Originally posted by Aerowyn 2012 was the best year for MMOs since 2004 IMHO,, had several MMOs with plenty of new ideas for the genre.. i feel 2013 with a slew of promising games coming will build on what we saw in 2012.. I feel 2013 will be the best year for MMOs ever:)
Care to elaborate on the games that had all these great new ideas and actually delivered a game that can hold gamers for longer than a month? A game that is not played to max level within a few days and then does not have any meaningful end game content? A game that delivered what they promised and fixed bugs reported in tehse great BETAs instead of releasing too early again and not fixing bugs even months after release?
been playing gw2 for over 6 months now and don't see myself stopping anytime so.. game has a slew of new/streamlined ideas for the genre, TSW has some great new ideas as well and you have TERA that brought good action combat as well.. just because you didn't find interest in any of those doesn't mean the year was a failure.. Think its a good lead in to the slew of games coming in 2013
TSW and TERA went free to play because they are boring quest grinding games with no substance. If they are so great and unique, why is no one playing them anymore?
Sure, TERA does have the best action combat hands down. Thats it though.
Sure, TSW had those investigations but they only sound good on paper and are in fact nothing but a series of classic JP RPG quests where you get little to no hints.
Thats a top reason why i love TSW so much, doesnt hold your hand through the quests.I find the difficulty refreshing and it actually motivates me to play the game further as it works the gears in my head.
I dont feel like some lobotomized,drooling, mouth breather just sitting there to push keys 1-10.
Does it have that sort of content? sure,but those nuggets of goodness called investigative quests break up the monotony greatly.
Ill be honest. This site has a massive herd factor to it. Notice the many people who support the OP's idea but love to insert the political party...oh wait mmorpg...that they are currently supporting as being the exception.
Look i believe that most of the games, even the herd-hated games are decent.
I support this idea that the OP is floating for one reason. There need to be new mechanics, new ideas...the genere needs to grow up and out of the same old meshing of two first gen mmorpgs.
It needs to end. Whats happening now is a melding of other successful generes, like FPS, into mmorpg, often subtracting the RPG aspecs as much as possible..to appeal to a more mainstream and more herd like community than already exists.
GW2 didnt do anything new other than delete a role. public quests, i mean rifts, i mean alien invasion from anarchy online, i mean dynamic events have been around for ages. Removing progression and grind isnt new either. Age of Wushu is polished because its an old chinese game, still follow the old and tired quest hub and factional conflic mechanics. POE is just riding off the D3 fiasco and isnt a mmorpg but an arpg. Defiance is a PL2 type game thats a persistant FPS possibly with pve in it however.
The one thing they have in common is they want you to now pay before the game is done testing. They should be paying you with game time for testing not the other way around. We dont need more games with the permanant opend beta excuse. Its an excuse for medicore mechanics you know the line "its in BETA you idiot" ect.
As soon as people stop feeding the hampsterwheel is the second that one of two things will happen. Large bidget studios will start making the games people want, or small studios will gain ground. Remember the large budge mega conglomerate mmorpg studios all were indy studios at some point.
As long as these guys know that the same tired mechanics will get them $50 long before the game is ready, there is little motive ot actually innovate, to actually make a groundbreaking game, and to actually make a game thats moderatley finished come launch.
Only problem is you need to be cautious on which indy studios you support, a lot pop up with big ideas and open palms asking for funding and never have legit intentions of finishing the game (unless they are avalanched with money and can buy a development team which never happens)
This is the paradox, deal with better made mmorpgs that suck, or support an indy company with a big idea and deal with a horribly made game that may never leave a true alpha state ever (think Mortal Online or Xyson)...either way the choices are grim imo.
We can sit back and just enjoy the waterd down crap that lasts a month or two however...and keep the hamster wheel spinning i guess.
I actually think that the last few years have been great for mmos. This year is even more promising than the last. Devs are finally getting it that they can't do the same ol same ol and it's showing. I loved my first weekend in Neverwinter.. it really felt like DnD to me. Aion and TERA went free... TSW is buy to play... GW2 is wildly popular and single handedly shook the industry for better or worse. (love it or hate it devs now how to acknowlege a game of that quality is now out for no sub fee) TESO looks interesting as well. We have Archeage on the way and at least three more known sandoxes coming in the next few years. FFXIV will be coming to consoles and PCs soon... not to mention the very interesting WildStar and B&S. I'm not even mentioning some the older titles getting updates... Pretty good I'd say and far too soon to start being all doom and gloom
The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
I know, we are all desperate for a really good MMORPG but if we continue to support these crappy games we will never get the industry change.
