still on paper, this discussion ignited everyone's enthusiasm for making games. In addition, "Meridian 59" and "Internet Genesis" have achieved market success. It is also commercially profitable to establish a company to develop graphic online games, which makes everyone start the pace of action. At that time, Coleman and Hall were running a commercial database software company called Reliant Data Systems. In May 1999, the two sold the company to the famous Compuware Group for US$9 million, and at the end of the year they had a relationship with Chaos’s 3 companies. Famous friends founded Wolfpack Studios together, ready to truly realize their dream of developing games.
Magic Sword is the only game by
Wolfpack Studios. The initial funding of Wolfpack Studios is mainly from the assets and relatives of the founders. The planned development cost is 2 million US dollars-in fact, this amount is not small. The 18-month development cost of The Dark Ages is only 2.5 million US dollars. However, unlike the members of the Mythic team, the founders of Wolfpack are pure game players and do not have rich experience in online game development. This also makes the " The development process of "Magic Sword" is full of unknowability, but fortunately they have unparalleled enthusiasm.
After the establishment of the company, Hall served as the president of the company, Coleman was the vice president in charge of marketing, and Masha, a PhD in physics, was the head of technology development. However, the division of labor between these positions did not make much sense until the game was completed. Participate in game planning and code writing. Before the establishment of the company, what several dreamers wanted to develop was just an ordinary role-playing game similar to "Network Genesis" with an overhead view of 2D graphics, called http://Carnage.net . In their view, the players of the most popular "Genesis Online" ("Endless Mission" was released at the end of 1999) were experiencing a kind of polarization. Some players wanted the game to be more peaceful and civilized, and to enjoy the game more comfortably. Fun; while some players pursue naked killing and confrontation, through the game to achieve things that cannot be done in reality. With EA's continuous adjustment of the game rules, the enthusiasm of the latter type of players is gradually being stifled, so Wolfpack hopes to be able to make a PVP-centric network game that these players like. After discussing in this direction, everyone came up with a bigger idea than unlimited PVP, that is, to build a huge world, so that each participating player can create his own castle, convene an army, and compete with other players for the world— -"Join a Clan, Secure a Throne, Build an Empire", the game's initial publicity slogan also came into being.
After determining the new direction, http://Carnage.netThe name was changed to "Magic Sword", and the game's requirements for screen effects have also shifted to 3D technology that can better represent grand war scenes, but the original budget of 2 million US dollars is obviously not enough. By the time the game development was completed, the final development cost exceeded $6 million. At that time, graphical online games were just starting, and the members of Wolfpack Studios had no real online game development experience, so they had no idea about development costs including capital and manpower, and would not realize what this change would bring them. Kind of impact.
As the development of the game progressed, the number of team members began to increase, and the company moved from Hall's apartment to a small office in an accounting firm. The new members include Jeff Toney and Billy Arnold who have years of experience in game companies, as well as newcomers who have just graduated from college, but they all have in common. He has a high enthusiasm for developing games. For example, Tobias Ford, a programmer who just graduated from the University of Missouri with a major in computer science, likes fighting games very much. He was able to enter Wolfpack because the cloned game "Tekken" developed Robert Martha, one of the founding members, discovered that he came to the company.
Character creation
When the team grew to 13 people, the accounting firm only had 1,100 square feet (approximately 100 square meters) of office space and could not guarantee a normal office environment. Coleman and Hall finally moved the company to Cobblestone, Austin City office until the game development is completed.
During the intense development of the game, Coleman and Hall also began to look for a publisher for the game, but the publisher of "Magic Sword" was even more ups and downs than the game's development process. Wolfpack positions the game as a game that is simultaneously released globally, and the game's server is also established according to the country and region. Therefore, in Asia, Europe and North America where the players are the most, a general publisher must be found to be responsible for the game's distribution business, but The distribution in each region is full of twists and turns.
The distribution rights in North America were acquired by Gathering of Developers, which has always been committed to helping startups enter the market, but soon Gathering of Developers was acquired by Take Two, the third largest publisher in North America, and renamed GODGames due to poor management. Shortly after "Magic Sword" began its beta test in 2001, Take Two was not optimistic about the game's prospects, so it announced the cancellation of the distribution agreement with Wolfpack, until Ubisoft took over the game's distribution business.
In Asia, a Singapore company named QuansiWorld obtained the distribution rights in Asia, but soon they sold the distribution rights to a third-party publisher E-1 Interactive, which again sold the distribution rights to Hong Kong. En-Tranz-Speaking of which, this company also has a connection with "Magic Sword" because it was re-established by Harry Miller, the founder of Gathering of Developers, which was the first to obtain distribution rights in North America. the company. After obtaining the distribution rights in Asia, En-Tranz signed distribution agreements with China (Tianren Interactive), Taiwan (Songgang Technology), South Korea (KBK), etc. to introduce the game to Asian countries.
