From 250,000 subscribers down to most probably under 10k? Maybe everyone hasn't left yet but more than 95% have. So yes .... it is as broken as some make it seem.
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Idea: crowdfunded developer for UO
- Thread starter Phantasmagorian
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- Watchers 7
I did suggest the classic client to my wife and sons because we live in the same home, my friends and coworkers I suggested EC. I did not try to get anybody into end game content just gave them some gold, an lrc suit and had them work in New Haven. I figured that is the best way to learn the game from the ground up, which i feel is necessary to understand the game. They didn't like the controls and were confused on setting up macros. I can see why you would think I would do as you suggested though but having played the game since 1998 i didn't think it would work. As much as I love this game it is confusing to a lot of new people, especially the ones who are not willing to invest the time it takes to learn it well.
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this is your answer...
i would suggest those figures are pretty accurate...but some will disagree....so for the arguments sake we will say 10-15k left....being a reather generous nature that i have...
I would suspect subscription numbers are closer to the 2000 range, unfortunately. Let's check the math though.
We know of 5 developers, Messana, Kyronix, Misk, Bleak, Onifirk. (Or however you spell their online handles).
5 developers at 50K a year in salary would be 250k a year in salary. (You could argue for 35K a year in salary, or that overhead per employee takes you closer to 100k a year per employee, but let's say 50k as a middle ground - and for easy math.)
250k per year, divided by 12 months per year, means they have to be making about 20k per month (closer to 21k) to cover salaries.
20k per month at an average subscription of $10, is 2000 subs per month (closer to 2100). This isn't number of people subscribing, but number of subscriptions paid.
Of course, some people pay by the month, some pay by 6 months, some pay every 4 months, so $10 a month seems a good middle ground (and easy math).
There will also be extra revenue from the UO store, subs might be substantially higher, EA has to take a cut, there will be additional overhead just from the day to day of running a business, etc. etc. etc.
Our best guess is just order of magnitude.
However, if they drop below 2000 subs, they can't cover salaries at 50k. (Maybe they earn 35K a year just to keep UO going? Seems unlikely with Virginia's cost of living.)
Or, if they had 4000 subs, that would be nearly double the revenue of "average" salaries for 5 developers. Wouldn't they hire another developer? Or does EA and overhead that take much?
Edit - Something I thought of after I posted was houses. How many houses are still there? Are there 1000 houses per shard? That would really blow away the above math. If there were still that many houses though, then the revenue would be way over the "average" salaries for 5 developers, what are they doing with the extra? Good bourbon can be expensive...
Or are there still a ton of houses, but many house owning accounts paying only once in four months?
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50k a year?????? lol
They would be well paid in the industry now if they were being paid 30K.
Big money salaries are only for those developing AAA games and then only until release when most of them are let go.
The industry isn't the "gravy train" of 10 years ago, the only ones coining it in now are the Publishers and Corporate types.
They would be well paid in the industry now if they were being paid 30K.
Big money salaries are only for those developing AAA games and then only until release when most of them are let go.
The industry isn't the "gravy train" of 10 years ago, the only ones coining it in now are the Publishers and Corporate types.
EA more than likely contracts out to BS for a fixed fee plus a few incentives. If UO doubled its revenue then the vast majority would go to EA, not for developers.
If thats a dollar figure its possibly not far off
When I said 10k subscribers I was being very generous. If it is 2k then 99% of paying subscribers have now left the game. So yeah ... broken.
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quote: Idea: crowdfunded developer for UO /quote
Players have many ideas and its hard to agree upon one idea for crowdfounding
you could ofcourse make a poll and go for the best idea, but then theres a chance only people who voted for the winning idea would do crowdfunding and rest not, thus losing out alot.
I think the only thing that would benefit all players, any shard , any playstyle, any template would be: UO Marketting.
UO needs more players, new ones, old returning, doesnt matter just bring in more players and fill the shards. (note shards, not overcrowded atlantic, all shards!)
use the crowdfounded money for internet adds, youtube adds, banners, newspapers, steam, game intrerviews from game magazines - whatever, Im not a marketting dude, just bring in more players.
This would be good for Sunsword aswell, more players = more subscriptions = more items ingame bought from store. = more money for marketting and development etc.
Just dont do it like stratics did in the other thread, asked for people to donate money to stratics monthly or onetime, without even writing what the heck the actual money would go to.
Together we make UO great again!
Players have many ideas and its hard to agree upon one idea for crowdfounding
you could ofcourse make a poll and go for the best idea, but then theres a chance only people who voted for the winning idea would do crowdfunding and rest not, thus losing out alot.