Stop buying into these payed BETAS of games promising things they can not deliver.
Most games let you access beta at some point without buying, hard to predict what will and will not be delivered, not to mention "not delivered" is ussually used as "I dont like"
Stop making excuses for games with phrases like "A MMORPG is never finished", "They will fix it after release" or "They said they will add [insert promised feature here] after release". When has anything of this ever happened?
Missing features are added to the game nearly always, but a feature being IN the game doesnt mean its in the shape and form an indifidual wants or expects, doesnt automaticly mean its implimented poorly though.
Stop believing reviews from gaming sites including this one. They live from advertisements and the will not bite the hand that feeds them. Simple fact.
Never blindly believe anything, even gamers lie about the state or quality of a game for what ever agenda they may have, such as feeling product X threatens the success of their current favorid game.
Don't support want to be MMORPGs like Path of Exile or Defiance. These are not MMORPGs.
Wether they are or arent is irelivant, if I deside to like a game I shouldnt support it JUST because YOU disagree on the genre listing?
Only you can stop this by not supporting the games until they deliver what they promise. Yes, of cause, this genre of games do improve and get better over time but why throw money at them NOW when you have no way to tell if any of the features ever going to be delivered.
The problem with this is.. what IS actually being promised? Quite often when developers are talking about their ideas and plans people mistake that as a promise, or worse rumours spreading to a point people mistake them as promise
Why not wait until all the promised features are delivered and then buy it? I know, its crazy how much sense this makes but for some reason we are idiots (i include myself) that throw money at half assed games in the hope "They will fix it after release" because "an MMORPG is never finished" and "They said they will add [insert feature X here]".
THIS HAS TO STOP NOW!
You are right, common sense is always the smart thing to do but... Again.. what IS being promised? Its quite uncommon for actually listed features to be missing in game, THAT list is the only truely relevant promise as its actually advertised that way, developer blogs discussing their plans are not promisses.
This year will be no different than the last 10. The only thing that is changing right now is that every one of them tries to get as much money as they can before the game is actually released. A new trend that is influenced by the Kickstarter crowdfunding movement. I call it "Crowdmilking".
Bought BETA and features. Preorder to get BETA, Headstart, in game items like mounts, useless swag like badges, T-shirts or other crap.
Combine #1 bought BETAS with an NDA to maximize Profit before people can realize how shitty a game is going to be.
All the new games are designed with Microtransaction shops and F2P in mind because developers know they have a sub standard product and that we will reject it like we did the past 10 years.
They are starting Crowdfunding for Patches/Updates/Content. This is a very new trend that will ask for donations to make updates to the game or add content. Based on Kickstarter there are funding goals to be met for different features.
Maximize initial box sales no matter what. Lie, deceive or outright make shit up to get people to pay box price. This practice has been seen with a game released last holiday season. AOC started it, probably had only 30% of the features they promised at start and the BETA was nothing like the rest of the game. AOC was the ultimate bait and switch scam.
The Revolution has to start now, this year, or we will be stuck with more and more of the same money grabs and boring themeparks for decades to come.
1. You can get into nearly beta's without buying, Early access and some bonus items have been around for 10 years,nor are they really the things that get people to actually buy the game, with or without pre-orders these players would have bought the game the moment it would have been availeble anyway.
2. Your bought beta is a moot point as it is, since you 1) nearly always there is a free beta you can enter, 2) nda or not you can always find footage and oppinions anyway and 3) beta's arent playeble demo's . Considering the costs of making a game, they wouldnt even have started developing it if they didnt have faith in their product. And.. whats shitty to some is fun to others, same as everything in life, everyone has their own taste.
3. Having a fallback plan is smart, and microtransactions have been around for quite some time and ironic enough.. its an idea submitted by players people have always expressed willingness to pay for fluff, in nearly every industry, the car industry for instance.
4. Not even worth commenting on.
5. Another bs statement. Since you are picking aoc, aoc had nearly every feature added to the game that where actually promised, and the game was definately precisely as in beta , the crafting system was poorly implimented but was there, some trades (gems) where added fast after release, granted it wasnt done properly. During beta the lock-in-place combo system was already removed for being able to move and fight. They didnt revamp the system till long after release. You would have done better to use WoW as excample here, the hunter class in beta was NOT the one that was added in the game at release (technically speaking 3 days before release)
Originally posted by Aerowyn 2012 was the best year for MMOs since 2004 IMHO,, had several MMOs with plenty of new ideas for the genre.. i feel 2013 with a slew of promising games coming will build on what we saw in 2012.. I feel 2013 will be the best year for MMOs ever:)
This^^^ Possible releases of The Repopulation, Final Fantasy 14, Archage, and a couple of others.. For the first time ever I'm excited about to many MMOs!
