10 years ago - if you had held roundtable discussions with EQ/DAOC/UO players and asked them what features they'd like to see in games in 2012... virtually none of the celebrated things you see in TOR would've been on the list.
Players wanted a more lively world... behavior for npcs... seasons... weather... places to conquer... things to build... ways their guild/group of friends could affect the world.... essentially they wanted the MMOs to be more "real."
TOR wasn't made for those players. There's not enough money in pleasing those players, and frankly it isn't even possible to please those players. TOR was not made for the bulk of the MMORPG.com audience that thinks they, and only they, know what players want. TOR was made for millions and millions of people most often referred to as "casuals". They don't care about sandboxes and would laugh at you if you told them that was what they should play. They don't care about your lively world, NPCs that go to the bathroom, seasons, weather, or any of the rest of the laundry list of must-have features every armchair dev on this site loves to spew any chance they get.
They care about having fun.
Period. End of sentence.
No one plays games for reality, they play games to escape reality.
The MMO genre doesn't need to, and shan't, "re-invent" itself. It won't ever be about "sandboxes" (however one cares to define that conveniently nebulous term), pathetic attempts at creating and enforcing surrogate social lives, or any of the rest of what so many here demand. TOR is not, and will not be the failure people here so desperately want it to be (and, no, I'm not particularly having fun with it, but I know way too many people who are to believe the sky is falling crap posted here hourly).
The MMO genre is doing just fine, thank you, but it isn't about you and it isn't about me any longer. It's long past time for people here to start realizing that and either come to terms with it or move on to something else.
I think you are missing the point...
As are AAA devs who are completely unable to create a truly succesful mmo for the past 8 years or so, no matter how much money they shovel into that same old EQ furnace.
And your argument against "reality" is totally misguided. Obviously "no one wants to play games for reality" which is why games striving for reality such as GTA series, CoD, MoH etc etc are such terrible flops no one in their right mind would want to play. Lol. And sandboxes and player-created content? Jeez, can you say Minecraft, GTA and Skyrim? Get off your high horse railroad-boy and show me one post-WoW mmo that demonstrates how railroaded "story-based" themepark model is a financially succesful one, lol and double lol.
RIFT is a financially successful game. Sure, it doesn't even have 1/10 the playerbase of Warcraft, but it does make money for the developer, and Trion is a very respectable one.
10 years ago - if you had held roundtable discussions with EQ/DAOC/UO players and asked them what features they'd like to see in games in 2012... virtually none of the celebrated things you see in TOR would've been on the list.
Players wanted a more lively world... behavior for npcs... seasons... weather... places to conquer... things to build... ways their guild/group of friends could affect the world.... essentially they wanted the MMOs to be more "real."
TOR wasn't made for those players. There's not enough money in pleasing those players, and frankly it isn't even possible to please those players. TOR was not made for the bulk of the MMORPG.com audience that thinks they, and only they, know what players want. TOR was made for millions and millions of people most often referred to as "casuals". They don't care about sandboxes and would laugh at you if you told them that was what they should play. They don't care about your lively world, NPCs that go to the bathroom, seasons, weather, or any of the rest of the laundry list of must-have features every armchair dev on this site loves to spew any chance they get.
They care about having fun.
Period. End of sentence.
No one plays games for reality, they play games to escape reality.
The MMO genre doesn't need to, and shan't, "re-invent" itself. It won't ever be about "sandboxes" (however one cares to define that conveniently nebulous term), pathetic attempts at creating and enforcing surrogate social lives, or any of the rest of what so many here demand. TOR is not, and will not be the failure people here so desperately want it to be (and, no, I'm not particularly having fun with it, but I know way too many people who are to believe the sky is falling crap posted here hourly).
The MMO genre is doing just fine, thank you, but it isn't about you and it isn't about me any longer. It's long past time for people here to start realizing that and either come to terms with it or move on to something else.
I think you are missing the point...
As are AAA devs who are completely unable to create a truly succesful mmo for the past 8 years or so, no matter how much money they shovel into that same old EQ furnace.
And your argument against "reality" is totally misguided. Obviously "no one wants to play games for reality" which is why games striving for reality such as GTA series, CoD, MoH etc etc are such terrible flops no one in their right mind would want to play. Lol. And sandboxes and player-created content? Jeez, can you say Minecraft, GTA and Skyrim? Get off your high horse railroad-boy and show me one post-WoW mmo that demonstrates how railroaded "story-based" themepark model is a financially succesful one, lol and double lol.
Just because we are playing it for 5 years straight doesn't mean it's not sucessful. This is also an old school mentality that needs to go away
People just don't have time for that...and these games are made that way. I played Aion and Rift for about 3 months and truly enjoyed the time I played in them. When I was done, I simply moved on with no hard feelings.
RIFT is a financially successful game. Sure, it doesn't even have 1/10 the playerbase of Warcraft, but it does make money for the developer, and Trion is a very respectable one.
Yeah, but considering the investment-return and the risk involved it's not stellar by any means. If I were an investor, a mmorg would be the last product I'd want to invest in.
I bet EA/BW's suits are banging their heads against the wall for sinking all that money into SW:TOR while they could have made off like bandits with KOTORs 3, 4 and 5...
Things will not change in the mmo market until people start buying games for what they are and not buying them because of who the publisher, developers, and IP are.
If people see bioware they run and buy it. People see gw2 and cant wait to buy it. People are just sucker to marketing these days.
