Future of PoxNora Discussion

rutslane · May 13, 2021

Daggan said: ↑

I know everyone wants updates to the existing game but to be honest, the fact that the old game is still running and playable is a testament to Cortices shear force of will. After 16 years and several studios, it is beyond difficult to make even the simplest of changes. Everything being done is very time consuming and there is $0 compensation for his time. We talked internally about doing a Patreon to pay a designer and developer to continually update but the cost would be so high it's just not realistic.
Click to expand...

You have:
1. a project you don't have time or money for,
2. passionate folk who have time and money for the project.

The solution -- which is already partially implemented (the monthly patch notes are great) -- is to give selected project rights to selected folk in a way that results in temporal and monetary gains for you. You have already come halfway. The monthly patch notes are working, but are very restrictive in what can be achieved. The "community pilot" is working, now execute the other half-step and realize the full gains and use these gains in other projects (Onslaught, Pox2).

GabrielQ · May 14, 2021

Daggan said: ↑

Sorry its been so long since I have posted anything here, but there has been very little OG Pox news and i have been insanely busy. We have been working on our Onslaught prototype and have been ramping up funding efforts. In our discussion we may have found a publisher that would fund PoxNora 2 development for PC/Mobile crossplay. As things progress we will let you know. If things work out, the game would be re-built from the ground up with 3d units in either Unity or Unreal. Fingers crossed. We will be having investors take a look at things over the next few weeks (months?) so I may start a post on our website blog about Pox 2 and would love feedback. So far most of the investors we have spoken to over the last few years feel this game is too niche, and an expensive risk. One of the main reasons we've chosen to prototype a game like Onslaught was that it would cater to a wider audience, but would also allow us to create all the necessary assets to make a Pox2 on the side. To create the assets needed for a Pox2 would require a minimum of $500,000 just for the initial release set assets, so if we can get all of that for free through funding Onslaught that would make it more of a reality. To all of a sudden generate possible interest in a Pox2 is incredible and if that is the case we will shift focus to that.

If you want to help make this a reality, we need some activity to show there is interest. Visit our website, comment on FB, IG, etc. The only way investors will take the risk is if they see there is a demand from existing players. We would absolutely LOVE to make a Pox2, but it requires funding, which requires investors. Visit our blog and leave some Positive feedback (or negative if you don't want this to happen). Imagine you are speaking directly to the potential investors.
Dev Blog: https://www.octopiv4.com/blog
IG: @octopiv4
FB: https://www.facebook.com/PoxNoraGame

I know everyone wants updates to the existing game but to be honest, the fact that the old game is still running and playable is a testament to Cortices shear force of will. After 16 years and several studios, it is beyond difficult to make even the simplest of changes. Everything being done is very time consuming and there is $0 compensation for his time. We talked internally about doing a Patreon to pay a designer and developer to continually update but the cost would be so high it's just not realistic.
Click to expand...

This is a genuine question, wouldn't releasing the already finished next expansion cause a surge of activity that should last some time?

XFurionsX · May 21, 2021

I don't mind investing money on pox, but remember you are competing against heavy hitters thats are 100% free, assuming that you get the attention of 1000 players paying 20$ a month will still not be enough i think, have you tried the asian market? china, korea, the players there are brutally competitive and they invest in online games, it's what keeping league of legends alive, why not get a 9th neutral faction based on asian mythology? just a thought.

Bushido · May 21, 2021

XFurionsX said: ↑

I don't mind investing money on pox, but remember you are competing against heavy hitters thats are 100% free, assuming that you get the attention of 1000 players paying 20$ a month will still not be enough i think, have you tried the asian market? china, korea, the players there are brutally competitive and they invest in online games, it's what keeping league of legends alive, why not get a 9th neutral faction based on asian mythology? just a thought.
Click to expand...

