R P G A M E R . C O M   -   E D I T O R I A L S

Heath Hindman is Lying to You.. Ok, Not Exactly

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Doug Hill
FAN EDITORIALIST

[Author's note: the following in the opinion of Doug Hill, and is no way associated with Black Lantern Studios, Inc. or any of their business partners.]

First, Heath is not really lying, but I believe that his view is missing a lot of vital points, especially the business points, the technical points, and the very important gameplay points. There are many factors here that, if analyzed separately and also together, can tell you why this decision very well may have been made.

As any producer or game designer who has worked on projects that both publishers and business partners have invested in can tell you, a cancellation of this magnitude is no act of cowardice. Games this massive, where the risks and rewards are huge, are very carefully monitored. At certain points, those investors expect certain results, or they won't continue to fund the project. My guess is this is exactly what happened to Wish. Investors must be happy, and must see a payoff worthy of their investment (as in not just breaking even) or they will put their money elsewhere.

One thing I must address, which effects both technical and gameplay issues, is the fact that 60,000 testers was an acceptable amount of people. Let's remember that, unlike pretty much all other MMOGs, Wish is not shard-based. It was designed to be a world where everyone played together. Now, take 60,000 total people, and estimate that at peak, as many as 20% may have been online at the same time, and that very well may be generous. That's 12,000. In a low-end time, maybe 5,000. Maybe. Now, on a game like World of Warcraft, that's ok. Why? Because there are different servers, and if you don't find someone to play with on one server, just go to the main menu and find out which servers have higher traffic.

That wouldn't work with Wish. Their game, being a single server, depended on enough players being online constantly to keep the game fresh, while at the same time having enough content that peak times weren't too crowded. Wish, from the get go, was a logistical nightmare to pull off. I could easily imagine wandering around in a world like that, maybe running across a player every 10-15 minutes, but the chances of that leading to something being minimal. (Kind of like when I tried Asheron's Call out a few months ago. So sparse..)

Also, the technical side of Wish must've been even more nightmare-ish than a traditional MMORPG. With everyone in the same world, there is a lot more interweaving communication going on. With other MMOGs, divided into nice neatly-arranged shards, the flow of communication between users and servers can be much more easily managed. Also, other MMOG servers are likely a lot less taxed due to shared information and not having to run certain areas unless players enter them. (Although I'm sure that MMOGs handle empty areas in different ways.)

I'd say the failures did scare the investors, but more importantly the success stories scared them more. Here you have World of Warcraft garnering literally more users than it could handle, over ten times as many paying customers as it got in a free beta, and the game is a radically different product. I've seen many MMOGs gather at least 100,000 for testing, such as Guild Wars and, in the past, World of Warcraft and EverQuest II. There is a real argument that 60,000 testers was NOT enough players for investors to have faith in the project continuing.

The bottom line is, and I can tell you this as a game designer and producer, you do not dedicate years of your life to a project you love and adore just to shut it down because of cold feet. Just look at their statement: "After careful consideration of all the facts and analyzing all the data which we have gathered from the Wish Beta 2.0 test." I guarantee you this was a business decision, likely from one or a combination of technical costs, gameplay issues, and lack of public interest. The Beta's first week was a test, and it was a test that failed.

I was interested in Wish, as a gamer, but in retrospect, as someone in the business, I'm amazed it got as far as it did. I wish those guys the best in the future, and maybe some day the world will be ready for a game of that scope.