There is a logic, and that is people buy something from a company or source that they trust, enjoy or respect in some way. If you bought a Ford and found it to be a great car, why wouldnt you buy another Ford?
Things will not change in the mmo market until people start buying games for what they are and not buying them because of who the publisher, developers, and IP are.
If people see bioware they run and buy it. People see gw2 and cant wait to buy it. People are just sucker to marketing these days.
Yep I agree.
The mmorpg genre has evolved to a cross between Hello Kitty backpacks and McDonald's supersizing.
Sucks. And yes, it needs to be reinvented - but I would start with titles like Dark Age of Camelot and EQ before I would look at anything else.
Most kids these days don't even know what housing is, or that a game can have more than 5 races or that you don't have to copy paste races and classes to each faction, or that you can have more than 2 factions. They are the market, they don't know what's possible, so GW2 and SW:ToR will be the genre - plain and simple.
It must re-invent "itself" ? MMO genre is no independent organism. But for some reason... the longer I stay away from MMOs, the better the next MMO gets.
Maybe we all just have overdone things. I'm pretty sure. You get a whole new look on things if you step away for a few weeks/months.
TOR wasn't made for those players. There's not enough money in pleasing those players, and frankly it isn't even possible to please those players. TOR was not made for the bulk of the MMORPG.com audience that thinks they, and only they, know what players want. TOR was made for millions and millions of people most often referred to as "casuals". They don't care about sandboxes and would laugh at you if you told them that was what they should play. They don't care about your lively world, NPCs that go to the bathroom, seasons, weather, or any of the rest of the laundry list of must-have features every armchair dev on this site loves to spew any chance they get. They care about having fun. Period. End of sentence. No one plays games for reality, they play games to escape reality. The MMO genre doesn't need to, and shan't, "re-invent" itself. It won't ever be about "sandboxes" (however one cares to define that conveniently nebulous term), pathetic attempts at creating and enforcing surrogate social lives, or any of the rest of what so many here demand. TOR is not, and will not be the failure people here so desperately want it to be (and, no, I'm not particularly having fun with it, but I know way too many people who are to believe the sky is falling crap posted here hourly). The MMO genre is doing just fine, thank you, but it isn't about you and it isn't about me any longer. It's long past time for people here to start realizing that and either come to terms with it or move on to something else.
I think you are missing the point...
As are AAA devs who are completely unable to create a truly succesful mmo for the past 8 years or so, no matter how much money they shovel into that same old EQ furnace.
And your argument against "reality" is totally misguided. Obviously "no one wants to play games for reality" which is why games striving for reality such as GTA series, CoD, MoH etc etc are such terrible flops no one in their right mind would want to play. Lol. And sandboxes and player-created content? Jeez, can you say Minecraft, GTA and Skyrim? Get off your high horse railroad-boy and show me one post-WoW mmo that demonstrates how railroaded "story-based" themepark model is a financially succesful one, lol and double lol.
Successful is a very subjective concept, especially considering that quite a number of AAA MMO's of the past 8 years have made more money and had more subs than MMO's before 2004 even when the competition is 10 times more than it was before 2004.
As for what people like or not, what posters here at first should realise is that there isn't just 1 taste or 1 preference that 'the people' have, what 1 person likes, another one dislikes or is indifferent about and so on.
What Myria wrote is right, what people first and foremost want when they play games, MMORPG's included, is simply to have fun and enjoy themselves. But what's fun to one person, isn't the same for the next person, the requirements for fun and enjoyment differ from one person to the next.
The fact that millions of people managed to enjoy themselves in themepark environments for so many years, should tell observers that clearly and apparently that kind of gameplay was fun to those people, even if to others that kind of gameplay didn't appeal to their requirements for having fun.
For any GTA, Minecraft or Skyrim, you have a MW3, D3, ME2, Heavy Rain, Uncharted 2, Deus Ex 3 or other sortlike games that also are hugely liked and played by gamers who like that sort of gameplay too. There is no simple black & white, even if some people prefer to see the world like that, people like different things, some enjoy themepark/game style design and others like sandbox/world style of design and again others like both or something entirely different.
10 years ago - if you had held roundtable discussions with EQ/DAOC/UO players and asked them what features they'd like to see in games in 2012... virtually none of the celebrated things you see in TOR would've been on the list.
Players wanted a more lively world... behavior for npcs... seasons... weather... places to conquer... things to build... ways their guild/group of friends could affect the world.... essentially they wanted the MMOs to be more "real."
TOR wasn't made for those players. There's not enough money in pleasing those players, and frankly it isn't even possible to please those players. TOR was not made for the bulk of the MMORPG.com audience that thinks they, and only they, know what players want. TOR was made for millions and millions of people most often referred to as "casuals". They don't care about sandboxes and would laugh at you if you told them that was what they should play. They don't care about your lively world, NPCs that go to the bathroom, seasons, weather, or any of the rest of the laundry list of must-have features every armchair dev on this site loves to spew any chance they get.
They care about having fun.
Period. End of sentence.
No one plays games for reality, they play games to escape reality.
The MMO genre doesn't need to, and shan't, "re-invent" itself. It won't ever be about "sandboxes" (however one cares to define that conveniently nebulous term), pathetic attempts at creating and enforcing surrogate social lives, or any of the rest of what so many here demand. TOR is not, and will not be the failure people here so desperately want it to be (and, no, I'm not particularly having fun with it, but I know way too many people who are to believe the sky is falling crap posted here hourly).