That's a great idea. We should actually just directly integrate historical China into the poxnora universe. Where the middle kingdom is revealed to have been superior to the western kingdoms ( fw, is, st) this whole time, and the start of the western kingdoms came from spies stealing the culture of the middle kingdom, and the middle kingdom is not coming back to punish the spies, with the help of 12 dragons.

The middle kingdom bonus could be copy opponent bonus. And the font bonus could grant stealth to all units in the font.

LoganMkv · May 22, 2021

Daggan said: ↑

Sorry its been so long since I have posted anything here, but there has been very little OG Pox news and i have been insanely busy. We have been working on our Onslaught prototype and have been ramping up funding efforts. In our discussion we may have found a publisher that would fund PoxNora 2 development for PC/Mobile crossplay. As things progress we will let you know. If things work out, the game would be re-built from the ground up with 3d units in either Unity or Unreal. Fingers crossed. We will be having investors take a look at things over the next few weeks (months?) so I may start a post on our website blog about Pox 2 and would love feedback. So far most of the investors we have spoken to over the last few years feel this game is too niche, and an expensive risk. One of the main reasons we've chosen to prototype a game like Onslaught was that it would cater to a wider audience, but would also allow us to create all the necessary assets to make a Pox2 on the side. To create the assets needed for a Pox2 would require a minimum of $500,000 just for the initial release set assets, so if we can get all of that for free through funding Onslaught that would make it more of a reality. To all of a sudden generate possible interest in a Pox2 is incredible and if that is the case we will shift focus to that.

If you want to help make this a reality, we need some activity to show there is interest. Visit our website, comment on FB, IG, etc. The only way investors will take the risk is if they see there is a demand from existing players. We would absolutely LOVE to make a Pox2, but it requires funding, which requires investors. Visit our blog and leave some Positive feedback (or negative if you don't want this to happen). Imagine you are speaking directly to the potential investors.
Dev Blog: https://www.octopiv4.com/blog
IG: @octopiv4
FB: https://www.facebook.com/PoxNoraGame

I know everyone wants updates to the existing game but to be honest, the fact that the old game is still running and playable is a testament to Cortices shear force of will. After 16 years and several studios, it is beyond difficult to make even the simplest of changes. Everything being done is very time consuming and there is $0 compensation for his time. We talked internally about doing a Patreon to pay a designer and developer to continually update but the cost would be so high it's just not realistic.
Click to expand...

Sorry, but Pox died not because of outdated assets, code, or whatever else, but only because of very poor business model and management, and I'm afraid you are going to make the same mistakes again.

You don't need $500k and a new client.

You just need to revert everything to the last state when the java client and tourneys were working, hire 3 remote webdevelopers at $3-5k/month to redo the site completely with a modern tech and all the missing functionality, dump all the remaining money you can scrap into marketing, and relaunch as Pox Classic, with weekly expansions and firkload of tourneys and events. All Classic mmo relaunches have been huge success so far.

I thought you'd been silent for all this time because you wanted to surprise us, but it turns out you've been essentially sitting on a collapsed gold mine for all this time, only willing to clear it out if firking Cellini rises from the grave and forges some masterpiece from your gold, instead of just selling the grains and dust.

Bushido · May 22, 2021

Koop

LoganMkv said: ↑

Sorry, but Pox died not because of outdated assets, code, or whatever else, but only because of very poor business model and management, and I'm afraid you are going to make the same mistakes again.

You don't need $500k and a new client.

You just need to revert everything to the last state when the java client and tourneys were working, hire 3 remote webdevelopers at $3-5k/month to redo the site completely with a modern tech and all the missing functionality, dump all the remaining money you can scrap into marketing, and relaunch as Pox Classic, with weekly expansions and firkload of tourneys and events. All Classic mmo relaunches have been huge success so far.

I thought you'd been silent for all this time because you wanted to surprise us, but it turns out you've been essentially sitting on a collapsed gold mine for all this time, only willing to clear it out if firking Cellini rises from the grave and forges some masterpiece from your gold, instead of just selling the grains and dust.
Click to expand...