"You are all going to poop yourselves." BillMurphy
"Laugh and the world laughs with you. Weep and you weep alone."
I know, we are all desperate for a really good MMORPG but if we continue to support these crappy games we will never get the industry change.
Stop buying into these payed BETAS of games promising things they can not deliver.
Stop making excuses for games with phrases like "A MMORPG is never finished", "They will fix it after release" or "They said they will add [insert promised feature here] after release". When has anything of this ever happened?
Stop believing reviews from gaming sites including this one. They live from advertisements and the will not bite the hand that feeds them. Simple fact.
Don't support want to be MMORPGs like Path of Exile or Defiance. These are not MMORPGs.
Only you can stop this by not supporting the games until they deliver what they promise. Yes, of cause, this genre of games do improve and get better over time but why throw money at them NOW when you have no way to tell if any of the features ever going to be delivered.
Why not wait until all the promised features are delivered and then buy it? I know, its crazy how much sense this makes but for some reason we are idiots (i include myself) that throw money at half assed games in the hope "They will fix it after release" because "an MMORPG is never finished" and "They said they will add [insert feature X here]".
This year will be no different than the last 10. The only thing that is changing right now is that every one of them tries to get as much money as they can before the game is actually released. A new trend that is influenced by the Kickstarter crowdfunding movement. I call it "Crowdmilking".
Bought BETA and features. Preorder to get BETA, Headstart, in game items like mounts, useless swag like badges, T-shirts or other crap.
Combine #1 bought BETAS with an NDA to maximize Profit before people can realize how shitty a game is going to be.
All the new games are designed with Microtransaction shops and F2P in mind because developers know they have a sub standard product and that we will reject it like we did the past 10 years.
They are starting Crowdfunding for Patches/Updates/Content. This is a very new trend that will ask for donations to make updates to the game or add content. Based on Kickstarter there are funding goals to be met for different features.
Maximize initial box sales no matter what. Lie, deceive or outright make shit up to get people to pay box price. This practice has been seen with a game released last holiday season. AOC started it, probably had only 30% of the features they promised at start and the BETA was nothing like the rest of the game. AOC was the ultimate bait and switch scam.
Originally posted by Nhoj1983 I actually think that the last few years have been great for mmos. This year is even more promising than the last. Devs are finally getting it that they can't do the same ol same ol and it's showing. I loved my first weekend in Neverwinter.. it really felt like DnD to me. Aion and TERA went free... TSW is buy to play... GW2 is wildly popular and single handedly shook the industry for better or worse. (love it or hate it devs now how to acknowlege a game of that quality is now out for no sub fee) TESO looks interesting as well. We have Archeage on the way and at least three more known sandoxes coming in the next few years. FFXIV will be coming to consoles and PCs soon... not to mention the very interesting WildStar and B&S. I'm not even mentioning some the older titles getting updates... Pretty good I'd say and far too soon to start being all doom and gloom
Oh, every year has been like that, some more than others. The thing that is changing and that worries me is the practice i call "crowdmilking". Extracting as much money as possible from the customers before the product is finished. I listed all the things that are going on and all the games you mentioned have done this. Then in the end they did not deliver what they promised and we went back to the same old excuses we had for a decade now.
I am nto saying these games are bad, i am just saying we are still making excuses for them and you can not honestly tell me that any of the games you listed really delivered what they promised. GW2 still has a backlog of hundreds of class specific bugs from a PAYED BETA that players REPORTED MONTHS AHEAD OF RELEASE. Ant they ignored them.
I for one am sick and tired of these practices and i won't make any more excuses. I will not buy any new game until i know its feature complete and delivers what they promised. I will not pay for BETA.
"Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"
I definitely agree with the OP. MMO as a genre hasn't grown at all in the last several years. It really feels stagnant and pretty much like the same games with new graphics and one or two shiny new gimmicks to set it apart from the others. My least favorite gimmick would have to be the recent trend to try to remove the "trinity" from their game.