The MMO genre is doing just fine, thank you, but it isn't about you and it isn't about me any longer. It's long past time for people here to start realizing that and either come to terms with it or move on to something else.
I think you are missing the point...
As are AAA devs who are completely unable to create a truly succesful mmo for the past 8 years or so, no matter how much money they shovel into that same old EQ furnace.
And your argument against "reality" is totally misguided. Obviously "no one wants to play games for reality" which is why games striving for reality such as GTA series, CoD, MoH etc etc are such terrible flops no one in their right mind would want to play. Lol. And sandboxes and player-created content? Jeez, can you say Minecraft, GTA and Skyrim? Get off your high horse railroad-boy and show me one post-WoW mmo that demonstrates how railroaded "story-based" themepark model is a financially succesful one, lol and double lol.
Just because we are playing it for 5 years straight doesn't mean it's not sucessful. This is also an old school mentality that needs to go away
People just don't have time for that...and these games are made that way. I played Aion and Rift for about 3 months and truly enjoyed the time I played in them. When I was done, I simply moved on with no hard feelings.
It has nothing to do with "old school mentality" and everything to do with revenue models.
If you are basing your product on customer retention then you don't build it on something that is intrinsically inpermanent... such as story, for example.
If you want a nice game with a story to play through with your buddies, then go ahead by all means! Personally I really enjoyed Left 4 Dead series and some other co-op games... but thats it - a nice story to play through a couple of times and then move off - fair enough, everybody's happy.
The problem is when you build your game like a frnakenstein monster - story based game which counts on retention? Are you thick?! It's like trying to sell a subscription for a novel or cable channel that shows just one movie all the time!
If your game is counting on retention for its revenue then you should build it with that in mind. Imo, MMO devs thinking of juicy subs should look at social networks for inspiration - what is facebook but a sandbox that its users use to generate content for each other? The moment facebook begins to generate its own content and tries to push it at its users it will die a spectacular death.
MMOs to games are what Web 2.0 is to the old web... and the AAA dinosaurs still do not understand the potentialities of that.. Someone else is generating the content that WE capitalize on! Jeez, we just need to provide the users with a platform that enables them to do it! FFS, I thought some of them might have caught on by now...
RIFT is a financially successful game. Sure, it doesn't even have 1/10 the playerbase of Warcraft, but it does make money for the developer, and Trion is a very respectable one.
Yeah, but considering the investment-return and the risk involved it's not stellar by any means. If I were an investor, a mmorg would be the last product I'd want to invest in.
I bet EA/BW's suits are banging their heads against the wall for sinking all that money into SW:TOR while they could have made off like bandits with KOTORs 3, 4 and 5...
A fairly successful MMO can already make more money after its launch than could be made with a singleplayer game, 3 months of subbing already equals 1 game sold, that means that people who subbed for 6-12 months have generated revenues equal to as if that person had bought KOTOR 3-6.
10 years ago - if you had held roundtable discussions with EQ/DAOC/UO players and asked them what features they'd like to see in games in 2012... virtually none of the celebrated things you see in TOR would've been on the list.
Players wanted a more lively world... behavior for npcs... seasons... weather... places to conquer... things to build... ways their guild/group of friends could affect the world.... essentially they wanted the MMOs to be more "real."
TOR wasn't made for those players. There's not enough money in pleasing those players, and frankly it isn't even possible to please those players. TOR was not made for the bulk of the MMORPG.com audience that thinks they, and only they, know what players want. TOR was made for millions and millions of people most often referred to as "casuals". They don't care about sandboxes and would laugh at you if you told them that was what they should play. They don't care about your lively world, NPCs that go to the bathroom, seasons, weather, or any of the rest of the laundry list of must-have features every armchair dev on this site loves to spew any chance they get.
They care about having fun.
Period. End of sentence.
No one plays games for reality, they play games to escape reality.
The MMO genre doesn't need to, and shan't, "re-invent" itself. It won't ever be about "sandboxes" (however one cares to define that conveniently nebulous term), pathetic attempts at creating and enforcing surrogate social lives, or any of the rest of what so many here demand. TOR is not, and will not be the failure people here so desperately want it to be (and, no, I'm not particularly having fun with it, but I know way too many people who are to believe the sky is falling crap posted here hourly).
The MMO genre is doing just fine, thank you, but it isn't about you and it isn't about me any longer. It's long past time for people here to start realizing that and either come to terms with it or move on to something else.
I think you are missing the point...
As are AAA devs who are completely unable to create a truly succesful mmo for the past 8 years or so, no matter how much money they shovel into that same old EQ furnace.
And your argument against "reality" is totally misguided. Obviously "no one wants to play games for reality" which is why games striving for reality such as GTA series, CoD, MoH etc etc are such terrible flops no one in their right mind would want to play. Lol. And sandboxes and player-created content? Jeez, can you say Minecraft, GTA and Skyrim? Get off your high horse railroad-boy and show me one post-WoW mmo that demonstrates how railroaded "story-based" themepark model is a financially succesful one, lol and double lol.
Just because we are playing it for 5 years straight doesn't mean it's not sucessful. This is also an old school mentality that needs to go away
People just don't have time for that...and these games are made that way. I played Aion and Rift for about 3 months and truly enjoyed the time I played in them. When I was done, I simply moved on with no hard feelings.
It has nothing to do with "old school mentality" and everything to do with revenue models.
If you are basing your product on customer retention then you don't build it on something that is intrinsically inpermanent... such as story, for example.
