Well, only one old school MMO had comparable retention and that was EQ. 450k subs at it's absolute peak is decent, but nothing to write home about these days. And EQ was king of the hill (exluding lineage, but people generally don't consider eastern MMO's "old school"). Other games were sitting at 200k and such. These days a game goes F2P because it can't retain 1 million+ players, not because they've dipped down to 200k.
SWTOR, one of the worst games that ever existed still had like 1.4 million subs when it went F2P. In terms of cost vs result, SWTOR was a failure, but even as a failure it still had nearly triple that of the biggest old school MMO.
I think a lot of people delude themselves when talking about older MMO's as if they had these rock solid communities for a decade and had 500k subs. That's just not historically accurate. ONE game had almost 500k subs, one. The rest were half the size or less of that. So when you say player retention in today's market is worse, you have to define worse.
Worse in terms of percentage or worse in terms of raw numbers. You may be right if you look at percentage retention, but that number is irrelevant to game companies when the raw number of players doubles, triples or quadruples even the biggest old school MMO in terms of retention.
This is NOT true Everquest was not the most successful old school MMO. People always forget about this one but Lineage had over 2 million subs at its peak and so did Lineage II. Both Lineage games were wildly successful even by modern standards.
Lineage was the most most successful MMO before WoW and remains the second most second most successful MMO of all time. Lineage II is the third most successful MMO.
Just because most of the player base came from South Korea, Japan, and China doesn't change the fact Lineage was a massive success. Lineage II is still going strong today after ten years because it is one of the best games ever made. L2 has a massive seamless open world that is 5 times bigger than WoW. What made L2 a success was they threw the solo players a bone every once in a while. It wasn't completely old school. It was hybrid theme park sand box.
This is why most of the games worth looking forward to in the future are Korean such as Bless, Arch Age, and Black Desert. They are using Lineage as a model for future game development. The Western developer just can't seem to get the balance right between solo and group or balance casual with hard core. Western MMOs are either all or nothing. You either have super casual like WoW clones or super hard core like Mortal Online and Darkfall.
The way I see it you either have to convince them that they can make a shit-ton more money with the game you want them to make than what they're planning to make now *or* you convince them that what you want them to make is a hell of a lot cheaper than what they are making now and can still make a decent profit. Look at movies, if you make an arthouse movie for 2 million dollars and it brings in 20 million, that is worth it for a lot of studios to make even though 20 million dollars is a pretty niche market movie.
It won't have A-list actors or great special effects, but if you really want to see that movie get made so you can watch it you have to make some compromises.
So, unless you can somehow convince a big publisher that the market for your oldschool MMO idea is in the millions a lot of people will need to lower their expectations with regards to graphics and polish quite a bit. You have to find some way to keep costs down.
Originally posted by lizardbones So is the idea that there are investors willing to invest the millions of dollars it would take to write a game for a target audience of tens or hundreds of thousands of people.
Absolutely true.
But each time one of those new games opens, it's instantly declared both niche and failure.
All that's really necessary is to pitch "AAA" as a requirement (of the players), and you can have any tiny title you want to have.
And cling to it, as fanboys always do, as the ultimate, perfect title that's just too hip cool and hard for the rest of the gaming world to appreciate. It's worked for Apple for 40 years.
But you could do that in any of the original turn of the century titles too, yar? Why insist upon a brand new game to do your living in the past?
All that's truly required is a game to declare your own, and a faceless herd (the rest of the market will do) to look down your nose at, hold oneself up as better than.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Originally posted by SavageHorizon And what's your description of an old school mmo, fact is their are many mmos that offer what you are looking for. Let's be honest it comes down to graphics, if it didn't you would be playing those types of mmos.
You trolling bro? I got a GTX 460 laptop that runs most games at ultra, and yet I spend most of my time playing Everquest on a private server similar to 1999. Fact is, persistent worlds that cater to mature teenagers/adults is a thing of the past. We got sperglords like yourself saying the best games require a 2,000 computer where you get shinies on a rollercoaster type MMO. The biggest joke is games like NWN and RIft where there is no diversification or specilization. Everyone levels up in one starting area despite different races/classes, most things are instanced, and there is no depth behind any of the quests.
If people are going to use old games population as an example of good games, then you absolutely can compare numbers.
The exceptions you state apply to that argument as well.
Either you can use old population as a shining example and therefore have to look at today's games and recognize they have the same or higher populations. Or you can't use populations for the reasons you stated. You (not you but you in general) cannot have it both ways.
It is not reasonable to expect to have millions of customers long term, only 2-3 games have every sustained that.
It is not reasonable to expect a game to have 45% of the market when the market has 15 million people.
History has shown that the best MMO's will have 50-500k subscibers.
The devs and market are now starting to realize this, they are no longer planning on having 1 million plus subs. They know it is not sustainable.
Yes there are more people. There are far far far more games too.
There have only been 13 games to top the peak Everquest numbers accord to MMORPG data site. A lot of the main old school games aren't that far down either. Some of those 13 were flash in the pans off initial sales. Then there are way more people playing now then back then when even broadband wasn't always available. I know I started off playing on a modem.
That interesting but has nothing to do with what I stated.
My comments were about sustaining numbers and the stable populations for the top games have always been 50-500k. That hasn't changed - so planning a game to get more than that is IMO foolish planning.
edit - that is the problem modern games have run into. They planned on keeping a million, which is not reasonable, and planned their development budget around that.
What games are you talking about though? Rift, Warhammer, Age of Conan all dropped sharply to sub 300k numbers after release by the chart. EQ2 never reached EQ 1 numbers. LoTRO spike with F2P then dropped the next year to sub 300k numbers. There some games missing Tera. But outside of SWTOR there doesn't seem to be that big a subscription base.
Originally posted by lizardbones So is the idea that there are investors willing to invest the millions of dollars it would take to write a game for a target audience of tens or hundreds of thousands of people.
Absolutely true.
But each time one of those new games opens, it's instantly declared both niche and failure.
All that's really necessary is to pitch "AAA" as a requirement (of the players), and you can have any tiny title you want to have.
And cling to it, as fanboys always do, as the ultimate, perfect title that's just too hip cool and hard for the rest of the gaming world to appreciate. It's worked for Apple for 40 years.
But you could do that in any of the original turn of the century titles too, yar? Why insist upon a brand new game to do your living in the past?
All that's truly required is a game to declare your own, and a faceless herd (the rest of the market will do) to look down your nose at, hold oneself up as better than.
There are very few games that reach out of the 100s of thousands. WoW clones for the most part have significantly dropped or you could even say nose dived few months after release. If old school game of hundreds of thousands is niche is not a new school game of hundreds of thousands niche as well or did I miss something?
Gamers are mostly whiney, little brats who don't even know what they really want. No thanks. As a developer, I sure wouldn't want direct access to all the abuse all day.
Not true at all. Generalization.
If you look at the movie forums and sports forums of the western countries you will see the same whiners.
