Snaffy's Space | MMO Fansites

One for the money and two for the road;
The MMO Fo' Show delivers information overload.
Syppy sippin' on courvoisier, Snaffy makin' all the dough;
We'll blow your minds with our slick n' sexy rantin' ravin' flow.

Aion's got the angels;
Darkfall's full of gank;
The Matrix got unplugged;
SWTOR makin' Syp want to spank... whut?

So listen to the podcast;
And let it entertain.
50-minutes of your life;
You'll never get it back again!

Podcast main page!

Hosts

The Big Three (MMO news commentary)

Aion CE, preorder, and system requirements released
Darkfall getting US1 server this July
The Matrix Online kung-fu hustles outta here

PSA (The more you know...)

Don't get your gf involved in your MMO

Rant and Rave (Let's get it on!)

Star Wars: The Old Republic

Hoggle's Bloggles (Keeping our stinkeye on the community)

A warning to fellow gamers

Please leave us a comment to let us know what you think! The only rule is that you need to rap it!

We recorded our very first episode of The MMO Fo' Show on Thursday night, so here it is. The podcast is your run of the mill general MMO podcast covering news, blogs, and other topics we want to comment on. That is, until you play it backwards... Our personalities really shine in reverse and the 5th letters of every 90th word combine to reveal secret government codes that can be used to receive discounts at some of our favorite online retailers.

Hosts

The Big Three (MMO news commentary)

Champions Online delayed
Free Realms and Runes of Magic top 1M players
Eurogamer vs. Darkfall: An epic e-peen tug-of-war

PSA (The more you know...)

Ninja Looting

Rant and Rave (Let's get it on!)

Warhammer Online

Hoggle's Bloggles (Keeping our stinkeye on the community)

Leave us a comment to let us know what you think! I'm pretty sure the audio levels need a bit of adjustment, so I'll make sure the podcast quality is better next time.

If Darkfall only leaves one mark on the MMO genre, I think it will be this: Staging your release and limiting supply is a very good idea for the long-term health of your game.

Every MMO launch I have participated in has been plagued by server issues at launch. Warhammer had too many. World of Warcraft had too few. Having too many means that servers will become ghost towns if enough of your first-month customers don't stick around. Having too few servers means people who have paid good money to play your game can't actually play it.

Adventurine's staged release is a stroke of brilliance imho, even if they were forced into it with their low-cap one server model. Basically, they sold a limited number of pre-order copies of Darkfall which were insanely hard to get a hold of. This gave them a fixed number to work with. On release day, they sold another limited amount of copies for those who missed out on the pre-order. These sold out insanely quickly as well.

On release day, Aventurine knew EXACTLY how many people to expect.

Every day since release, they open their store for a very random and brief period of time allowing for even more limited copies to sell. So far, the demand is sustaining and through the roof.

And that's what it comes down to my friends. Simple economics. Supply and demand. Actually, let's call it Wii-nomics because Nintendo has been using this very same strategy of limiting supply to keep up demand for years now with the Wii console. Every Christmas supplies are limited and demand is huge.

People want what they can't have. People even want the IDEA of what they can't have. It's human nature.

If the next big MMO wants to succeed, I recommend they follow this supply vs. demand structure. The drawback is that you won't sell as many copies as you could in a huge burst. The benefit is that you don't screw yourself by making incorrect server preparations at release. I believe it's a much smarter way to go for a sustained and successful period of time.

MMO gamers are junkies. They need their fix and they will wait for it. They will claw their eyes out and froth at the mouth until they get their fix, but they will still wait for it.

Do you have the strength of will and intelligence to wait them out and keep up the hype? If your game is good enough, people will "baa" like sheep and you can shepherd them appropriately.

Think about it.