I think the only thing that would benefit all players, any shard , any playstyle, any template would be: UO Marketting.
UO needs more players, new ones, old returning, doesnt matter just bring in more players and fill the shards. (note shards, not overcrowded atlantic, all shards!)
use the crowdfounded money for internet adds, youtube adds, banners, newspapers, steam, game intrerviews from game magazines - whatever, Im not a marketting dude, just bring in more players.
This would be good for Sunsword aswell, more players = more subscriptions = more items ingame bought from store. = more money for marketting and development etc.
Just dont do it like stratics did in the other thread, asked for people to donate money to stratics monthly or onetime, without even writing what the heck the actual money would go to.
Together we make UO great again!
This. Ive asked more than once and its a wall of silence. Income and expenditure should be made transparent.
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We have had a thread stickied in the announcements section for almost two years explaining what the money is used for. Read the financial related sections of this thread: SAVE STRATICS! Consolidated Crowdfund Campaign Thread With Q/A
A little bird informed me that this list is inaccurate. Onifrk was semi-recently replaced by Levitica, a change which has remained oddly announced.
I'm aware of that. I asked for an annual income and expenditure account giving details of exactly how much was received through which channels (advertising donations etc) and a breakdown of the expenditure. Is that available anywhere?
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Not that I'm aware of, but to be fair from the boards perspective, if they released a perfect breakdown of every cent the site has gotten from day one it would cause some people to nitpick the details of each and every purchase no matter how small.
Poster: "Why did you spend $10 on that plug-in?"
Admin: "Because it is helpful for the site"
Poster: "But I found one for $9.50 here (links to it) you wasted 50 cents, how irresponsible!" etc.
Things would end up being scrutinized and obsessed over like that so often it would force the board to spend time explaining and justifying every cent spent on the site instead of doing other things for the site.
I think UO should do three things: consolidate, fix accessibility and market.
Consolidate: keep CC, ditch EC Migrate EC functions to CC and even some of the best textures. Resizing screen, macros, update it all. Make it run through GPU. Build on the foundation of the CC and allow for easy EC migration. Fix the accessibility: account creation, game purchase, and new player handholding. Then market the crap out of it.
I know people will hate me for picking CC over EC, but the EC is an unsalvageable mess, and free shards show that the CC is not. With hand-selected textures from EC used in CC and functions added,.. it could be glorious.
Consolidate: keep CC, ditch EC Migrate EC functions to CC and even some of the best textures. Resizing screen, macros, update it all. Make it run through GPU. Build on the foundation of the CC and allow for easy EC migration. Fix the accessibility: account creation, game purchase, and new player handholding. Then market the crap out of it.
I know people will hate me for picking CC over EC, but the EC is an unsalvageable mess, and free shards show that the CC is not. With hand-selected textures from EC used in CC and functions added,.. it could be glorious.
How the heck did this AoS peddlling dip get in the conversation? lol
Well, Broadsword does have 23 people listed on its "About" page now, instead of 16.
Will "Potato Foot" Austin is listed. He was credited on Time of Legends, but at the time wasn't listed on Broadswords "about" page. Wonder how up to date the "About" page is?
Maybe they have been making more then they let on and things aren't nearly what they seem.
Guess you'll find out at the 20th anniversary party!
50k is completely reasonable. I have a friend that does freelance software development for a living, and the last big job he was on (a web game) was paying over 50k a year rate. Depending on your skillset and the project 50k is completely reasonable, frankly 40k would probably be low end entry level for someone with decent skills. The median salary for software developers is like 85k... :/
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Median salaries can be pretty misleading though. The median salary for a lawyer in the United States is $116,000. Yet there are still crazy amounts of unemployed lawyers, and quite a few willing to accept a $20,000 paralegal job just to have a job at all.
and at the end of the day why would they. Plenty of mmo's to name that bring you right into "the fun" early (final fantasy 14 tops mmo progression for me, so much fun but when I got to the start of "end game" I dropped it immediately!).
Only way I can see Ultima Online being appealing to more people is a bit of a story/quest system then different quests depending on what you want to specialize in the game that ends up with you getting mythic tokens that give you 80 skill because the truly sad part about UO is that you are practically living in the gutter until you work out a template that works. For a new player, especially with no friends or much help how in the hell can you expect any commitment, the only reason I'm here is because of a friend who played UO in it's prime and we enjoyed UO together while figuring out the brand new skills bushido/ninjitsu etc I spent months figuring out "op" templates but I can't imagine in this day and age many giving a game like this in it's current state the time of day!