If you want a nice game with a story to play through with your buddies, then go ahead by all means! Personally I really enjoyed Left 4 Dead series and some other co-op games... but thats it - a nice story to play through a couple of times and then move off - fair enough, everybody's happy.
The problem is when you build your game like a frnakenstein monster - story based game which counts on retention? Are you thick?! It's like trying to sell a subscription for a novel or cable channel that shows just one movie all the time!
If your game is counting on retention for its revenue then you should build it with that in mind. Imo, MMO devs thinking of juicy subs should look at social networks for inspiration - what is facebook but a sandbox that its users use to generate content for each other? The moment facebook begins to generate its own content and tries to push it at its users it will die a spectacular death.
MMOs to games are what Web 2.0 is to the old web... and the AAA dinosaurs still do not understand the potentialities of that.. Someone else is generating the content that WE capitalize on! Jeez, we just need to provide the users with a platform that enables them to do it! FFS, I thought some of them might have caught on by now...
The content developed by facebook users is not the same as that which would be used in a game. And further that content is all generated by the most complex procedurally and systematically programmed game in the world. The world.
People post about their real lives and make videos and poems and all sorts of shit based on real life. An MMO based on sci fi or high fantasy cannot produce that kind of content because it doesn't have the collective human experience of the last 100000 years to provide a starting point. Further facebooks cost per person using is quite low compared to MMOs.
In Rift you can queue for low level dungeons at max levels. The OP is annoyed when this happens because it makes iit completely trivial. And most people seem to see no problem with it because it gets it done faster.
"Stop thinking the genre needs re-inventing because the fringes of a community say so." -nikoliath
"hey look another "omg sandbox will fix everything!" thread" -Enosh
Definitely agree with the above.
"..attempts to make mmos more single-player like. Duh. Instead of exploring the new medium, the devs were fixated on how to make mmos more like the old genre they're used to." -Pilnkplonk
The reality is the medium was explored. This was discovered:games sell better than worlds. (Which shouldn't have been a surprise, given that simulation-focused games have always sold far less than gameplay-focused ones.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It has nothing to do with "old school mentality" and everything to do with revenue models.
If you are basing your product on customer retention then you don't build it on something that is intrinsically inpermanent... such as story, for example.
If you want a nice game with a story to play through with your buddies, then go ahead by all means! Personally I really enjoyed Left 4 Dead series and some other co-op games... but thats it - a nice story to play through a couple of times and then move off - fair enough, everybody's happy.
The problem is when you build your game like a frnakenstein monster - story based game which counts on retention? Are you thick?! It's like trying to sell a subscription for a novel or cable channel that shows just one movie all the time!
If your game is counting on retention for its revenue then you should build it with that in mind. Imo, MMO devs thinking of juicy subs should look at social networks for inspiration - what is facebook but a sandbox that its users use to generate content for each other? The moment facebook begins to generate its own content and tries to push it at its users it will die a spectacular death.
MMOs to games are what Web 2.0 is to the old web... and the AAA dinosaurs still do not understand the potentialities of that.. Someone else is generating the content that WE capitalize on! Jeez, we just need to provide the users with a platform that enables them to do it! FFS, I thought some of them might have caught on by now...
The content developed by facebook users is not the same as that which would be used in a game. And further that content is all generated by the most complex procedurally and systematically programmed game in the world. The world.
People post about their real lives and make videos and poems and all sorts of shit based on real life. An MMO based on sci fi or high fantasy cannot produce that kind of content because it doesn't have the collective human experience of the last 100000 years to provide a starting point. Further facebooks cost per person using is quite low compared to MMOs.
Want simple examples of "player generated content"? Any PvP. Chat in your chat window. The guy helping you with a tough quest or a dungeon. Auction house...
The point is that too many people consider "sandobox" in too extreme and narrow fashion. The game does not have to be either 100% railroaded semi-interactive animated movie OR an empty plain with no content whatsoever.
An example: I consider GW2 to be more "sandboxy" than say, wow. And why? Because the world state is influenced by other players and when you come back to the game its state may be completely different than how you left it. Other players actions determine whether your world will be overrun by centaurs or are they pushed back to their original lairs. So, in GW2 the players DO generate content for other players.
There are degrees to "sandboxyness" and I agree that a game which is 100% sandbox wouldn't be much fun (unless you're into modding) but on the other hand, a 100% "themepark" game would be nothing more than a movie that happens to play on your PC screen (which seems to be BW's ideal, incidentally).
The point of all this is that mmos have moved away from sandboxyiness and have suffered for it. I don't know why is that.. The fear of "the evil ganker" ruining everybody elses fun? Well maybe the fear is somewhat warranted but it's alwas the devs who are ultimately to blame. If, through their ineptitude, they create a game where it is possible to abuse other players and even get rewarded for it, then they can't blame the players for this behavior. If you write down the rules for basketball but somehow forget to mention that it is not allowed for players to climb on top of each other to reach the basket, then it is your fault and not the players that they are all riding piggyback in order to win.
"Stop thinking the genre needs re-inventing because the fringes of a community say so." -nikoliath
"hey look another "omg sandbox will fix everything!" thread" -Enosh
Definitely agree with the above.
"..attempts to make mmos more single-player like. Duh. Instead of exploring the new medium, the devs were fixated on how to make mmos more like the old genre they're used to." -Pilnkplonk
The reality is the medium was explored. This was discovered:games sell better than worlds. (Which shouldn't have been a surprise, given that simulation-focused games have always sold far less than gameplay-focused ones.)