Why not remove grinding from the game? Pointless time sinks that aren't any fun are the fotm, how did this happen? Grinding badges, tokens, faction points, pvp points, the same exact quests over and over. Why hasn't a developer tried to make a game that is actually fun as a way to keep people playing, instead of putting in hours and hours of grinding(I like how they call it "content")? The worst part about the quest grind it has become more of a run from here to there, then over to another place and back again kind of grind. At least the grind of old games like EQ was combat focused.
Another good point that was made is highly anticipated features that are promised early in development are dropped due to time restraints. The online cash shop is usually ready to go by launch and filled with plenty of things to buy though. Some of these games have the nerve to announce their expansion the same month the game was released.... unfinished!
I too am pretty displeased with every MMO that I have played in the last few years. AoC, Swtor, Rift, GW2, TSW, CO, I had pretty high hopes for all of these games and every time I felt the bitter sting of disappointment after only 3-4 weeks of playing them. Got hope for Archeage, after that I give up on MMOs
Originally posted by Nhoj1983 I actually think that the last few years have been great for mmos. This year is even more promising than the last. Devs are finally getting it that they can't do the same ol same ol and it's showing. I loved my first weekend in Neverwinter.. it really felt like DnD to me. Aion and TERA went free... TSW is buy to play... GW2 is wildly popular and single handedly shook the industry for better or worse. (love it or hate it devs now how to acknowlege a game of that quality is now out for no sub fee) TESO looks interesting as well. We have Archeage on the way and at least three more known sandoxes coming in the next few years. FFXIV will be coming to consoles and PCs soon... not to mention the very interesting WildStar and B&S. I'm not even mentioning some the older titles getting updates... Pretty good I'd say and far too soon to start being all doom and gloom
I am happy for you that you feel so up beat. As I have said there is a market for the products you have listed.
However as one of the "doom and gloom" merchants I should point out that everyone of the games you advance as demonstrating how good things are made my list of things I was disppointed with. As for the F2P, B2P subscription model, I am happy to hand over cash to play a game I like so the pricing model is not something, that of itself, forms part of my decision to play any game .
Just so you know where I am coming from here is a list of the things I do not want to see in an MMORPG.
A console port
compulsary PvP, FFA or by making the rewards earned necessary for PvE
"action" combat systems
peculiar mechanics that rely on third person view and 'telegraphing" systems for players to beat them
mini games where you step out of character to do something else
jumping puzzles or other "platform scroller" or "console gamer" features
my guess is that you would see most of these, if not all of them as positives, not the red flag negatives I see them to be.
I would say that if anyone is unhappy with the recent round of games released by big game companies, it would probably behoove you to fund promising projects through kickstarter or other means. Nothing against the video game corporations, per se, but it is their duty to maximize their profits for their shareholders. Unfortunately, that goal doesn't necessarily mean making a game as fun as possible, or being craetive, (often it means being risk averse). These days it seems game design decisions are often made by some bean counter with his MBA, rather than passionate game designers. More effort goes into the revenue generation aspects than any other features.
Right now it's completely possible for someone with game design experience to create a near AAA product via crowd funding, I'm hoping some of those projects end up changing the MMO landscape. Nothing wrong with a little competition.
Also, I don't understand why the OP lumped Age of Conan in with the anti crowd funding argument. AoC was a typical big budget/ big company game, no crowd funding involved at all. Things like cash shops, pre-order perks, pay for beta, NDA's and pre-release press bans aren't in anyway unique to crowd funded games either. Many AAA titles have those things too. You seem slightly lost; you don't like the AAA games that have been released, apparently, but then you vehemently attack crowd funding projects. Who would you like to make your games then? Because right now it's pretty much either Joe Shmoe CEO and his WoW clone or other shallow garbage game, or it's a project that needs alternative sources of funding. Nowhere in your post do you mention a game/company/dev you support.
Finally, Path of Exile isn't really trying to be a MMO, it's on this site the same way ARPG's like Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 are listed on this site. I don't play it, but I'm not sure why someone shouldn't support it if they enjoy playing it.
Now if the paid beta is like AoW. More polished and more content than 3 of last years games put together, for $9... I'm crossing the line and buying in...
Let's talk about NDA too. NDA means your game is bad plain and simple.
NDA there not for that reason it means it still need polish and could hurt the game if people thought this was a completed version of the game. Most games that arnt AAA company have a NDA for beta atleast early part of beta and thats because they cant afford or dont have the amount of people in there compoany to test the game well during early part of testing so they need 2 have other players test it for them. They have a NDA so videos dont go out of early phase testing and people think that its near release there lots of people out there who sees a beta/alpha video and decide they dont wanna play it cause its too buggy or what not.
