GamesRadar has interviewed Max Schaefer, with a quote entitled “We just wanted to whack skeletons with clubs”. Such is the simple premise of Mythos, a game that’s incredibly fun not in spite of, but due to its overall simplicity and straightforwardness in design. Here’s a snippet from the aforementioned interview:
GR: Mythos is a rarity in the MMO sphere in that it’s completely free of subscription fees. What brought about that decision? Distaste for the current publishing model? The need to compete in a WoW-dominated market? Something else entirely?
MS: We’d like to think we’re clever enough to have made up this model, but the truth is that it’s become the dominant business model in Asia, and is quickly coming to the US/Europe market. Certainly, it’s foolish to compete directly with WoW, but even if there was no WoW, we would still be moving in this direction. We like the model because of the low barrier to entry. You don’t need to go to a store, buy a box, and commit to payments on a game you’re not sure you want to play. We are confident in Mythos, and confident that people will want to participate after they’ve tried it out.
Horned’s dungeon has a new interview up on their website with Max Schaefer.
It goes through a variety of questions about game features and what is to come in the future of the game.
Mythos will finance itself about so-called item-stores. In which prize area will these stores move?
Max Schaefer: You will be able to buy items and services from vendors using the in-game cash currency in each town. They will work very much like the regular vendors, only instead of gold, silver, and copper, they will take the cash currency.
Will there be for fans like me sometime maybe a collector edition? Lineage 2 has demonstrated it here and after 2 years has thrown on the market a collector edition.
Max Schaefer: That’s a little ahead of where we’re thinking right now, but I like the idea. If we are successful in launching Mythos, we’ll do something like that for our fans!
[...]
Thank you Mr. Schaefer for this Interview. I hope Mythos would be a great Game.. No, I know that Mythos would be a great Game. Im a big Fan of this Game. And if, nevertheless, you want to make liable to pay costs one day. I think here the fans pay with pleasure monthly. A survey of us confirms this that the people were ready to pay.
Max Schaefer: There really is no good way to get money from customers, is there? If only we could get a government subsidy and provide the game for free to everyone, then everyone would be happy! Seriously, a huge part of our market is the Asian territories, and they are almost 100% using the item store model. Since our team is as small as our budget, we can only support one financial model at this time, and are going with the item store concept worldwide. We think it provides the most flexibility, and the best option for those who cannot pay any cash to play.
There are more questions on their website, so go check them out!
TenTonHammer has an interview up that they conducted with Travis Baldree and Max Schaefer, which looked at things like game features as well as the question of open beta.
Q: Talk about ingots some. How will you introduce items that are good enough that players want to buy them while still making sure that players who do not spend money can get the best items in the game? Can you give us an example of an item that we might purchase with ingots?
A: Every day we come up with new things that players could purchase. Our rule of thumb is that it should be cool, but it shouldn’t be necessary. And we won’t just sell the cool items. The sort of things we’ll sell are potions that give a boost to experience, or a shared account stash, or cosmetic items that make you look cooler than anyone else. Down the road, we’ll add guild houses, hopefully player housing, but that’s the direction we’re taking. We don’t think that buying the coolest items is fun for anyone. We want you to have to earn your loot, whether you’re paying or not.
Q: What is the plan to deal with gold spammers and other griefers?
A: We’ll try to design systems such that gold isn’t the be-all, end-all that it is in some games so there’s less incentive to farm. There will always be griefers, but we’ve tried to design our game play such that there’s just not that much griefing that you can do. Plus, we have ignore lists so you can immediately tune out the obnoxious, and good CSR tools so we can police complaints.
Q: When is Open Beta?
A: Open Beta will begin very soon. We won’t set a date because our criterion is not “when” but “what.” When we’re satisfied we’re ready, we’ll open it up. I can say that we’re looking to do that very soon.
Q: When will Mythos launch?
A: Again, it’s more of a “what” than a “when,” but it will be this year for sure. It won’t be too long before we’re able to give better and more accurate answers, but it sort of depends on how the Open Beta progresses. We have an aggressive schedule of additions and improvements we’d like to have in place.
Head over to their site to see the rest of the questions and answers.
CVG has interviewed Max Schaefer about Mythos and talked to him about the business model, the game’s features and the payment model behind the game.
They also talked to Max a bit about the computer market in general.
Is it tough dealing with the stigma that’s attached to free MMOs that feature real-money transactions? Often it’s the case that those willing to pay are the ones to access the best items in a game…
Schaefer: Only if you SELL the best items in a game! We intend to have all players find their items by adventuring and killing monsters, or by crafting them. The ‘pay’ players may have an easier time doing it, but the same items are available to all players. There is a stigma with ‘free’ MMOs, but there’s also a much smaller barrier to entry, so we hope that we can convert the sceptics with direct evidence.
Stropp’s World, a gaming blog, has published up an interview that they took with Max Schaeffer, who is the executive producer of Mythos.
The interview is full of information on what is to come as well as information on what the pricing system will be like. A snippet is provided below, but I suggest heading over to Stropp’s site to check out the full interview as it’s full of interesting information.
Stropp: It’s been previously announced that Mythos will be free to play. Can you tell us what revenue model you will be using? What incentives will there be for players to pay extra?
Max: We will be using an RMT model. Our goal is to provide a wonderful, robust free experience, but offer attractive options for people who are willing to pay to get extra luxuries, or enhance their adventuring. We don’t want to simply sell the best items - even paying players will have to go kill monsters to find the best loot. Also, we plan to let players trade the in-game cash currency for items with non-paying players. This way, even the cash items will be available to free players, and we’ll avoid splitting the community into the haves and have-nots.
Stropp: There’s been quite a lot of discussion around the MMO blogging community recently about RMT. How do you intend to deal with third party gold and item sellers?
Max: It’s very difficult to stop item selling. Instead, we are investigating actually allowing players to sell items though a secure in-game marketplace rather than resorting to Ebay. We don’t think gold farming will be a huge issue in Mythos, however, since the RMT currency cannot be farmed, and the in-game gold doesn’t buy you everything you need. Nevertheless, we stop gold farming whenever we can.
Mythos Guru was founded early in 2007 as the first fansite and forum ever dedicated to Flagship Studios' online game, Mythos. It caters to an international base of players and guilds. Following in the footsteps of its predecessor Hellgate Guru, Mythos Guru shares a proud tradition of sponsoring and organizing community backed projects and events, and a powerful skill calculator. More