Oh rly? And besides we're not talking about "simulation" vs "gameplay". You're confusing the issue. The discussion is about player-generated vs scripted content. These are two completely different discussions. You can have a "gameplay-oriented" game which is heavily player-driven and a simulation which is completely scripted. And besides, I really have no idea what you mean by "simulation" and "gameplay" in this context.
Oh rly? And besides we're not talking about "simulation" vs "gameplay". You're confusing the issue. The discussion is about player-generated vs scripted content. These are two completely different discussions. You can have a "gameplay-oriented" game which is heavily player-driven and a simulation which is completely scripted. And besides, I really have no idea what you mean by "simulation" and "gameplay" in this context.
orly...is that what the discussion is about then? Give me you example of a decent "player driven game" that is worth playing? Just curious...
It has nothing to do with "old school mentality" and everything to do with revenue models.
If you are basing your product on customer retention then you don't build it on something that is intrinsically inpermanent... such as story, for example.
If you want a nice game with a story to play through with your buddies, then go ahead by all means! Personally I really enjoyed Left 4 Dead series and some other co-op games... but thats it - a nice story to play through a couple of times and then move off - fair enough, everybody's happy.
The problem is when you build your game like a frnakenstein monster - story based game which counts on retention? Are you thick?! It's like trying to sell a subscription for a novel or cable channel that shows just one movie all the time!
If your game is counting on retention for its revenue then you should build it with that in mind. Imo, MMO devs thinking of juicy subs should look at social networks for inspiration - what is facebook but a sandbox that its users use to generate content for each other? The moment facebook begins to generate its own content and tries to push it at its users it will die a spectacular death.
MMOs to games are what Web 2.0 is to the old web... and the AAA dinosaurs still do not understand the potentialities of that.. Someone else is generating the content that WE capitalize on! Jeez, we just need to provide the users with a platform that enables them to do it! FFS, I thought some of them might have caught on by now...
The content developed by facebook users is not the same as that which would be used in a game. And further that content is all generated by the most complex procedurally and systematically programmed game in the world. The world.
People post about their real lives and make videos and poems and all sorts of shit based on real life. An MMO based on sci fi or high fantasy cannot produce that kind of content because it doesn't have the collective human experience of the last 100000 years to provide a starting point. Further facebooks cost per person using is quite low compared to MMOs.
Want simple examples of "player generated content"? Any PvP. Chat in your chat window. The guy helping you with a tough quest or a dungeon. Auction house...
The point is that too many people consider "sandobox" in too extreme and narrow fashion. The game does not have to be either 100% railroaded semi-interactive animated movie OR an empty plain with no content whatsoever.
An example: I consider GW2 to be more "sandboxy" than say, wow. And why? Because the world state is influenced by other players and when you come back to the game its state may be completely different than how you left it. Other players actions determine whether your world will be overrun by centaurs or are they pushed back to their original lairs. So, in GW2 the players DO generate content for other players.
There are degrees to "sandboxyness" and I agree that a game which is 100% sandbox wouldn't be much fun (unless you're into modding) but on the other hand, a 100% "themepark" game would be nothing more than a movie that happens to play on your PC screen (which seems to be BW's ideal, incidentally).
The point of all this is that mmos have moved away from sandboxyiness and have suffered for it. I don't know why is that.. The fear of "the evil ganker" ruining everybody elses fun? Well maybe the fear is somewhat warranted but it's alwas the devs who are ultimately to blame. If, through their ineptitude, they create a game where it is possible to abuse other players and even get rewarded for it, then they can't blame the players for this behavior. If you write down the rules for basketball but somehow forget to mention that it is not allowed for players to climb on top of each other to reach the basket, then it is your fault and not the players that they are all riding piggyback in order to win.
Chat is not content and chat with strangers in a videogame will never produce the kinds of content facebook has. PvP can make changes, as long as its not an arena, but we were talking about facebook.
Well when we finally get a mmo that isn't easy and made for those people who only play 5 hours a week then perhaps players will not finish mmos as quickly as they are now. The mmo genre needs to stop catering to casuals.
Yeah, almost every other genre is for casuals. They need to GTFO.
Oh rly? And besides we're not talking about "simulation" vs "gameplay". You're confusing the issue. The discussion is about player-generated vs scripted content. These are two completely different discussions. You can have a "gameplay-oriented" game which is heavily player-driven and a simulation which is completely scripted. And besides, I really have no idea what you mean by "simulation" and "gameplay" in this context.
orly...is that what the discussion is about then? Give me you example of a decent "player driven game" that is worth playing? Just curious...
Lol, any online FPS or MOBA game for starters, if we're talking about mulitplayer only.
You see, the problem is that the easiest way to provide player-driven experience is through PvP. However, it doesn't have to be this way. This is the big hurdle facing mmos imo, how to enable players to provide this player-generated content for others while at the same time retaining quality? It's not an all-or nothing game, but too many devs just give up and churn out railroaded games hoping that no one will notice that really there is nothing in there but a shoddily made movie that you ocasionally have to press a button or two in order to "progress."
As I mentioned above, imo GW2 is on a good track there. It is carefully crafted and yet player-driven shared PvE content. That is definitely a step into what I'm talking about.
When I buy a car, its feature list is fixed for the most part. I can use to drive from place a to place b. It has some features which make the drive comfortable or more fruitful (radios, GPS, etc). But the core of the product remains the same: personal conveyance.
That analogy is a little shaky, since it makes oldschool MMORPGs sound like they have this supremely desirable core trait: personal conveyance.