Why do the ppl voting yes even play mmos ? talk about uncontrolled addiction. If I felt that way about anything I did for fun...I'd stop doing it and go find something.
I play these games because they're fun. When they'r enot I'll stop. I'm never going to join some mass protest or sit in....it makes me laugh just thinking about it.
Originally posted by Aerowyn 2012 was the best year for MMOs since 2004 IMHO,, had several MMOs with plenty of new ideas for the genre.. i feel 2013 with a slew of promising games coming will build on what we saw in 2012.. I feel 2013 will be the best year for MMOs ever:)
I have to agree with you here, 2012 was the year that dev decided to do somthing new from the last 7 years some where good ideas other not so much, however from these companies trying new idea's it started to turn the gears of evolution for the genre, the genre been stuck for 7 years until 2012 and only now it starting to move forward again i think we will see alot more to come this year and next. GW2 was a large part of this movment a large company trying somthing new and was quite succesful and with that other AAA dev have noticed people quite alot of people want some change from what they been doing.
I agree with the topic creator. These companies are starting to give these games away for free. Take advantage of it and enjoy it. Stop giving them money from impulse purchases. They know there are people out there that can't control themselves. Don't fall for it!!!!
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
EQnext may be interesting, it may be here by the end of the year. Or not. I have been starting to hear that it will have a strong PvP focus. If so that to will be a game I will not download.
It still seems strange to me that in a genre called MMORPG that there are currently no games that encourage first person role playing. The last of these seems to have been the first of these, Everquest.
I garantee you there will be PvE only servers aswell as PvP ones.
Originally posted by Briansho I agree with the topic creator. These companies are starting to give these games away for free. Take advantage of it and enjoy it. Stop giving them money from impulse purchases. They know there are people out there that can't control themselves. Don't fall for it!!!!
But at the same time you have Square Enix that took a loss from FFXIV, kept the servers up for free while they rebuilt the whole game (engine, servers, mechanics, content, all of it) that they will now offer to people who paid for the original FFXIV:ARR free in the hopes that they will subscribe when their trial is up.
In my opinion FFXIV:ARR may just be the savior of the subscription MMO as a genre, one that has been pecked away at as one by one nearly all other major AAA MMO's have fallen to F2P except WoW.
If subscription MMO's are going to last we need a sucess story like FFXIV. For that reason all fans of AAA MMO's should be rooting for the game to suceed whether you personally want to play it or not, otherwise we are headed for a flood of cheap f2p and b2p cash ins.
I would say that if anyone is unhappy with the recent round of games released by big game companies, it would probably behoove you to fund promising projects through kickstarter or other means. Nothing against the video game corporations, per se, but it is their duty to maximize their profits for their shareholders. Unfortunately, that goal doesn't necessarily mean making a game as fun as possible, or being craetive, (often it means being risk averse). These days it seems game design decisions are often made by some bean counter with his MBA, rather than passionate game designers. More effort goes into the revenue generation aspects than any other features.
Right now it's completely possible for someone with game design experience to create a near AAA product via crowd funding, I'm hoping some of those projects end up changing the MMO landscape. Nothing wrong with a little competition.
You make a valid sounding point about kickstarter funding. I have just scanned the current list of projects on kickstarter, I found no game project there that would meet my criteria. I am not a game developer, nor at my age do I have a desire to become one.
It's kind of hard to deliver the perfect MMO to those people that don't even know what they want
from an MMO.They want it to be sandbox but at the same time themeparkish.
They want openworld pvp but without full loot.
You can't give everyone exactly what they dream about.
The problem is that games try to cater to all of the players instead of creating diversity in the market and split the obviously huge amount of willing customers. All They do is delivering half assed games that are not good at anything.
Diversity! Make unique and diverse games not try to mash everything together.
Originally posted by endgame1
I would say that if anyone is unhappy with the recent round of games released by big game companies, it would probably behoove you to fund promising projects through kickstarter or other means. Nothing against the video game corporations, per se, but it is their duty to maximize their profits for their shareholders. Unfortunately, that goal doesn't necessarily mean making a game as fun as possible, or being craetive, (often it means being risk averse). These days it seems game design decisions are often made by some bean counter with his MBA, rather than passionate game designers. More effort goes into the revenue generation aspects than any other features.
Right now it's completely possible for someone with game design experience to create a near AAA product via crowd funding, I'm hoping some of those projects end up changing the MMO landscape. Nothing wrong with a little competition.