Oh, sure. I'm sure there are plenty of people out there (especially on the only moderately trained side of the spectrum) that are making more in the 15-20 dollar range than the 30-40. Really though, the idea that 35k is "the big bucks" is pretty silly. It's not that much, really. You can make that much working in a grocery store, with little to no formal training if you are willing to put in like 5 ****ty years. 35k is a fairly average salary.
I really think it would take a pretty massive undertaking to give this game a proper new player learning curve flow, especially compared to other games out there.
And people say that old games with bad graphics have lots of players, that's true, but none of them have a 13 dollar sub. Not to mention the fact that UO art isn't just dated... it's only modern(ish) client has a frankenstein monster of an aesthetic, comprised of different styles and different resolutions, making it looks like a horrible mess a lot of the time. The EC client is not the only culprit either, the CC has plenty of stick out like a sore thumb incongruous art.
I can easily see someone getting turned off just by the look of the game, and I can just as easily see someone get turned off by the terrible UI of the client with a fairly cohesive (if dated) appearance. I can see either getting even more turned off by the 13 dollar a month charge. Dated, unintuitive game play, and a subscription fee is a lot to handle for a prospective new player in 2017.
Of course bringing up D2 is not a great argument... after all it was one of the best games ever made, it's easy to get into, and it's a much more focused experience. It's still way more fun than d3 or most other diablo clones out there, imo.
maybe 2k subscribers is a little harsh estimate... i think there are +1k players on atl for sure!! simply looking at the fact of houses- although u can place a large house if u look around easy enough......though iam guessing most folks play a home[another] shard and atlantic.....Then lets be honest on the other 26 shards- its green arces in malas etc not a house in sight for screen upon screen.. ....but surely there more than 1k players over all the other 26 shards....mmmmm...then again the very low populous are maybe -50 players max......while your more populous shards must be in the 2-300s ......so realistic and mathmatically if UO does have 4-5k players then the maths would indicate we are ok for a while - especailly with the new uo store which will keep selling extra titbits for the must have everything players .
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asdf
clearly we dont want the creator of trammel Sunsword into this conversation
Thank you for the clarification. I was refering to Looking for 16 like minded people to make a commitment till the end of the year! which doesnt say much information of what moneyz go to. I did read the announcements now, thank you, its alot of information - some of it outdated as its from 2015. People (like me) tend to scroll down and ignore the announcement threads
LoL, I meant Broadsword !!
clearly we dont want the creator of trammel Sunsword into this conversation
Just curious, why do you even feel entitled to this information?
And what exactly do you plan to do with the information?
It doesn't appear you have anything invested in this, hence the question.
The site, and individuals on it are actively canvassing for donations. I would never donate to something of this nature without knowing more about the income and expenditure than just "we need cash". Nor should anyone with a sane mind.
Ah, then I'd just say feel free not to donate. Hasn't seemed to be an issue for you yet.
Not sure you need an income statement to contribute to something.
Personally, I donate thousands of dollars a years to various organizations and local causes. Not sure I ever needed the justification to know it was going to a good cause.
But to each their own, have a good one.
Non profit making organisations books are usually made public, in the interests of transparency. If you did want to see the books they would be available. Stratics doesnt want them made available, for some reason.
I'd pay £100034 to get a comma put in the trade window, but i won't pay £1000,34.
Arguing about how much to pay a developer and how much a developer makes is irrelevant. A game needs more that just a code monkey. Artwork, protocol design, server architecture, client programmer, server side programmer. Many "developers" can do a few of those tasks but not all; this is of course if you want to be serious about it and work towards the future of the game and not just continue to patch what we have.
On top of that any developer who takes on this project should trash the whole Origin/EA/Mythic/Broadsword server codebase and start with one of the emulators.
On top of that any developer who takes on this project should trash the whole Origin/EA/Mythic/Broadsword server codebase and start with one of the emulators.
As far as I can tell they'd hire one if they could find one.
It doesn't say it's for UO though
That is true lolIt doesn't say it's for UO though
But it does strongly hint at it
I always suspected it wasn't a problem of developer availability, but of paycheck amount lol
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Career progression too most likely. When their options are to take a job at a larger more well known gaming company which looks stable, or UO which is a very small team and has a long history of suddenly giving devs the boot, going with the safer option makes more sense overall.
Yeah. They probably need someone to work on DAOC.