It is actually the consumers from the Western Hemisphere are the most whiney brunch of little brats, regardless of what products/services it is
There are very few games that reach out of the 100s of thousands. WoW clones for the most part have significantly dropped or you could even say nose dived few months after release. If old school game of hundreds of thousands is niche is not a new school game of hundreds of thousands niche as well or did I miss something?
None of those new school games planned to be where they are though. They're all chasing WoW's market and tailored themselves to appeal to that market. They just failed. But, if you say "my game could maybe get as big as a game that's looked at as a F2P failure!" you're probably not going to convince publishers to throw big money at your game. Remember, even if you make a game with a market of millions, all of those millions aren't actually going to play your game. They're just potential customers. It's true that a niche game gets more of its potential market because of lack of competition but it still won't get 100%.
If people are going to use old games population as an example of good games, then you absolutely can compare numbers.
The exceptions you state apply to that argument as well.
Either you can use old population as a shining example and therefore have to look at today's games and recognize they have the same or higher populations. Or you can't use populations for the reasons you stated. You (not you but you in general) cannot have it both ways.
It is not reasonable to expect to have millions of customers long term, only 2-3 games have every sustained that.
It is not reasonable to expect a game to have 45% of the market when the market has 15 million people.
History has shown that the best MMO's will have 50-500k subscibers.
The devs and market are now starting to realize this, they are no longer planning on having 1 million plus subs. They know it is not sustainable.
Yes there are more people. There are far far far more games too.
There have only been 13 games to top the peak Everquest numbers accord to MMORPG data site. A lot of the main old school games aren't that far down either. Some of those 13 were flash in the pans off initial sales. Then there are way more people playing now then back then when even broadband wasn't always available. I know I started off playing on a modem.
That interesting but has nothing to do with what I stated.
My comments were about sustaining numbers and the stable populations for the top games have always been 50-500k. That hasn't changed - so planning a game to get more than that is IMO foolish planning.
edit - that is the problem modern games have run into. They planned on keeping a million, which is not reasonable, and planned their development budget around that.
What games are you talking about though? Rift, Warhammer, Age of Conan all dropped sharply to sub 300k numbers after release by the chart. EQ2 never reached EQ 1 numbers. LoTRO spike with F2P then dropped the next year to sub 300k numbers. There some games missing Tera. But outside of SWTOR there doesn't seem to be that big a subscription base.
All those games you mentioned have the 50-500k subs that the old games reached. You even stated rift had 300k. Old good games reached 50-500k, new good games reach 50-500k. That is the target that developers should shoot for, and they are starting to realize that. None of this minimum of 500k to break even that swtor had, but a stretch goal of 500k that ff14 wanted is fine.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
What would be nice if we had a REAL way to appeal to a developer or to get one to Liston to a larger group. First thing everyone here would say is " hay, just e-mail them " ....Now come on you should know better.
- I'm sure many here would love to see an Old School mmo.
- I'm sure many would say not.
- I'm sure many would say the OPINIONS would be all over the place on how it should be made. We should not have to give our OPINIONS.....Let them take care of that.
Here is my take on this subject, and yes its only my OPINION :
Many here don't know any better, they think of Old School = Old game. Even if it starts out as a niche mmo, I would think it would turn out to be a huge success. None the less it would be re-original since its been so long and at the very least still be a money maker for developers.
I wish mmorpg.com could look at our cry. Do an over all assessment of topics and appeal to a developer. Because as a one we have no voice......And last, I totally believe the new saying " vote with your wallet " is bull crap. We are starving from one release to the next and we all play everyone good or bad !
As you've been told before, the problem isn't that no one hears you crying. The problem is that you have nothing to support it.
If a sizable enough group exists for a specific, detailed feature set, bring them your data on it, because they evidently don't have the data that you do. I mean, seriously... a completely untapped and profitable market? Any dev would jump on that!
As I said before your logic would be sound but we all know that the elephant in the room is World of Warcraft. You could likely come up with data that shows a sizeable group wants to play a UO style game or a EQ styled game. They still do not compare to the data by looking at the 12 million subscribers WoW brought in. I think by the design choices and the continued squeezing of that demographic despite not individually greatly out performing older games in their prime if not worst retention.
By your logic, no one would open a sushi restaurant because a fast food place would make more money. That aside, businesses deal in real numbers so, as I said, you need to bring them real numbers because what you're pitching here evidently doesn't match what they have.
Your 'elephant in the room' is only there for the people here that have no business sense and who are transferring that same lack of understanding of how businesses work onto developers and publishers. It's 2013. No one is trying to be the next WoW when it comes to making an MMORPG. If they're shooting for Top Three in any category, they're chasing the MOBA and TCG crowd now. There's no dev out there that is trying to make a "WoW killer" or even trying to come remotely close to its numbers with an MMORPG, no matter how much you want to insist that's their goal. Almost every one of them abandoned that idea back in 2008-2009 when it became obvious that your average NA/EU MMORPG is going to sustain about 50-250k subscribers. NO ONE is building for a million+ subscriber MMORPG. Yes, they will sell 700k or whatever boxes at release, but they know damn well Day 91 is not going to look that pretty.
How many people are playing EQ and Vanguard right now? Of the people that aren't playing those, are they all for the same reason? See, that's where you really need to take a step back and consider how small the numbers may be. Look at these three questions:
Do you want an Old School MMO?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling and mob camping?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling, mob camping, no minimap, no quest indicators and harsh death penalty?
On that first one, you'll probably find a lot of "Hell yeah!'s. What about the second? Or the third?
I'm sure you could poll plenty of forums and do grass roots surveys to find tens of thousands of people who will say yes to the first one. But once you get more detailed, more granular... well, that's the task ahead of you. Yes, you. You and anyone else that feels the dev are blind to some hidden, unserved niche.
This mystery, disenfranchised segment isn't playing the old school games, and they don't seem to be on the forums anywhere. You've got your work cut out for you. When CoH closed down, there was evidence of thousands, even tens of thousands, of CoH fans - people that wanted that specific game and that specific feature set. Have you ever seen more than a couple dozen rally behind any one old school feature set? Again, if so, show the devs your numbers, because they don't have the info that you do.
My logic is perfectly sound. Show them the data and they'll listen. A completely untapped, profitable segment of any market is a goldmine waiting to happen.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
What would be nice if we had a REAL way to appeal to a developer or to get one to Liston to a larger group. First thing everyone here would say is " hay, just e-mail them " ....Now come on you should know better.
- I'm sure many here would love to see an Old School mmo.
- I'm sure many would say not.
- I'm sure many would say the OPINIONS would be all over the place on how it should be made. We should not have to give our OPINIONS.....Let them take care of that.
Here is my take on this subject, and yes its only my OPINION :
Many here don't know any better, they think of Old School = Old game. Even if it starts out as a niche mmo, I would think it would turn out to be a huge success. None the less it would be re-original since its been so long and at the very least still be a money maker for developers.
I wish mmorpg.com could look at our cry. Do an over all assessment of topics and appeal to a developer. Because as a one we have no voice......And last, I totally believe the new saying " vote with your wallet " is bull crap. We are starving from one release to the next and we all play everyone good or bad !