Also, I don't understand why the OP lumped Age of Conan in with the anti crowd funding argument. AoC was a typical big budget/ big company game, no crowd funding involved at all. Things like cash shops, pre-order perks, pay for beta, NDA's and pre-release press bans aren't in anyway unique to crowd funded games either. Many AAA titles have those things too. You seem slightly lost; you don't like the AAA games that have been released, apparently, but then you vehemently attack crowd funding projects. Who would you like to make your games then? Because right now it's pretty much either Joe Shmoe CEO and his WoW clone or other shallow garbage game, or it's a project that needs alternative sources of funding. Nowhere in your post do you mention a game/company/dev you support.
Age of Conan was a good example of a game that did not deliver what was promised and intentionally mislead the public with a beta that had nothing to do with the rest of the game.
The same is true for recently released games, just now they try to extract as much money from the gamers as possible before the release. It's all about pre-order, payed BETA and Full price box products now. What they deliver in the end is not what they been preaching during the hype.
We should not encourage this behaviour is all i am saying.
Finally, Path of Exile isn't really trying to be a MMO, it's on this site the same way ARPG's like Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 are listed on this site. I don't play it, but I'm not sure why someone shouldn't support it if they enjoy playing it.
They can support it if they like it, but it's not an MMO and the MMO crowd should not support it. Some are being mislead into believing these are MMOs, when in reality they are not.
Nothing wrong with supporting them if you like them, the post was about MMO's not ARPG's.
Originally posted by DamonVile
Why do the ppl voting yes even play mmos ? talk about uncontrolled addiction. If I felt that way about anything I did for fun...I'd stop doing it and go find something.
I play these games because they're fun. When they'r enot I'll stop. I'm never going to join some mass protest or sit in....it makes me laugh just thinking about it.
You are funny, there is no mass protest. This post is trying to make people think about what is going on and then make a decision if they want to support companies that behave like that. You can do whatever you want with your money and time my friend.
"Give players systems and tools instead of rails and rules"
Comments
Thats a top reason why i love TSW so much, doesnt hold your hand through the quests.I find the difficulty refreshing and it actually motivates me to play the game further as it works the gears in my head.
I dont feel like some lobotomized,drooling, mouth breather just sitting there to push keys 1-10.
Does it have that sort of content? sure,but those nuggets of goodness called investigative quests break up the monotony greatly.
Ill be honest. This site has a massive herd factor to it. Notice the many people who support the OP's idea but love to insert the political party...oh wait mmorpg...that they are currently supporting as being the exception.
Look i believe that most of the games, even the herd-hated games are decent.
I support this idea that the OP is floating for one reason. There need to be new mechanics, new ideas...the genere needs to grow up and out of the same old meshing of two first gen mmorpgs.
It needs to end. Whats happening now is a melding of other successful generes, like FPS, into mmorpg, often subtracting the RPG aspecs as much as possible..to appeal to a more mainstream and more herd like community than already exists.
GW2 didnt do anything new other than delete a role. public quests, i mean rifts, i mean alien invasion from anarchy online, i mean dynamic events have been around for ages. Removing progression and grind isnt new either. Age of Wushu is polished because its an old chinese game, still follow the old and tired quest hub and factional conflic mechanics. POE is just riding off the D3 fiasco and isnt a mmorpg but an arpg. Defiance is a PL2 type game thats a persistant FPS possibly with pve in it however.
The one thing they have in common is they want you to now pay before the game is done testing. They should be paying you with game time for testing not the other way around. We dont need more games with the permanant opend beta excuse. Its an excuse for medicore mechanics you know the line "its in BETA you idiot" ect.
As soon as people stop feeding the hampsterwheel is the second that one of two things will happen. Large bidget studios will start making the games people want, or small studios will gain ground. Remember the large budge mega conglomerate mmorpg studios all were indy studios at some point.
As long as these guys know that the same tired mechanics will get them $50 long before the game is ready, there is little motive ot actually innovate, to actually make a groundbreaking game, and to actually make a game thats moderatley finished come launch.
Only problem is you need to be cautious on which indy studios you support, a lot pop up with big ideas and open palms asking for funding and never have legit intentions of finishing the game (unless they are avalanched with money and can buy a development team which never happens)
This is the paradox, deal with better made mmorpgs that suck, or support an indy company with a big idea and deal with a horribly made game that may never leave a true alpha state ever (think Mortal Online or Xyson)...either way the choices are grim imo.
We can sit back and just enjoy the waterd down crap that lasts a month or two however...and keep the hamster wheel spinning i guess.