Hey Logan, I agree with some of your assessment. The collapsed gold mine analogy fits 100%. Website is fine. Just make https and a few security updates. Put some double click ads on the banner as well...(poor management by DOG)

Where I disagree is weekly expansions (quarterly would work)

revamp store, release a few color swaps, and run some targeted ads on insta twitch etc...

super71 · May 22, 2021

Daggan said: ↑

Sorry its been so long since I have posted anything here, but there has been very little OG Pox news and i have been insanely busy. We have been working on our Onslaught prototype and have been ramping up funding efforts. In our discussion we may have found a publisher that would fund PoxNora 2 development for PC/Mobile crossplay. As things progress we will let you know. If things work out, the game would be re-built from the ground up with 3d units in either Unity or Unreal. Fingers crossed. We will be having investors take a look at things over the next few weeks (months?) so I may start a post on our website blog about Pox 2 and would love feedback. So far most of the investors we have spoken to over the last few years feel this game is too niche, and an expensive risk. One of the main reasons we've chosen to prototype a game like Onslaught was that it would cater to a wider audience, but would also allow us to create all the necessary assets to make a Pox2 on the side. To create the assets needed for a Pox2 would require a minimum of $500,000 just for the initial release set assets, so if we can get all of that for free through funding Onslaught that would make it more of a reality. To all of a sudden generate possible interest in a Pox2 is incredible and if that is the case we will shift focus to that.

If you want to help make this a reality, we need some activity to show there is interest. Visit our website, comment on FB, IG, etc. The only way investors will take the risk is if they see there is a demand from existing players. We would absolutely LOVE to make a Pox2, but it requires funding, which requires investors. Visit our blog and leave some Positive feedback (or negative if you don't want this to happen). Imagine you are speaking directly to the potential investors.
Dev Blog: https://www.octopiv4.com/blog
IG: @octopiv4
FB: https://www.facebook.com/PoxNoraGame

I know everyone wants updates to the existing game but to be honest, the fact that the old game is still running and playable is a testament to Cortices shear force of will. After 16 years and several studios, it is beyond difficult to make even the simplest of changes. Everything being done is very time consuming and there is $0 compensation for his time. We talked internally about doing a Patreon to pay a designer and developer to continually update but the cost would be so high it's just not realistic.
Click to expand...

Word of advice, please on everything that is holy, do not do a pc/mobile crossover, playing any sort of tactical game on a phone is a nightmare and a pox 2 would be even more so. Also mobile is flooded with tactical f2p games, and a pox 2 would get lost in the shuffle, there are literally tens of thousands of games on mobile now. Other than that, best of luck and looking forward to any updates.

Sokolov · May 22, 2021

Bushido said: ↑

Alls I can say is I have plenty of strategic finance experience (specializing in growing small business, >150m rev), and if it costs you more than 2k for a palette swap, storefront update, jpg image for portrait, and "implementation " cost of getting said unit into game, then yes ur business is destined to fail.
Click to expand...

Again, please re-read what I said because I agree with this statement and what you are saying here is not what I said at all. My point is that a cheap palette swap that costs very little doesn't actually sell well, and what does sell well is a full conversion skin which costs substantially more because it's basically a new unit ($2000). And that the % matters because even if the % stays the same, more players at the same % means the number of payers is bigger (which is the multiplier for your revenue) - that's how percentages work (instead of what you claimed where it doesn't because it stays the same).

There is a reason why such palette swaps tend to be regulated to freebies or event prizes rather than an attempt at generating direct revenue.

IMAGIRL said: ↑

@Sokolov You've got a better view of the behind the scenes aspects. Is the idea of compartmentalized fixes doable?
Click to expand...

Generally not, especially not funded this manner. Too many things are tied together in ways that are not obvious, things don't generally cost what you think it does, and I don't really see that there'd be much interest to get the amounts needed to do the work here. That said, it's possible that people come out of the woodwork in large enough numbers to make it work financially, but that seems unlikely.