As you've been told before, the problem isn't that no one hears you crying. The problem is that you have nothing to support it.
If a sizable enough group exists for a specific, detailed feature set, bring them your data on it, because they evidently don't have the data that you do. I mean, seriously... a completely untapped and profitable market? Any dev would jump on that!
As I said before your logic would be sound but we all know that the elephant in the room is World of Warcraft. You could likely come up with data that shows a sizeable group wants to play a UO style game or a EQ styled game. They still do not compare to the data by looking at the 12 million subscribers WoW brought in. I think by the design choices and the continued squeezing of that demographic despite not individually greatly out performing older games in their prime if not worst retention.
By your logic, no one would open a sushi restaurant because a fast food place would make more money. That aside, businesses deal in real numbers so, as I said, you need to bring them real numbers because what you're pitching here evidently doesn't match what they have.
Your 'elephant in the room' is only there for the people here that have no business sense and who are transferring that same lack of understanding of how businesses work onto developers and publishers. It's 2013. No one is trying to be the next WoW when it comes to making an MMORPG. If they're shooting for Top Three in any category, they're chasing the MOBA and TCG crowd now. There's no dev out there that is trying to make a "WoW killer" or even trying to come remotely close to its numbers with an MMORPG, no matter how much you want to insist that's their goal. Almost every one of them abandoned that idea back in 2008-2009 when it became obvious that your average NA/EU MMORPG is going to sustain about 50-250k subscribers. NO ONE is building for a million+ subscriber MMORPG. Yes, they will sell 700k or whatever boxes at release, but they know damn well Day 91 is not going to look that pretty.
How many people are playing EQ and Vanguard right now? Of the people that aren't playing those, are they all for the same reason? See, that's where you really need to take a step back and consider how small the numbers may be. Look at these three questions:
Do you want an Old School MMO?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling and mob camping?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling, mob camping, no minimap, no quest indicators and harsh death penalty?
On that first one, you'll probably find a lot of "Hell yeah!'s. What about the second? Or the third?
I'm sure you could poll plenty of forums and do grass roots surveys to find tens of thousands of people who will say yes to the first one. But once you get more detailed, more granular... well, that's the task ahead of you. Yes, you. You and anyone else that feels the dev are blind to some hidden, unserved niche.
This mystery, disenfranchised segment isn't playing the old school games, and they don't seem to be on the forums anywhere. You've got your work cut out for you. When CoH closed down, there was evidence of thousands, even tens of thousands, of CoH fans - people that wanted that specific game and that specific feature set. Have you ever seen more than a couple dozen rally behind any one old school feature set? Again, if so, show the devs your numbers, because they don't have the info that you do.
My logic is perfectly sound. Show them the data and they'll listen. A completely untapped, profitable segment of any market is a goldmine waiting to happen.
I am sorry that I don't buy that ALL MMORPG players want to play a very narrow style of MMORPG, quest hub themepark. and no other type of game can be successful. But the data I am using is subscriptions. There isn't a lot of evidence that outside of extreme spikes and drops that these quest hub themepark games are out performing.
The thing about "Old School" set of features is there was diversity. Are you talking about UO/SWG sandbox, DAoC RvR or EQ's group heavy content or even EvE space Sci-fi type game?
I am sorry that I don't buy that ALL MMORPG players want to play a very narrow style of MMORPG, quest hub themepark. and no other type of game can be successful. But the data I am using is subscriptions. There isn't a lot of evidence that outside of extreme spikes and drops that these quest hub themepark games are out performing.
The thing about "Old School" set of features is there was diversity. Are you talking about UO/SWG sandbox, DAoC RvR or EQ's group heavy content or even EvE space Sci-fi type game?
At no point did I say all MMORPG players want a very narrow style of MMORPG or that no other type of game can be successful. Instead of replying to what I presented, your answer is a snarky "I'm sorry that..." strawman.
You don't see how you're making it rather difficult to have a constructive discussion here?
On a related note, your end question is exactly what you should be asking yourself before you venture out on that survey campaign.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Originally posted by AlBQuirky When will posters STOP saying this load of crap? UO - WoW-ified (made easier for players) EQ - WoW-ified (made easier for players) SW:G - Closed Down for a - WoW-ified MMO (made easier for players) The big three. I do not know about DAoC, AC, AoC, and quite a few others. Never played them. I have a feeling that they, too, have been made easier for players to get into and progress.I am actually back playing EQ. Some of the changes they have made I like. Others, not so much. I have gotten my character to 17th level (in about 4 days (96 hours) of total time played) and am still waiting to do a corpse run. Yes, I have died. I am trying to get as far as I can before hiring a mercenary to help me out. The zones I am in, with the exception of PoK are ALL bare, so far. I have seen at most, in the old early zones, 2 other players.The old MMOs may still be running, but they are NOT the same games. Do not go that route anymore, please. It is a fallacy.
Sure, they changed because they were failing when everyone who was playing them ran off to play WoW. They tried to make themselves feel more WoW-like and failed to make the cut. They were not wildly successful after WoW, if they had been, there would have been no reason to change how they did business.
While some of that is true, would you agree that WoW brought in players that did not play the old MMORPGs? That new playerbase is what I think the old MMORPGs changed for.
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
What would be nice if we had a REAL way to appeal to a developer or to get one to Liston to a larger group. First thing everyone here would say is " hay, just e-mail them " ....Now come on you should know better.
- I'm sure many here would love to see an Old School mmo.
- I'm sure many would say not.
- I'm sure many would say the OPINIONS would be all over the place on how it should be made. We should not have to give our OPINIONS.....Let them take care of that.
Here is my take on this subject, and yes its only my OPINION :
Many here don't know any better, they think of Old School = Old game. Even if it starts out as a niche mmo, I would think it would turn out to be a huge success. None the less it would be re-original since its been so long and at the very least still be a money maker for developers.
I wish mmorpg.com could look at our cry. Do an over all assessment of topics and appeal to a developer. Because as a one we have no voice......And last, I totally believe the new saying " vote with your wallet " is bull crap. We are starving from one release to the next and we all play everyone good or bad !
As you've been told before, the problem isn't that no one hears you crying. The problem is that you have nothing to support it.
If a sizable enough group exists for a specific, detailed feature set, bring them your data on it, because they evidently don't have the data that you do. I mean, seriously... a completely untapped and profitable market? Any dev would jump on that!
As I said before your logic would be sound but we all know that the elephant in the room is World of Warcraft. You could likely come up with data that shows a sizeable group wants to play a UO style game or a EQ styled game. They still do not compare to the data by looking at the 12 million subscribers WoW brought in. I think by the design choices and the continued squeezing of that demographic despite not individually greatly out performing older games in their prime if not worst retention.
By your logic, no one would open a sushi restaurant because a fast food place would make more money. That aside, businesses deal in real numbers so, as I said, you need to bring them real numbers because what you're pitching here evidently doesn't match what they have.