Perhaps a more accurate analogy is:
Non-MMO Games are cars. They provide interactive entertainment with interesting decisions. Like conveyance, this is highly desired.
Early MMORPGs were bicycles. They were considerably worse at providing interactive entertainment, but were (somewhat) popular for other traits, much like bikes are.
Later MMORPGs are motorcycles. Similar to bikes, but much better at providing interactive entertainment (almost as good as cars.) Which of course makes them nearly as popular as cars.
Bike enthusiasts are sad because the motorcycle industry grew much larger in this analogy. But it was sort of inevitable because they just weren't providing what people wanted.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Oh rly? And besides we're not talking about "simulation" vs "gameplay". You're confusing the issue. The discussion is about player-generated vs scripted content. These are two completely different discussions. You can have a "gameplay-oriented" game which is heavily player-driven and a simulation which is completely scripted. And besides, I really have no idea what you mean by "simulation" and "gameplay" in this context.
orly...is that what the discussion is about then? Give me you example of a decent "player driven game" that is worth playing? Just curious...
Lol, any online FPS or MOBA game for starters, if we're talking about mulitplayer only.
You see, the problem is that the easiest way to provide player-driven experience is through PvP. However, it doesn't have to be this way. This is the big hurdle facing mmos imo, how to enable players to provide this player-generated content for others while at the same time retaining quality? It's not an all-or nothing game, but too many devs just give up and churn out railroaded games hoping that no one will notice that really there is nothing in there but a shoddily made movie that you ocasionally have to press a button or two in order to "progress."
As I mentioned above, imo GW2 is on a good track there. It is carefully crafted and yet player-driven shared PvE content. That is definitely a step into what I'm talking about.
Its not even about player-generated content, its about content inter-dependence.
Its about dynamic game design vs static game design.
Oh rly? And besides we're not talking about "simulation" vs "gameplay". You're confusing the issue. The discussion is about player-generated vs scripted content. These are two completely different discussions. You can have a "gameplay-oriented" game which is heavily player-driven and a simulation which is completely scripted. And besides, I really have no idea what you mean by "simulation" and "gameplay" in this context.
Well a conversation about the current state of MMORPGs isn't complete without pointing out that the success of modern MMORPGs has rested solely upon the fact that they've striven to be better games, at the cost of whatever nebulous alternative traits early MMORPGs had.
Clearly not every attempt to provide better gameplay was successful, but the more successful at delivering quality gameplay (no matter the cost to oldschool MMORPG elements) the more successful the MMORPG has been.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Oh rly? And besides we're not talking about "simulation" vs "gameplay". You're confusing the issue. The discussion is about player-generated vs scripted content. These are two completely different discussions. You can have a "gameplay-oriented" game which is heavily player-driven and a simulation which is completely scripted. And besides, I really have no idea what you mean by "simulation" and "gameplay" in this context.
Well a conversation about the current state of MMORPGs isn't complete without pointing out that the success of modern MMORPGs has rested solely upon the fact that they've striven to be better games, at the cost of whatever nebulous alternative traits early MMORPGs had.
Clearly not every attempt to provide better gameplay was successful, but the more successful at delivering quality gameplay (no matter the cost to oldschool MMORPG elements) the more successful the MMORPG has been.
Well I think of it this way. The current MMO games are like fast food restaurants. They are convienent, they seem to satisfy you for a time but aren't good for you. Human beings enjoy convience, it means they don't have to think or put forth alot of effort. For instance McDonalds or the likes might be a popular fast food establishment, it doesn't mean the food is good or its good for you. IMHO the less immersive a game is the less their quality is no matter how many subscriptions they manage to obtain.
The whole point of MMO's is they are time sinks, the complaints about old MMORPG elements or activities being "grinds" doesn't take into account that a grind within a timesink is still a timesink. The more these games focus on single player aspects and reduce the need for player interaction (through ease of play or automated methods) the less reason there is to play it. Sure the carrot on the stick approach to rewarding everyone seems to work but that reward doesn't transcend the boundries of the game. The phrase "You can't take it with you" really applies with an MMO. The more you socialize in an MMO the more rewarding the playing experience will be and the more fondly you will look upon that game. Friendships and memories forged in the game can last alot longer than any ingame item or reward.
Comments
I think you are missing the point...
As are AAA devs who are completely unable to create a truly succesful mmo for the past 8 years or so, no matter how much money they shovel into that same old EQ furnace.
And your argument against "reality" is totally misguided. Obviously "no one wants to play games for reality" which is why games striving for reality such as GTA series, CoD, MoH etc etc are such terrible flops no one in their right mind would want to play. Lol. And sandboxes and player-created content? Jeez, can you say Minecraft, GTA and Skyrim? Get off your high horse railroad-boy and show me one post-WoW mmo that demonstrates how railroaded "story-based" themepark model is a financially succesful one, lol and double lol.
RIFT is a financially successful game. Sure, it doesn't even have 1/10 the playerbase of Warcraft, but it does make money for the developer, and Trion is a very respectable one.
Just because we are playing it for 5 years straight doesn't mean it's not sucessful. This is also an old school mentality that needs to go away
People just don't have time for that...and these games are made that way. I played Aion and Rift for about 3 months and truly enjoyed the time I played in them. When I was done, I simply moved on with no hard feelings.
Yeah, but considering the investment-return and the risk involved it's not stellar by any means. If I were an investor, a mmorg would be the last product I'd want to invest in.