That said, I am not really involved anymore, so perhaps the question should be directed more at Daggan anyway as to whether there is appetite for such a thing.

IMAGIRL · May 23, 2021

Sokolov said: ↑

Generally not, especially not funded this manner. Too many things are tied together in ways that are not obvious, things don't generally cost what you think it does, and I don't really see that there'd be much interest to get the amounts needed to do the work here. That said, it's possible that people come out of the woodwork in large enough numbers to make it work financially, but that seems unlikely.

That said, I am not really involved anymore, so perhaps the question should be directed more at Daggan anyway as to whether there is appetite for such a thing.
Click to expand...

Unfortunate, thanks for the information.

LoganMkv · May 23, 2021

Bushido said: ↑

Koop

Hey Logan, I agree with some of your assessment. The collapsed gold mine analogy fits 100%. Website is fine. Just make https and a few security updates. Put some double click ads on the banner as well...(poor management by DOG)

Where I disagree is weekly expansions (quarterly would work)

revamp store, release a few color swaps, and run some targeted ads on insta twitch etc...
Click to expand...

Pox desperately needs modern fast mobile-friendly db/deckbuilder/trader/etc.
Then it needs the whole economy rework (affecting shards/gold/rewards/etc), and all the bells and whistles like achievements/stats/etc.
Finally it needs a system to reward contentmakers and social players at least with ingame valuables. Other mmos nowdays often pay real fulltime salary to clanleaders ffs, while pox supports firking discord, which is pure cancer for small-playerbase games, cause it drains all the communication from forums and ingame chat, and potential new players see dead forums/chat as a result.

I can bet all my runz against a dead horse that those changes without touching the actual game at all would bring more impact than the whole $500k worth of assets.

Bushido · May 23, 2021

PoxBot said: ↑

Those would have been useful a couple years back, buy not so much with current demand. PoxBase dying was like the last nail in the coffin for trading tbh. In Pox 2.0, trading should be scrapped altogether. It's not good for business to have players loan runes as opposed to buying them.
Click to expand...

Pox 2.0 should be crypto based where you can trade limited runes on a decentralized network off the etherum 2.0 blockchain

LoganMkv · May 24, 2021

PoxBot said: ↑

Those would have been useful a couple years back, buy not so much with current demand. PoxBase dying was like the last nail in the coffin for trading tbh. In Pox 2.0, trading should be scrapped altogether. It's not good for business to have players loan runes as opposed to buying them.
Click to expand...

The context here was not current pox or pox2, but suggested Pox Classic - starting a new server with only core set available right away, and "replaying" all the expansions at faster rate.
All runes and currency are not supposed to be transferable obviously, but it's good to give old players special "renown" currency depending on their original pox legacy, which can be spent on cosmetics or qol.
And given that pox has unique possibility to have not only grind and real money paths, but also skill-based rewards, now add the renown and you can have one of the healthiest economies ever if you do everything right.

LoganMkv · May 24, 2021

PoxBot said: ↑

I did not mean to imply that your comments were directed at nupox or any other variant. Rather, I am saying that despite there being some use for what you listed, it is unlikely to become a thing for this game, period. One of the main things you touch upon as far as rewarding content creation is definitively spot on, but at this stage, it's kind of a lost cause unless you get someone big on board that already has an audience which you might be able to convert into PoxNora players. Basically, whenever anyone works for anything Pox related, they must ask themselves the WTF question: What's this for? The logical conclusion ends with hours and hours for low exposure due to a small population which would be better spent making content for other less buggy, more enjoyable and more successful games. The goal of content creators is in direct conflict with making content for PoxNora, you see. I will give you an example. Years back, I made some tutorials for PoxNora and they all got a few hundreds of views and it took me hours to come up with a script for those. Likewise, my recorded game videos never really got that many views but one time I recorded myself playing Yu-Gi-Oh!: Duel Links going through the Bakura event netted me over 10k views to this day and that was effortlessly just recording the character dialogues. That is to say, the ratio for effort vs reward is such that you basically have to consciously do it at the expense of growth and no compensation from the company. A rational human being won't be up for the task; it's passion project or bust.