At the role-playing level, players can combine 10 races, 22 occupations, 40 sub-occupations, 70 skills, and 200 abilities to create their own unique characters, and then use battles to increase their level as in traditional MMORPGs. Earn money and weaponry. The development team strongly encourages PVP behavior among players. There is a paragraph in the FAQ of "Magic Sword": "On the other hand, we hope that most of the world map will basically become no man’s land. If you decide to travel to Badlands , Then start your own adventure." In the game, players can attack other players without restrictions outside the Novice Village, and can pick up all the items in the backpack. In order to encourage the persistence of this kind of killing, the game will even automatically record the ID of the player who killed you and the guild where you are, so that the killed player can take revenge on the line.
In addition to personal behavior, the biggest feature of the game is the introduction of a large number of strategic elements. In addition to personal growth elements and PVP, players can also build houses, run shops, and even build a city. In order to achieve magnificent war scenes, "Magic Sword" expands the team mode of traditional online games. Guilds formed by players can build and manage cities, control territories and establish nations, or organize troops to attack each other's cities and rule the entire world. City offensive and defensive warfare is the main part of the later game, and it is also the system that "Magic Sword" is working hard to create. Through a series of designs, Wolfpack moved the real war scenes into the game. Economics, diplomacy, and strategies can all have a huge impact on the battle situation. The configuration of guards on the battlefield, the tree of life, the ring of poison, and the siege weapon And so on can also play a huge role.
War is the greatest charm of Magic Sword
In short, Wolfpack designed "Magic Sword" into a sandbox game with a high degree of freedom. The environment in the game is changed by player behavior, and the introduction of strategic elements makes the game a cyclical game. game. Although this is a great innovation, it conflicts with the "persistence" of traditional online games to a certain extent. Now it seems that it is also a source of the game's ultimate failure.
Since the introduction of MMORPG, designers have emphasized the persistence of game characters. Players' roles and attributes are constantly growing, so that all the users' efforts after entering the game can be rewarded with value. But for strategic battle games, the game experience is more of a cyclical behavior. Before the battle, the two sides are roughly equal. After a battle, whether you win or lose, the next round or the restart . Essentially, there is a certain conflict between growth and periodicity, and the balance between them is difficult to grasp.
In "Magic Sword", both the PVP between the players and the wars between forces have this kind of periodicity-and once they fail, the loss is huge, which undoubtedly requires players to have extremely high psychological qualities, but this kind of psychology Quality is not possessed by mass players. Although the concept of hatred created by the game can satisfy the needs of some core players who love PVP, most players experience more of a complete frustration after facing the loss of failure, which is similar to most players playing games. The original intention is contrary.
In addition to the design level, the game also has a huge problem on the technical level. The ambition of the development team does not have enough online game development experience and technology to support. The siege system built by the game does not use dynamic load technology but relies more on the computing power of the server for support. This raises a high point for server configuration. At that time, the server valued at nearly 80,000 US dollars could only support 800 people online at the same time, which made the operation of the game pay a huge investment. Operators in various regions have been operating the game at a loss. This state Obviously it cannot last.
The first to be suspended was the Chinese mainland. In December 2003, the Chinese server of "Magic Sword" operated by Tianren Interactive was first shut down. Soon after, the Asian servers in Hong Kong and South Korea servers were shut down one after another. Can choose the North American server operated by Ubisoft to play the game. After March 2006, the North American server of "Magic Sword" announced its free operation, but an advertising system was added one year later. When users log in/out of the game and die in the game, they will load an advertisement with a length of more than 10 seconds. Maintain basic operations.
However, the remaining North American servers did not last long. During a restart in March 2007, due to a server failure, all players' character and city data were cleared, causing huge losses. On April 17, 2009, the moderator of Ubisoft's official forum announced that the game will be completely closed on May 1 of that year. Although the shutdown time was changed to July 1st due to the player's petition, the final outcome cannot be changed.
At the time, no one would have thought that after 3 years, this game will be reborn, and it will be run by a Chinese operator. In April 2012, mainland Chinese game developer Sohu Changyou announced that it had purchased the classic online game "Magic Sword". "The copyright and source code of "Magic Sword" have been developed and reproduced based on the integration of the content of "Magic Sword" that year, and it is planned to be launched in the next few years. This has rekindled hope for "Magic Sword" players worldwide. Before Changyou, Wang Tao was a member of Tianren Interactive, the Chinese publisher of this game-but recently heard that due to poor development progress, Changyou has internally abolished the project, and the future is as ill-fated as its predecessor.
At this time Wolfpack has long ceased to exist. After being acquired by Ubisoft in 2004, Coleman, Hall and others also left that year. After that, the duo and the famous game programmer Tom Hall (the founding member of John Carmack’s id Software and John Romero’s Ion Storm) jointly established KingsIsle Entertainment. In 2008, their children's online game Wizard101 (the domestic version of "Wall Academy" operated by Taomi.com), which was launched with the theme of magic and card battle, achieved extraordinary success in the European and American markets, and it can be regarded as a loser. Corner, harvest the mulberry and elm.