Your 'elephant in the room' is only there for the people here that have no business sense and who are transferring that same lack of understanding of how businesses work onto developers and publishers. It's 2013. No one is trying to be the next WoW when it comes to making an MMORPG. If they're shooting for Top Three in any category, they're chasing the MOBA and TCG crowd now. There's no dev out there that is trying to make a "WoW killer" or even trying to come remotely close to its numbers with an MMORPG, no matter how much you want to insist that's their goal. Almost every one of them abandoned that idea back in 2008-2009 when it became obvious that your average NA/EU MMORPG is going to sustain about 50-250k subscribers. NO ONE is building for a million+ subscriber MMORPG. Yes, they will sell 700k or whatever boxes at release, but they know damn well Day 91 is not going to look that pretty.
How many people are playing EQ and Vanguard right now? Of the people that aren't playing those, are they all for the same reason? See, that's where you really need to take a step back and consider how small the numbers may be. Look at these three questions:
Do you want an Old School MMO?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling and mob camping?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling, mob camping, no minimap, no quest indicators and harsh death penalty?
On that first one, you'll probably find a lot of "Hell yeah!'s. What about the second? Or the third?
I'm sure you could poll plenty of forums and do grass roots surveys to find tens of thousands of people who will say yes to the first one. But once you get more detailed, more granular... well, that's the task ahead of you. Yes, you. You and anyone else that feels the dev are blind to some hidden, unserved niche.
This mystery, disenfranchised segment isn't playing the old school games, and they don't seem to be on the forums anywhere. You've got your work cut out for you. When CoH closed down, there was evidence of thousands, even tens of thousands, of CoH fans - people that wanted that specific game and that specific feature set. Have you ever seen more than a couple dozen rally behind any one old school feature set? Again, if so, show the devs your numbers, because they don't have the info that you do.
My logic is perfectly sound. Show them the data and they'll listen. A completely untapped, profitable segment of any market is a goldmine waiting to happen.
It's amazing how much you guys will try to find a way around the simple truth that the market looks the way it does because WoW altered it greatly, NOT because there isn't enough demand for these games.
EvE on paper fits many of the descriptions we ask for. Not only that, it's incredibly hard to get into and the mechanics are not intuitive at all. Yet it's a major success and has been for a long time. Why does it exist?
What would be nice if we had a REAL way to appeal to a developer or to get one to Liston to a larger group. First thing everyone here would say is " hay, just e-mail them " ....Now come on you should know better.
- I'm sure many here would love to see an Old School mmo.
- I'm sure many would say not.
- I'm sure many would say the OPINIONS would be all over the place on how it should be made. We should not have to give our OPINIONS.....Let them take care of that.
Here is my take on this subject, and yes its only my OPINION :
Many here don't know any better, they think of Old School = Old game. Even if it starts out as a niche mmo, I would think it would turn out to be a huge success. None the less it would be re-original since its been so long and at the very least still be a money maker for developers.
I wish mmorpg.com could look at our cry. Do an over all assessment of topics and appeal to a developer. Because as a one we have no voice......And last, I totally believe the new saying " vote with your wallet " is bull crap. We are starving from one release to the next and we all play everyone good or bad !
As you've been told before, the problem isn't that no one hears you crying. The problem is that you have nothing to support it.
If a sizable enough group exists for a specific, detailed feature set, bring them your data on it, because they evidently don't have the data that you do. I mean, seriously... a completely untapped and profitable market? Any dev would jump on that!
As I said before your logic would be sound but we all know that the elephant in the room is World of Warcraft. You could likely come up with data that shows a sizeable group wants to play a UO style game or a EQ styled game. They still do not compare to the data by looking at the 12 million subscribers WoW brought in. I think by the design choices and the continued squeezing of that demographic despite not individually greatly out performing older games in their prime if not worst retention.
By your logic, no one would open a sushi restaurant because a fast food place would make more money. That aside, businesses deal in real numbers so, as I said, you need to bring them real numbers because what you're pitching here evidently doesn't match what they have.
Your 'elephant in the room' is only there for the people here that have no business sense and who are transferring that same lack of understanding of how businesses work onto developers and publishers. It's 2013. No one is trying to be the next WoW when it comes to making an MMORPG. If they're shooting for Top Three in any category, they're chasing the MOBA and TCG crowd now. There's no dev out there that is trying to make a "WoW killer" or even trying to come remotely close to its numbers with an MMORPG, no matter how much you want to insist that's their goal. Almost every one of them abandoned that idea back in 2008-2009 when it became obvious that your average NA/EU MMORPG is going to sustain about 50-250k subscribers. NO ONE is building for a million+ subscriber MMORPG. Yes, they will sell 700k or whatever boxes at release, but they know damn well Day 91 is not going to look that pretty.
How many people are playing EQ and Vanguard right now? Of the people that aren't playing those, are they all for the same reason? See, that's where you really need to take a step back and consider how small the numbers may be. Look at these three questions:
Do you want an Old School MMO?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling and mob camping?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling, mob camping, no minimap, no quest indicators and harsh death penalty?
On that first one, you'll probably find a lot of "Hell yeah!'s. What about the second? Or the third?
I'm sure you could poll plenty of forums and do grass roots surveys to find tens of thousands of people who will say yes to the first one. But once you get more detailed, more granular... well, that's the task ahead of you. Yes, you. You and anyone else that feels the dev are blind to some hidden, unserved niche.
This mystery, disenfranchised segment isn't playing the old school games, and they don't seem to be on the forums anywhere. You've got your work cut out for you. When CoH closed down, there was evidence of thousands, even tens of thousands, of CoH fans - people that wanted that specific game and that specific feature set. Have you ever seen more than a couple dozen rally behind any one old school feature set? Again, if so, show the devs your numbers, because they don't have the info that you do.
My logic is perfectly sound. Show them the data and they'll listen. A completely untapped, profitable segment of any market is a goldmine waiting to happen.
It's amazing how much you guys will try to find a way around the simple truth that the market looks the way it does because WoW altered it greatly, NOT because there isn't enough demand for these games.
EvE on paper fits many of the descriptions we ask for. Not only that, it's incredibly hard to get into and the mechanics are not intuitive at all. Yet it's a major success and has been for a long time. Why does it exist?
Uh, but he works for CCP. I think he knows.
The demand is only theory on both ends. I believe there is a demand simply because it's unserved and refuse to believe that all MMORPG players are themepark quest hubbers.
Originally posted by AlBQuirky When will posters STOP saying this load of crap? UO - WoW-ified (made easier for players) EQ - WoW-ified (made easier for players) SW:G - Closed Down for a - WoW-ified MMO (made easier for players) The big three. I do not know about DAoC, AC, AoC, and quite a few others. Never played them. I have a feeling that they, too, have been made easier for players to get into and progress.
I am actually back playing EQ. Some of the changes they have made I like. Others, not so much. I have gotten my character to 17th level (in about 4 days (96 hours) of total time played) and am still waiting to do a corpse run. Yes, I have died. I am trying to get as far as I can before hiring a mercenary to help me out. The zones I am in, with the exception of PoK are ALL bare, so far. I have seen at most, in the old early zones, 2 other players.
The old MMOs may still be running, but they are NOT the same games. Do not go that route anymore, please. It is a fallacy.