Why make a mobile deckbuilder for a dead game? The people who play this already do everything on the website and new players rarely stick around long enough to want to download it. Why make a database for a dead game and pay for hosting/keep it up to date? Why make a trading tool when we have rarely seen the rune trade page hit page 2 in a year? Ultimately, these are all things the devs should have done themselves but because they didn't, other people had to turn the database and traders into passion projects with varying degrees of success and longevity.
Click to expand...

I'm afraid you still don't get it.
Once again, it has nothing to do with the current pox state, the current pox state has been always bad, and beyond salvation since soe stepped down. It should be clear to everyone by now, that pox has no value as sport, ccg, sandbox, or whatever else, it only ever had value as pvp-mmo. So relaunch it with a proper economy, and all the people who have abandoned the game or were impossible to convience to even try it would be there.

LoganMkv · May 24, 2021

PoxBot said: ↑

Do you mean just taking what they have now but with 1 expansion for launch and re-launching expansions as opposed to making a new PoxNora from scratch? Because that's more or less impossible right now.
Click to expand...

Yes, except not exactly what they have now, but the latest version when the old java client and tourneys were working well. They may have agreement with sony to require the new client for the current game, but not for alternative version.
The idea to start over may seem confusing if you are not familiar with other mmos, but trust me, I play a game which has been doing it for 6 years, and players are happy to pay for same stuff even twice a year if it means they get at least couple of month of active server instead of a dead one.

Sokolov · May 25, 2021

PoxBot said: ↑

Putting that aside, didn't the old java client have an audio bug which they said was basically impossible to fix?
Click to expand...

Specifically, the audio bug had to do with something that Oracle stopped supporting. It is fixable, but would require the audio part of Pox to be re-written... or, in the case of the new client, to use Unity's audio stuff.

But yea, things like Runescape has a much larger playerbase and as I mentioned, when you have a bigger potential playerbase, it makes a lot more things possible. The company behind Runespace also has hundreds of employees, is also flush with cash and in bed with a Chinese company who has even more cash and gives them access to Asian markets, so it all aligns well for trying things like that.

Bushido · May 25, 2021

Sokolov said: ↑

Specifically, the audio bug had to do with something that Oracle stopped supporting. It is fixable, but would require the audio part of Pox to be re-written... or, in the case of the new client, to use Unity's audio stuff.

But yea, things like Runescape has a much larger playerbase and as I mentioned, when you have a bigger potential playerbase, it makes a lot more things possible. The company behind Runespace also has hundreds of employees, is also flush with cash and in bed with a Chinese company who has even more cash and gives them access to Asian markets, so it all aligns well for trying things like that.
Click to expand...

Runescape Asian markets? Lol I don't think so.

https://twitter.com/disclosetv/status/1397192706703695881

John cena on the other hand...

Sokolov · May 25, 2021

Not sure what you are talking about, but I am talking about Jagex (who makes and publishes Runescape) being owned by a Chinese company. Altho apparently they been sold, yet again, this time to a US firm after having been owned by two different Chinese companies.

Bushido · May 26, 2021

Sokolov said: ↑

Not sure what you are talking about, but I am talking about Jagex (who makes and publishes Runescape) being owned by a Chinese company. Altho apparently they been sold, yet again, this time to a US firm after having been owned by two different Chinese companies.
Click to expand...

I can't imagine Chinese ppl playing rs, I thought that was what you were implying.

XFurionsX · May 26, 2021

But is it possibly to attract players from China @Sokolov ? maybe translating the runes?

Sokolov · May 26, 2021

It's not easy to get into the China market without a Chinese partner. That's the real hurdle.

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Future of PoxNora Discussion

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