I bet EA/BW's suits are banging their heads against the wall for sinking all that money into SW:TOR while they could have made off like bandits with KOTORs 3, 4 and 5...
Because i already own one.
WoW only saw financial success because it had a huge following of the Warcraft RTS games. If not for that IP it would have tanked.
"I am not in a server with Gankers...THEY ARE IN A SERVER WITH ME!!!"
Yep I agree.
The mmorpg genre has evolved to a cross between Hello Kitty backpacks and McDonald's supersizing.
Sucks. And yes, it needs to be reinvented - but I would start with titles like Dark Age of Camelot and EQ before I would look at anything else.
Most kids these days don't even know what housing is, or that a game can have more than 5 races or that you don't have to copy paste races and classes to each faction, or that you can have more than 2 factions. They are the market, they don't know what's possible, so GW2 and SW:ToR will be the genre - plain and simple.
Sadly.
It must re-invent "itself" ? MMO genre is no independent organism. But for some reason... the longer I stay away from MMOs, the better the next MMO gets.
Maybe we all just have overdone things. I'm pretty sure. You get a whole new look on things if you step away for a few weeks/months.
AMG naw computers fa so long!? - yes.
I think you are missing the point...
As are AAA devs who are completely unable to create a truly succesful mmo for the past 8 years or so, no matter how much money they shovel into that same old EQ furnace.
And your argument against "reality" is totally misguided. Obviously "no one wants to play games for reality" which is why games striving for reality such as GTA series, CoD, MoH etc etc are such terrible flops no one in their right mind would want to play. Lol. And sandboxes and player-created content? Jeez, can you say Minecraft, GTA and Skyrim? Get off your high horse railroad-boy and show me one post-WoW mmo that demonstrates how railroaded "story-based" themepark model is a financially succesful one, lol and double lol.
Successful is a very subjective concept, especially considering that quite a number of AAA MMO's of the past 8 years have made more money and had more subs than MMO's before 2004 even when the competition is 10 times more than it was before 2004.
As for what people like or not, what posters here at first should realise is that there isn't just 1 taste or 1 preference that 'the people' have, what 1 person likes, another one dislikes or is indifferent about and so on.
What Myria wrote is right, what people first and foremost want when they play games, MMORPG's included, is simply to have fun and enjoy themselves. But what's fun to one person, isn't the same for the next person, the requirements for fun and enjoyment differ from one person to the next.
The fact that millions of people managed to enjoy themselves in themepark environments for so many years, should tell observers that clearly and apparently that kind of gameplay was fun to those people, even if to others that kind of gameplay didn't appeal to their requirements for having fun.
For any GTA, Minecraft or Skyrim, you have a MW3, D3, ME2, Heavy Rain, Uncharted 2, Deus Ex 3 or other sortlike games that also are hugely liked and played by gamers who like that sort of gameplay too. There is no simple black & white, even if some people prefer to see the world like that, people like different things, some enjoy themepark/game style design and others like sandbox/world style of design and again others like both or something entirely different.It has nothing to do with "old school mentality" and everything to do with revenue models.
If you are basing your product on customer retention then you don't build it on something that is intrinsically inpermanent... such as story, for example.
If you want a nice game with a story to play through with your buddies, then go ahead by all means! Personally I really enjoyed Left 4 Dead series and some other co-op games... but thats it - a nice story to play through a couple of times and then move off - fair enough, everybody's happy.
The problem is when you build your game like a frnakenstein monster - story based game which counts on retention? Are you thick?! It's like trying to sell a subscription for a novel or cable channel that shows just one movie all the time!
If your game is counting on retention for its revenue then you should build it with that in mind. Imo, MMO devs thinking of juicy subs should look at social networks for inspiration - what is facebook but a sandbox that its users use to generate content for each other? The moment facebook begins to generate its own content and tries to push it at its users it will die a spectacular death.
MMOs to games are what Web 2.0 is to the old web... and the AAA dinosaurs still do not understand the potentialities of that.. Someone else is generating the content that WE capitalize on! Jeez, we just need to provide the users with a platform that enables them to do it! FFS, I thought some of them might have caught on by now...
Yeah, but considering the investment-return and the risk involved it's not stellar by any means. If I were an investor, a mmorg would be the last product I'd want to invest in.
I bet EA/BW's suits are banging their heads against the wall for sinking all that money into SW:TOR while they could have made off like bandits with KOTORs 3, 4 and 5...
A fairly successful MMO can already make more money after its launch than could be made with a singleplayer game, 3 months of subbing already equals 1 game sold, that means that people who subbed for 6-12 months have generated revenues equal to as if that person had bought KOTOR 3-6.The content developed by facebook users is not the same as that which would be used in a game. And further that content is all generated by the most complex procedurally and systematically programmed game in the world. The world.
People post about their real lives and make videos and poems and all sorts of shit based on real life. An MMO based on sci fi or high fantasy cannot produce that kind of content because it doesn't have the collective human experience of the last 100000 years to provide a starting point. Further facebooks cost per person using is quite low compared to MMOs.
Here is a post that cearly shows the players are part of the problem:
http://forums.riftgame.com/rift-general-discussions/general-discussion/295380-tired-lfg-dungeons-geting-40-50-low-level.html
In Rift you can queue for low level dungeons at max levels. The OP is annoyed when this happens because it makes iit completely trivial. And most people seem to see no problem with it because it gets it done faster.
^This
MMOs are in the trouble they are BECAUSE they all want to reinvent the wheel.