Sure, they changed because they were failing when everyone who was playing them ran off to play WoW. They tried to make themselves feel more WoW-like and failed to make the cut. They were not wildly successful after WoW, if they had been, there would have been no reason to change how they did business.
While some of that is true, would you agree that WoW brought in players that did not play the old MMORPGs? That new playerbase is what I think the old MMORPGs changed for.
havnt we been here before?
WoW brought in alot of blizzard fans people who before had nothing to do with MMO's
Also Blizzard did alot of advertising something old mmo's did not do. And word to mouth as vanila WoW was quite good did the rest.
so it brought in a ton. well it brought in the millions of people we have playing mmo's today.
and yes the old mmo's where also trying to tap into that market by wowifying themselves. hence breaking their own games.
For God's sake when are people going to realize that Developers and Publishers are not the same f***ing thing?
Developers have had their balls in a vice when it comes to making games for a decade. Developers do not fund their own games 90% of the time. And because Developers do not fund their own games, they do not get to choose what games they make. They have had no choice in the matter of creating an old-school MMO. None! Nada!
Why has crowd-funding and Kickstarter become so popular recently? Because customers AND Developers are fighting back against Publishers. Studios are sick and tired of being told what to do and how to do it by institutions only interested in turning massive profits. Developers are turning directly to gamers to get the games they want to make completed because they can't get funds from Publishers when it's not a guaranteed 100 million dollar profit margin.
So no, we don't need to convince Developers to make the game we want. We have to convince them to ditch Publishers who refuse to make anything other than World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. Because I guarantee you that there are many Developers who would love to make an old-school MMO.
Please watch the following conferences and videos to understand what the hell is going on right now.
What would be nice if we had a REAL way to appeal to a developer or to get one to Liston to a larger group. First thing everyone here would say is " hay, just e-mail them " ....Now come on you should know better.
- I'm sure many here would love to see an Old School mmo.
- I'm sure many would say not.
- I'm sure many would say the OPINIONS would be all over the place on how it should be made. We should not have to give our OPINIONS.....Let them take care of that.
Here is my take on this subject, and yes its only my OPINION :
Many here don't know any better, they think of Old School = Old game. Even if it starts out as a niche mmo, I would think it would turn out to be a huge success. None the less it would be re-original since its been so long and at the very least still be a money maker for developers.
I wish mmorpg.com could look at our cry. Do an over all assessment of topics and appeal to a developer. Because as a one we have no voice......And last, I totally believe the new saying " vote with your wallet " is bull crap. We are starving from one release to the next and we all play everyone good or bad !
As you've been told before, the problem isn't that no one hears you crying. The problem is that you have nothing to support it.
If a sizable enough group exists for a specific, detailed feature set, bring them your data on it, because they evidently don't have the data that you do. I mean, seriously... a completely untapped and profitable market? Any dev would jump on that!
As I said before your logic would be sound but we all know that the elephant in the room is World of Warcraft. You could likely come up with data that shows a sizeable group wants to play a UO style game or a EQ styled game. They still do not compare to the data by looking at the 12 million subscribers WoW brought in. I think by the design choices and the continued squeezing of that demographic despite not individually greatly out performing older games in their prime if not worst retention.
By your logic, no one would open a sushi restaurant because a fast food place would make more money. That aside, businesses deal in real numbers so, as I said, you need to bring them real numbers because what you're pitching here evidently doesn't match what they have.
Your 'elephant in the room' is only there for the people here that have no business sense and who are transferring that same lack of understanding of how businesses work onto developers and publishers. It's 2013. No one is trying to be the next WoW when it comes to making an MMORPG. If they're shooting for Top Three in any category, they're chasing the MOBA and TCG crowd now. There's no dev out there that is trying to make a "WoW killer" or even trying to come remotely close to its numbers with an MMORPG, no matter how much you want to insist that's their goal. Almost every one of them abandoned that idea back in 2008-2009 when it became obvious that your average NA/EU MMORPG is going to sustain about 50-250k subscribers. NO ONE is building for a million+ subscriber MMORPG. Yes, they will sell 700k or whatever boxes at release, but they know damn well Day 91 is not going to look that pretty.
How many people are playing EQ and Vanguard right now? Of the people that aren't playing those, are they all for the same reason? See, that's where you really need to take a step back and consider how small the numbers may be. Look at these three questions:
Do you want an Old School MMO?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling and mob camping?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling, mob camping, no minimap, no quest indicators and harsh death penalty?
On that first one, you'll probably find a lot of "Hell yeah!'s. What about the second? Or the third?
I'm sure you could poll plenty of forums and do grass roots surveys to find tens of thousands of people who will say yes to the first one. But once you get more detailed, more granular... well, that's the task ahead of you. Yes, you. You and anyone else that feels the dev are blind to some hidden, unserved niche.
This mystery, disenfranchised segment isn't playing the old school games, and they don't seem to be on the forums anywhere. You've got your work cut out for you. When CoH closed down, there was evidence of thousands, even tens of thousands, of CoH fans - people that wanted that specific game and that specific feature set. Have you ever seen more than a couple dozen rally behind any one old school feature set? Again, if so, show the devs your numbers, because they don't have the info that you do.
My logic is perfectly sound. Show them the data and they'll listen. A completely untapped, profitable segment of any market is a goldmine waiting to happen.
It's amazing how much you guys will try to find a way around the simple truth that the market looks the way it does because WoW altered it greatly, NOT because there isn't enough demand for these games.
EvE on paper fits many of the descriptions we ask for. Not only that, it's incredibly hard to get into and the mechanics are not intuitive at all. Yet it's a major success and has been for a long time. Why does it exist?
I find this last question very funny....considering who you asked it to.
Originally posted by Icewhite Find a way to demonstrate a larger market share than "50 old me-too grumblers that can be found frequenting this site".Find a way to demonstrate possible acceptance for something other than games we've already had.Genuinely new ideas.
There really just needs to be enough interest to support the game being written. Perpetuum is running on less than 5,000 people, and I think Mortal Online is the same way, though Perpetuum runs a lot better than Mortal Online. It is certainly possible to write a game, even an MMORPG, for a small number of people, and do it in such a way that those people enjoy the game.
I think the problem with the views on this site is the idea that there is a group of people number in the tens or hundreds of thousands that is also so hidden that it doesn't register on any developer's radar is ludicrous. So is the idea that there are investors willing to invest the millions of dollars it would take to write a game for a target audience of tens or hundreds of thousands of people.
I agree that this has some truth. And that is the hard part, coming up with factual numbers in print.
If there was an old-time MMORPG that enough players "agreed with" for the design and features, numbers could be presented. I really do not see this scenario ever happening
What messes up number comparisons is that no one knows why players leave or stay with any MMO. Did EQ's numbers start falling because players went to WoW, or because they introduced WoW elements into EQ? Probably a bit of both, maybe even more to one side than the other.
Why did old MMOROG's populations start to drop? Did players get busy IRL? Did they find a better MMO? Did they get bored? There are many reasons why they may have stopped playing.