The avalanche has already started. It is too late for the pebbles to vote.
1. You can get into nearly beta's without buying, Early access and some bonus items have been around for 10 years,nor are they really the things that get people to actually buy the game, with or without pre-orders these players would have bought the game the moment it would have been availeble anyway.
2. Your bought beta is a moot point as it is, since you 1) nearly always there is a free beta you can enter, 2) nda or not you can always find footage and oppinions anyway and 3) beta's arent playeble demo's . Considering the costs of making a game, they wouldnt even have started developing it if they didnt have faith in their product. And.. whats shitty to some is fun to others, same as everything in life, everyone has their own taste.
3. Having a fallback plan is smart, and microtransactions have been around for quite some time and ironic enough.. its an idea submitted by players people have always expressed willingness to pay for fluff, in nearly every industry, the car industry for instance.
4. Not even worth commenting on.
5. Another bs statement. Since you are picking aoc, aoc had nearly every feature added to the game that where actually promised, and the game was definately precisely as in beta , the crafting system was poorly implimented but was there, some trades (gems) where added fast after release, granted it wasnt done properly. During beta the lock-in-place combo system was already removed for being able to move and fight. They didnt revamp the system till long after release. You would have done better to use WoW as excample here, the hunter class in beta was NOT the one that was added in the game at release (technically speaking 3 days before release)
This^^^ Possible releases of The Repopulation, Final Fantasy 14, Archage, and a couple of others.. For the first time ever I'm excited about to many MMOs!
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Oh, every year has been like that, some more than others. The thing that is changing and that worries me is the practice i call "crowdmilking". Extracting as much money as possible from the customers before the product is finished. I listed all the things that are going on and all the games you mentioned have done this. Then in the end they did not deliver what they promised and we went back to the same old excuses we had for a decade now.
I am nto saying these games are bad, i am just saying we are still making excuses for them and you can not honestly tell me that any of the games you listed really delivered what they promised. GW2 still has a backlog of hundreds of class specific bugs from a PAYED BETA that players REPORTED MONTHS AHEAD OF RELEASE. Ant they ignored them.
I for one am sick and tired of these practices and i won't make any more excuses. I will not buy any new game until i know its feature complete and delivers what they promised. I will not pay for BETA.
I definitely agree with the OP. MMO as a genre hasn't grown at all in the last several years. It really feels stagnant and pretty much like the same games with new graphics and one or two shiny new gimmicks to set it apart from the others. My least favorite gimmick would have to be the recent trend to try to remove the "trinity" from their game.
Why not remove grinding from the game? Pointless time sinks that aren't any fun are the fotm, how did this happen? Grinding badges, tokens, faction points, pvp points, the same exact quests over and over. Why hasn't a developer tried to make a game that is actually fun as a way to keep people playing, instead of putting in hours and hours of grinding(I like how they call it "content")? The worst part about the quest grind it has become more of a run from here to there, then over to another place and back again kind of grind. At least the grind of old games like EQ was combat focused.
Another good point that was made is highly anticipated features that are promised early in development are dropped due to time restraints. The online cash shop is usually ready to go by launch and filled with plenty of things to buy though. Some of these games have the nerve to announce their expansion the same month the game was released.... unfinished!
I too am pretty displeased with every MMO that I have played in the last few years. AoC, Swtor, Rift, GW2, TSW, CO, I had pretty high hopes for all of these games and every time I felt the bitter sting of disappointment after only 3-4 weeks of playing them. Got hope for Archeage, after that I give up on MMOs
I am happy for you that you feel so up beat. As I have said there is a market for the products you have listed.
However as one of the "doom and gloom" merchants I should point out that everyone of the games you advance as demonstrating how good things are made my list of things I was disppointed with. As for the F2P, B2P subscription model, I am happy to hand over cash to play a game I like so the pricing model is not something, that of itself, forms part of my decision to play any game .
Just so you know where I am coming from here is a list of the things I do not want to see in an MMORPG.
It's kind of hard to deliver the perfect MMO to those people that don't even know what they want
from an MMO.They want it to be sandbox but at the same time themeparkish.
They want openworld pvp but without full loot.
You can't give everyone exactly what they dream about.
Sometimes it's the player that has to give up dreaming and face with reality.
There is nothing wrong with the mmos nowadays...
MMOs are the same like FPS or strategy games,they didn't change a lot
since the last 10 years... only the graphics.Do call of duty fans complain
about their game,saying ohh it's the same old same that i played 4-5 years
ago only the maps and the models changed... They don't,they just buy the game
every year once or twice and they play.What the publisher does... makes sure
you will get a call of duty next year as well.