"Stop thinking the genre needs re-inventing because the fringes of a community say so." -nikoliath
"hey look another "omg sandbox will fix everything!" thread" -Enosh
Definitely agree with the above.
"..attempts to make mmos more single-player like. Duh. Instead of exploring the new medium, the devs were fixated on how to make mmos more like the old genre they're used to." -Pilnkplonk
The reality is the medium was explored. This was discovered: games sell better than worlds. (Which shouldn't have been a surprise, given that simulation-focused games have always sold far less than gameplay-focused ones.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Want simple examples of "player generated content"? Any PvP. Chat in your chat window. The guy helping you with a tough quest or a dungeon. Auction house...
The point is that too many people consider "sandobox" in too extreme and narrow fashion. The game does not have to be either 100% railroaded semi-interactive animated movie OR an empty plain with no content whatsoever.
An example: I consider GW2 to be more "sandboxy" than say, wow. And why? Because the world state is influenced by other players and when you come back to the game its state may be completely different than how you left it. Other players actions determine whether your world will be overrun by centaurs or are they pushed back to their original lairs. So, in GW2 the players DO generate content for other players.
There are degrees to "sandboxyness" and I agree that a game which is 100% sandbox wouldn't be much fun (unless you're into modding) but on the other hand, a 100% "themepark" game would be nothing more than a movie that happens to play on your PC screen (which seems to be BW's ideal, incidentally).
The point of all this is that mmos have moved away from sandboxyiness and have suffered for it. I don't know why is that.. The fear of "the evil ganker" ruining everybody elses fun? Well maybe the fear is somewhat warranted but it's alwas the devs who are ultimately to blame. If, through their ineptitude, they create a game where it is possible to abuse other players and even get rewarded for it, then they can't blame the players for this behavior. If you write down the rules for basketball but somehow forget to mention that it is not allowed for players to climb on top of each other to reach the basket, then it is your fault and not the players that they are all riding piggyback in order to win.
Oh rly? And besides we're not talking about "simulation" vs "gameplay". You're confusing the issue. The discussion is about player-generated vs scripted content. These are two completely different discussions. You can have a "gameplay-oriented" game which is heavily player-driven and a simulation which is completely scripted. And besides, I really have no idea what you mean by "simulation" and "gameplay" in this context.
orly...is that what the discussion is about then? Give me you example of a decent "player driven game" that is worth playing? Just curious...
Chat is not content and chat with strangers in a videogame will never produce the kinds of content facebook has. PvP can make changes, as long as its not an arena, but we were talking about facebook.
Yeah, almost every other genre is for casuals. They need to GTFO.
Lol, any online FPS or MOBA game for starters, if we're talking about mulitplayer only.
You see, the problem is that the easiest way to provide player-driven experience is through PvP. However, it doesn't have to be this way. This is the big hurdle facing mmos imo, how to enable players to provide this player-generated content for others while at the same time retaining quality? It's not an all-or nothing game, but too many devs just give up and churn out railroaded games hoping that no one will notice that really there is nothing in there but a shoddily made movie that you ocasionally have to press a button or two in order to "progress."
As I mentioned above, imo GW2 is on a good track there. It is carefully crafted and yet player-driven shared PvE content. That is definitely a step into what I'm talking about.
That analogy is a little shaky, since it makes oldschool MMORPGs sound like they have this supremely desirable core trait: personal conveyance.
Perhaps a more accurate analogy is:
Non-MMO Games are cars. They provide interactive entertainment with interesting decisions. Like conveyance, this is highly desired.
Early MMORPGs were bicycles. They were considerably worse at providing interactive entertainment, but were (somewhat) popular for other traits, much like bikes are.
Later MMORPGs are motorcycles. Similar to bikes, but much better at providing interactive entertainment (almost as good as cars.) Which of course makes them nearly as popular as cars.
Bike enthusiasts are sad because the motorcycle industry grew much larger in this analogy. But it was sort of inevitable because they just weren't providing what people wanted.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Its not even about player-generated content, its about content inter-dependence.
Its about dynamic game design vs static game design.
player-DRIVEN vs developer-DRIVEN
(not generated)
Well a conversation about the current state of MMORPGs isn't complete without pointing out that the success of modern MMORPGs has rested solely upon the fact that they've striven to be better games, at the cost of whatever nebulous alternative traits early MMORPGs had.
Clearly not every attempt to provide better gameplay was successful, but the more successful at delivering quality gameplay (no matter the cost to oldschool MMORPG elements) the more successful the MMORPG has been.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well I think of it this way. The current MMO games are like fast food restaurants. They are convienent, they seem to satisfy you for a time but aren't good for you. Human beings enjoy convience, it means they don't have to think or put forth alot of effort. For instance McDonalds or the likes might be a popular fast food establishment, it doesn't mean the food is good or its good for you. IMHO the less immersive a game is the less their quality is no matter how many subscriptions they manage to obtain.
The whole point of MMO's is they are time sinks, the complaints about old MMORPG elements or activities being "grinds" doesn't take into account that a grind within a timesink is still a timesink. The more these games focus on single player aspects and reduce the need for player interaction (through ease of play or automated methods) the less reason there is to play it. Sure the carrot on the stick approach to rewarding everyone seems to work but that reward doesn't transcend the boundries of the game. The phrase "You can't take it with you" really applies with an MMO. The more you socialize in an MMO the more rewarding the playing experience will be and the more fondly you will look upon that game. Friendships and memories forged in the game can last alot longer than any ingame item or reward.