And the final kicker, how many old-time MMORPG players play new MMOs just to be in an MMO, therefor adding to the new MMO numbers, but not really finding the game they desire to play? Speaking only for myself, I have a lot of F2P new MMO accounts scattered about the the MMO industry. Even though I am not playing them, the accounts are there and being counted. I am one of 30 million players Wizard101 claims, even though I have not logged in about 2 years. MMO companies are not very open with their player numbers, especially F2P games with no monthly sub income to look at in financial reports.
While what you two are saying is true to some extent, it cannot be held up as "written in stone" as many like to make it out. There are too many assumptions for my taste to blindly the numbers (almost any numbers) presented.
If MMO publishers used numbers solely, they would have never worked on mass producing light bulbs, quite simply because, nobody bought them until they were made. I don't think hamburger ice cream would be good. Who knows, maybe there are millions of people out there wanting that specific item?
My point being, if publishers do not try the market, how can they be sure there is no market?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
What would be nice if we had a REAL way to appeal to a developer or to get one to Liston to a larger group. First thing everyone here would say is " hay, just e-mail them " ....Now come on you should know better.
- I'm sure many here would love to see an Old School mmo.
- I'm sure many would say not.
- I'm sure many would say the OPINIONS would be all over the place on how it should be made. We should not have to give our OPINIONS.....Let them take care of that.
Here is my take on this subject, and yes its only my OPINION :
Many here don't know any better, they think of Old School = Old game. Even if it starts out as a niche mmo, I would think it would turn out to be a huge success. None the less it would be re-original since its been so long and at the very least still be a money maker for developers.
I wish mmorpg.com could look at our cry. Do an over all assessment of topics and appeal to a developer. Because as a one we have no voice......And last, I totally believe the new saying " vote with your wallet " is bull crap. We are starving from one release to the next and we all play everyone good or bad !
As you've been told before, the problem isn't that no one hears you crying. The problem is that you have nothing to support it.
If a sizable enough group exists for a specific, detailed feature set, bring them your data on it, because they evidently don't have the data that you do. I mean, seriously... a completely untapped and profitable market? Any dev would jump on that!
As I said before your logic would be sound but we all know that the elephant in the room is World of Warcraft. You could likely come up with data that shows a sizeable group wants to play a UO style game or a EQ styled game. They still do not compare to the data by looking at the 12 million subscribers WoW brought in. I think by the design choices and the continued squeezing of that demographic despite not individually greatly out performing older games in their prime if not worst retention.
By your logic, no one would open a sushi restaurant because a fast food place would make more money. That aside, businesses deal in real numbers so, as I said, you need to bring them real numbers because what you're pitching here evidently doesn't match what they have.
Your 'elephant in the room' is only there for the people here that have no business sense and who are transferring that same lack of understanding of how businesses work onto developers and publishers. It's 2013. No one is trying to be the next WoW when it comes to making an MMORPG. If they're shooting for Top Three in any category, they're chasing the MOBA and TCG crowd now. There's no dev out there that is trying to make a "WoW killer" or even trying to come remotely close to its numbers with an MMORPG, no matter how much you want to insist that's their goal. Almost every one of them abandoned that idea back in 2008-2009 when it became obvious that your average NA/EU MMORPG is going to sustain about 50-250k subscribers. NO ONE is building for a million+ subscriber MMORPG. Yes, they will sell 700k or whatever boxes at release, but they know damn well Day 91 is not going to look that pretty.
How many people are playing EQ and Vanguard right now? Of the people that aren't playing those, are they all for the same reason? See, that's where you really need to take a step back and consider how small the numbers may be. Look at these three questions:
Do you want an Old School MMO?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling and mob camping?
Do you want long travel times, slow leveling, mob camping, no minimap, no quest indicators and harsh death penalty?
On that first one, you'll probably find a lot of "Hell yeah!'s. What about the second? Or the third?
I'm sure you could poll plenty of forums and do grass roots surveys to find tens of thousands of people who will say yes to the first one. But once you get more detailed, more granular... well, that's the task ahead of you. Yes, you. You and anyone else that feels the dev are blind to some hidden, unserved niche.
This mystery, disenfranchised segment isn't playing the old school games, and they don't seem to be on the forums anywhere. You've got your work cut out for you. When CoH closed down, there was evidence of thousands, even tens of thousands, of CoH fans - people that wanted that specific game and that specific feature set. Have you ever seen more than a couple dozen rally behind any one old school feature set? Again, if so, show the devs your numbers, because they don't have the info that you do.
My logic is perfectly sound. Show them the data and they'll listen. A completely untapped, profitable segment of any market is a goldmine waiting to happen.
It's amazing how much you guys will try to find a way around the simple truth that the market looks the way it does because WoW altered it greatly, NOT because there isn't enough demand for these games.
EvE on paper fits many of the descriptions we ask for. Not only that, it's incredibly hard to get into and the mechanics are not intuitive at all. Yet it's a major success and has been for a long time. Why does it exist?
I find this last question very funny....considering who you asked it to.
I am sorry that I don't buy that ALL MMORPG players want to play a very narrow style of MMORPG, quest hub themepark. and no other type of game can be successful. But the data I am using is subscriptions. There isn't a lot of evidence that outside of extreme spikes and drops that these quest hub themepark games are out performing.
The thing about "Old School" set of features is there was diversity. Are you talking about UO/SWG sandbox, DAoC RvR or EQ's group heavy content or even EvE space Sci-fi type game?
At no point did I say all MMORPG players want a very narrow style of MMORPG or that no other type of game can be successful. Instead of replying to what I presented, your answer is a snarky "I'm sorry that..." strawman.
You don't see how you're making it rather difficult to have a constructive discussion here?
On a related note, your end question is exactly what you should be asking yourself before you venture out on that survey campaign.
But the implication is that there is no viable market outside of themepark quest hubs. I think your game kind of proves that its not. I'm not trying to be snarky. I'm just trying to state that it is hard sell to those who want other things, no matter what metrics and internal polling may say.
For God's sake when are people going to realize that Developers and Publishers are not the same f***ing thing?
Developers have had their balls in a vice when it comes to making games for a decade. Developers do not fund their own games 90% of the time. And because Developers do not fund their own games, they do not get to choose what games they make. They have had no choice in the matter of creating an old-school MMO. None! Nada!
Why has crowd-funding and Kickstarter become so popular recently? Because customers AND Developers are fighting back against Publishers. Studios are sick and tired of being told what to do and how to do it by institutions only interested in turning massive profits. Developers are turning directly to gamers to get the games they want to make completed because they can't get funds from Publishers when it's not a guaranteed 100 million dollar profit margin.
So no, we don't need to convince Developers to make the game we want. We have to convince them to ditch Publishers who refuse to make anything other than World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. Because I guarantee you that there are many Developers who would love to make an old-school MMO.
Please watch the following conferences and videos to understand what the hell is going on right now.
You have a lot of good points (and some really great links), however it's still up to the players that want a particular type of game to make the developers aware they exist.