As long as there are people enjoying mmos the way they are we will always
get the same results (the same gameplay) over and over.
You are at the age of 30+ you played a couple of mmos and you are tired of it.
There are players at the age of 14 they just start now in this genre and everything
is new for them. My only advice if you are tired of the same old same mmos just
take a break... do something else,play something else.Come back in 10 years
to see what changed... ( nothing )
I would say that if anyone is unhappy with the recent round of games released by big game companies, it would probably behoove you to fund promising projects through kickstarter or other means. Nothing against the video game corporations, per se, but it is their duty to maximize their profits for their shareholders. Unfortunately, that goal doesn't necessarily mean making a game as fun as possible, or being craetive, (often it means being risk averse). These days it seems game design decisions are often made by some bean counter with his MBA, rather than passionate game designers. More effort goes into the revenue generation aspects than any other features.
Right now it's completely possible for someone with game design experience to create a near AAA product via crowd funding, I'm hoping some of those projects end up changing the MMO landscape. Nothing wrong with a little competition.
Also, I don't understand why the OP lumped Age of Conan in with the anti crowd funding argument. AoC was a typical big budget/ big company game, no crowd funding involved at all. Things like cash shops, pre-order perks, pay for beta, NDA's and pre-release press bans aren't in anyway unique to crowd funded games either. Many AAA titles have those things too. You seem slightly lost; you don't like the AAA games that have been released, apparently, but then you vehemently attack crowd funding projects. Who would you like to make your games then? Because right now it's pretty much either Joe Shmoe CEO and his WoW clone or other shallow garbage game, or it's a project that needs alternative sources of funding. Nowhere in your post do you mention a game/company/dev you support.
Finally, Path of Exile isn't really trying to be a MMO, it's on this site the same way ARPG's like Diablo 3 and Torchlight 2 are listed on this site. I don't play it, but I'm not sure why someone shouldn't support it if they enjoy playing it.
NDA there not for that reason it means it still need polish and could hurt the game if people thought this was a completed version of the game. Most games that arnt AAA company have a NDA for beta atleast early part of beta and thats because they cant afford or dont have the amount of people in there compoany to test the game well during early part of testing so they need 2 have other players test it for them. They have a NDA so videos dont go out of early phase testing and people think that its near release there lots of people out there who sees a beta/alpha video and decide they dont wanna play it cause its too buggy or what not.
Why do the ppl voting yes even play mmos ? talk about uncontrolled addiction. If I felt that way about anything I did for fun...I'd stop doing it and go find something.
I play these games because they're fun. When they'r enot I'll stop. I'm never going to join some mass protest or sit in....it makes me laugh just thinking about it.
I have to agree with you here, 2012 was the year that dev decided to do somthing new from the last 7 years some where good ideas other not so much, however from these companies trying new idea's it started to turn the gears of evolution for the genre, the genre been stuck for 7 years until 2012 and only now it starting to move forward again i think we will see alot more to come this year and next. GW2 was a large part of this movment a large company trying somthing new and was quite succesful and with that other AAA dev have noticed people quite alot of people want some change from what they been doing.
Remember when companies paid players to beta test games?
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I garantee you there will be PvE only servers aswell as PvP ones.
But at the same time you have Square Enix that took a loss from FFXIV, kept the servers up for free while they rebuilt the whole game (engine, servers, mechanics, content, all of it) that they will now offer to people who paid for the original FFXIV:ARR free in the hopes that they will subscribe when their trial is up.
In my opinion FFXIV:ARR may just be the savior of the subscription MMO as a genre, one that has been pecked away at as one by one nearly all other major AAA MMO's have fallen to F2P except WoW.
If subscription MMO's are going to last we need a sucess story like FFXIV. For that reason all fans of AAA MMO's should be rooting for the game to suceed whether you personally want to play it or not, otherwise we are headed for a flood of cheap f2p and b2p cash ins.
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"It has potential"
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You make a valid sounding point about kickstarter funding. I have just scanned the current list of projects on kickstarter, I found no game project there that would meet my criteria. I am not a game developer, nor at my age do I have a desire to become one.
So what now?
I also remember walking to school barefoot in the snow...uphill even...
holy shit, I just looked at cyberpunk 2077 trailer.
Thanks OP, didnt know about this.
You are welcome. I am hoping for this one, if its as dark and mature as the original pen and paper we could ahve a winner. Time will tell.