I like the older JRPGs. I like the phased combat and the graphics style. There's possibly a lot of others here in NA that do, but since there's no real way to identify how many of us there are, other than JPRG sales here which are relatively low for most titles, it's highly unlikely that any dev is going to consider making one.
When we are avid fans of a niche design, we do need to convince the developers we are out there and we do need to show them our numbers, otherwise the games we want simply won't be made. Even when devs - garage, indie, publisher-backed or otherwise - take a risk on a new direction, they do so with some kind of data on the size of the audience (and thus, the amount of revenue) they are looking at. Taking a chance on the assumption that there might be people who want the product without any kind of numbers isn't risk - it's stupidity.
This reminds me I have to see how Legend of Grimrock 2 is coming along.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
You have a lot of good points (and some really great links), however it's still up to the players that want a particular type of game to make the developers aware they exist.
It's not exactly well received when we make our preferences known and clear.
Originally posted by PWN_FACE In response to your heading question of "Any way to appeal to a developer?" this should work: $$$
This.
Developers are beholden to Publishers. Publishers are (usually) beholden to Shareholders. Shareholders are beholden to profit margins.
That, and...
Most developers set out to make the game they want to play. It gets tempered by focus groups and whatever insistences the Publisher then requires of them (You need a cash shop, you need to add pvp, whatever).
If you want your game, you need to become a developer yourself. And be prepared to push back a lot against the guy paying your paycheck and funding your game, because they are going to have ideas of their own in order to "maximize revenue potential".
You have a lot of good points (and some really great links), however it's still up to the players that want a particular type of game to make the developers aware they exist.
It's not exactly well received when we make our preferences known and clear.
Doesn't help that those preferences are as different from one another as they are from the norm. Who is "we?" To say that mmorpg players are divided in their opinions is a massively multi-layer online understatement.
Comments
This is NOT true Everquest was not the most successful old school MMO. People always forget about this one but Lineage had over 2 million subs at its peak and so did Lineage II. Both Lineage games were wildly successful even by modern standards.
Lineage was the most most successful MMO before WoW and remains the second most second most successful MMO of all time. Lineage II is the third most successful MMO.
Just because most of the player base came from South Korea, Japan, and China doesn't change the fact Lineage was a massive success. Lineage II is still going strong today after ten years because it is one of the best games ever made. L2 has a massive seamless open world that is 5 times bigger than WoW. What made L2 a success was they threw the solo players a bone every once in a while. It wasn't completely old school. It was hybrid theme park sand box.
This is why most of the games worth looking forward to in the future are Korean such as Bless, Arch Age, and Black Desert. They are using Lineage as a model for future game development. The Western developer just can't seem to get the balance right between solo and group or balance casual with hard core. Western MMOs are either all or nothing. You either have super casual like WoW clones or super hard core like Mortal Online and Darkfall.
The way I see it you either have to convince them that they can make a shit-ton more money with the game you want them to make than what they're planning to make now *or* you convince them that what you want them to make is a hell of a lot cheaper than what they are making now and can still make a decent profit. Look at movies, if you make an arthouse movie for 2 million dollars and it brings in 20 million, that is worth it for a lot of studios to make even though 20 million dollars is a pretty niche market movie.
It won't have A-list actors or great special effects, but if you really want to see that movie get made so you can watch it you have to make some compromises.
So, unless you can somehow convince a big publisher that the market for your oldschool MMO idea is in the millions a lot of people will need to lower their expectations with regards to graphics and polish quite a bit. You have to find some way to keep costs down.
Absolutely true.
But each time one of those new games opens, it's instantly declared both niche and failure.
All that's really necessary is to pitch "AAA" as a requirement (of the players), and you can have any tiny title you want to have.
And cling to it, as fanboys always do, as the ultimate, perfect title that's just too hip cool and hard for the rest of the gaming world to appreciate. It's worked for Apple for 40 years.
But you could do that in any of the original turn of the century titles too, yar? Why insist upon a brand new game to do your living in the past?
All that's truly required is a game to declare your own, and a faceless herd (the rest of the market will do) to look down your nose at, hold oneself up as better than.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
You trolling bro? I got a GTX 460 laptop that runs most games at ultra, and yet I spend most of my time playing Everquest on a private server similar to 1999. Fact is, persistent worlds that cater to mature teenagers/adults is a thing of the past. We got sperglords like yourself saying the best games require a 2,000 computer where you get shinies on a rollercoaster type MMO. The biggest joke is games like NWN and RIft where there is no diversification or specilization. Everyone levels up in one starting area despite different races/classes, most things are instanced, and there is no depth behind any of the quests.
What games are you talking about though? Rift, Warhammer, Age of Conan all dropped sharply to sub 300k numbers after release by the chart. EQ2 never reached EQ 1 numbers. LoTRO spike with F2P then dropped the next year to sub 300k numbers. There some games missing Tera. But outside of SWTOR there doesn't seem to be that big a subscription base.
There are very few games that reach out of the 100s of thousands. WoW clones for the most part have significantly dropped or you could even say nose dived few months after release. If old school game of hundreds of thousands is niche is not a new school game of hundreds of thousands niche as well or did I miss something?
Not true at all. Generalization.
If you look at the movie forums and sports forums of the western countries you will see the same whiners.
It is actually the consumers from the Western Hemisphere are the most whiney brunch of little brats, regardless of what products/services it is
None of those new school games planned to be where they are though. They're all chasing WoW's market and tailored themselves to appeal to that market. They just failed. But, if you say "my game could maybe get as big as a game that's looked at as a F2P failure!" you're probably not going to convince publishers to throw big money at your game. Remember, even if you make a game with a market of millions, all of those millions aren't actually going to play your game. They're just potential customers. It's true that a niche game gets more of its potential market because of lack of competition but it still won't get 100%.
All those games you mentioned have the 50-500k subs that the old games reached. You even stated rift had 300k. Old good games reached 50-500k, new good games reach 50-500k. That is the target that developers should shoot for, and they are starting to realize that. None of this minimum of 500k to break even that swtor had, but a stretch goal of 500k that ff14 wanted is fine.
By your logic, no one would open a sushi restaurant because a fast food place would make more money. That aside, businesses deal in real numbers so, as I said, you need to bring them real numbers because what you're pitching here evidently doesn't match what they have.
Your 'elephant in the room' is only there for the people here that have no business sense and who are transferring that same lack of understanding of how businesses work onto developers and publishers. It's 2013. No one is trying to be the next WoW when it comes to making an MMORPG. If they're shooting for Top Three in any category, they're chasing the MOBA and TCG crowd now. There's no dev out there that is trying to make a "WoW killer" or even trying to come remotely close to its numbers with an MMORPG, no matter how much you want to insist that's their goal. Almost every one of them abandoned that idea back in 2008-2009 when it became obvious that your average NA/EU MMORPG is going to sustain about 50-250k subscribers. NO ONE is building for a million+ subscriber MMORPG. Yes, they will sell 700k or whatever boxes at release, but they know damn well Day 91 is not going to look that pretty.
How many people are playing EQ and Vanguard right now? Of the people that aren't playing those, are they all for the same reason? See, that's where you really need to take a step back and consider how small the numbers may be. Look at these three questions:
On that first one, you'll probably find a lot of "Hell yeah!'s. What about the second? Or the third?
I'm sure you could poll plenty of forums and do grass roots surveys to find tens of thousands of people who will say yes to the first one. But once you get more detailed, more granular... well, that's the task ahead of you. Yes, you. You and anyone else that feels the dev are blind to some hidden, unserved niche.
This mystery, disenfranchised segment isn't playing the old school games, and they don't seem to be on the forums anywhere. You've got your work cut out for you. When CoH closed down, there was evidence of thousands, even tens of thousands, of CoH fans - people that wanted that specific game and that specific feature set. Have you ever seen more than a couple dozen rally behind any one old school feature set? Again, if so, show the devs your numbers, because they don't have the info that you do.
My logic is perfectly sound. Show them the data and they'll listen. A completely untapped, profitable segment of any market is a goldmine waiting to happen.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
I am sorry that I don't buy that ALL MMORPG players want to play a very narrow style of MMORPG, quest hub themepark. and no other type of game can be successful. But the data I am using is subscriptions. There isn't a lot of evidence that outside of extreme spikes and drops that these quest hub themepark games are out performing.
The thing about "Old School" set of features is there was diversity. Are you talking about UO/SWG sandbox, DAoC RvR or EQ's group heavy content or even EvE space Sci-fi type game?
At no point did I say all MMORPG players want a very narrow style of MMORPG or that no other type of game can be successful. Instead of replying to what I presented, your answer is a snarky "I'm sorry that..." strawman.
You don't see how you're making it rather difficult to have a constructive discussion here?
On a related note, your end question is exactly what you should be asking yourself before you venture out on that survey campaign.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
It's amazing how much you guys will try to find a way around the simple truth that the market looks the way it does because WoW altered it greatly, NOT because there isn't enough demand for these games.
EvE on paper fits many of the descriptions we ask for. Not only that, it's incredibly hard to get into and the mechanics are not intuitive at all. Yet it's a major success and has been for a long time. Why does it exist?
Uh, but he works for CCP. I think he knows.
The demand is only theory on both ends. I believe there is a demand simply because it's unserved and refuse to believe that all MMORPG players are themepark quest hubbers.
havnt we been here before?
WoW brought in alot of blizzard fans people who before had nothing to do with MMO's
Also Blizzard did alot of advertising something old mmo's did not do. And word to mouth as vanila WoW was quite good did the rest.
so it brought in a ton. well it brought in the millions of people we have playing mmo's today.
and yes the old mmo's where also trying to tap into that market by wowifying themselves. hence breaking their own games.
For God's sake when are people going to realize that Developers and Publishers are not the same f***ing thing?
Developers have had their balls in a vice when it comes to making games for a decade. Developers do not fund their own games 90% of the time. And because Developers do not fund their own games, they do not get to choose what games they make. They have had no choice in the matter of creating an old-school MMO. None! Nada!
Why has crowd-funding and Kickstarter become so popular recently? Because customers AND Developers are fighting back against Publishers. Studios are sick and tired of being told what to do and how to do it by institutions only interested in turning massive profits. Developers are turning directly to gamers to get the games they want to make completed because they can't get funds from Publishers when it's not a guaranteed 100 million dollar profit margin.
So no, we don't need to convince Developers to make the game we want. We have to convince them to ditch Publishers who refuse to make anything other than World of Warcraft and Call of Duty. Because I guarantee you that there are many Developers who would love to make an old-school MMO.
Please watch the following conferences and videos to understand what the hell is going on right now.
2012-2013 References:
Brian Fargo formerly of Interplay
Chris Avellone of Obsidian
Chris Roberts formerly of EA and Origin
Pax Prime panel of developers
I find this last question very funny....considering who you asked it to.
If there was an old-time MMORPG that enough players "agreed with" for the design and features, numbers could be presented. I really do not see this scenario ever happening
What messes up number comparisons is that no one knows why players leave or stay with any MMO. Did EQ's numbers start falling because players went to WoW, or because they introduced WoW elements into EQ? Probably a bit of both, maybe even more to one side than the other.
Why did old MMOROG's populations start to drop? Did players get busy IRL? Did they find a better MMO? Did they get bored? There are many reasons why they may have stopped playing.
And the final kicker, how many old-time MMORPG players play new MMOs just to be in an MMO, therefor adding to the new MMO numbers, but not really finding the game they desire to play? Speaking only for myself, I have a lot of F2P new MMO accounts scattered about the the MMO industry. Even though I am not playing them, the accounts are there and being counted. I am one of 30 million players Wizard101 claims, even though I have not logged in about 2 years. MMO companies are not very open with their player numbers, especially F2P games with no monthly sub income to look at in financial reports.
While what you two are saying is true to some extent, it cannot be held up as "written in stone" as many like to make it out. There are too many assumptions for my taste to blindly the numbers (almost any numbers) presented.
If MMO publishers used numbers solely, they would have never worked on mass producing light bulbs, quite simply because, nobody bought them until they were made. I don't think hamburger ice cream would be good. Who knows, maybe there are millions of people out there wanting that specific item?
My point being, if publishers do not try the market, how can they be sure there is no market?
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
Well then he oughta know better.
But the implication is that there is no viable market outside of themepark quest hubs. I think your game kind of proves that its not. I'm not trying to be snarky. I'm just trying to state that it is hard sell to those who want other things, no matter what metrics and internal polling may say.
You have a lot of good points (and some really great links), however it's still up to the players that want a particular type of game to make the developers aware they exist.
I like the older JRPGs. I like the phased combat and the graphics style. There's possibly a lot of others here in NA that do, but since there's no real way to identify how many of us there are, other than JPRG sales here which are relatively low for most titles, it's highly unlikely that any dev is going to consider making one.
When we are avid fans of a niche design, we do need to convince the developers we are out there and we do need to show them our numbers, otherwise the games we want simply won't be made. Even when devs - garage, indie, publisher-backed or otherwise - take a risk on a new direction, they do so with some kind of data on the size of the audience (and thus, the amount of revenue) they are looking at. Taking a chance on the assumption that there might be people who want the product without any kind of numbers isn't risk - it's stupidity.
This reminds me I have to see how Legend of Grimrock 2 is coming along.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
It's not exactly well received when we make our preferences known and clear.
This.
Developers are beholden to Publishers. Publishers are (usually) beholden to Shareholders.
Shareholders are beholden to profit margins.
That, and...
Most developers set out to make the game they want to play. It gets tempered by focus groups and whatever insistences the Publisher then requires of them (You need a cash shop, you need to add pvp, whatever).
If you want your game, you need to become a developer yourself. And be prepared to push back a lot against the guy paying your paycheck and funding your game, because they are going to have ideas of their own in order to "maximize revenue potential".
It's not exactly well received when we make our preferences known and clear.
Doesn't help that those preferences are as different from one another as they are from the norm. Who is "we?" To say that mmorpg players are divided in their opinions is a massively multi-layer online understatement.http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs/PerfArt