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Is true that there isn't enough pvpers in the whole world to sustain a big budget OW PVP mmo?
maccarthur2004
Member UncommonPosts: 511
This is repeated constantly in every discussion about ow pvp, so i want to make a specific thread to discuss that question.
Is really true that there isn't enough fans of ow pvp in the world to sustain and give profit to a big budget MMO?
is there any evidence to that statement?
Comments
No, it's not true.
The problem with anything called a 'pvp mmo' is that you still default to pve to level up. Most games that are all about pvp are actually all about pve until you hit some magical level where you completely change directions.
What makes it really hard is finding out how to engage players in pve content so they can level in a game focused on pvp. If the game is open world pvp and people keep getting ganked, that's a real aggravation.
I played a really fun pvp game once where the maps had a level cap instead of a level minimum. You could go anywhere you wanted at level 1, but it closed maps off at 30, 50, 70, 90 ,110 until all you had left were about 7 really huge maps at 180.
This game was written in such a way to be player skill and twitch reaction enough to let a level 120 potentially beat a really bad 180. So a 30 could take a 49 if he was really good or geared. It made for consistent pvp fun throughout the leveling experience. Of course you got ganked.... you also did a lot of ganking, it was amazingly fun.
Ganking has become such a bad word that developers avoid creating a situation where it can be used. They want to make games like magical care-bear island online, not respawn at the graveyard of death online.
I doubt if that is true.
I believe the problem arises in that developers don't want to alienate the larger playerbase. They try to appeal to everybody and just end up appealing to no one.
I think there would be room for a niche game with meaningful open world pvp. I just don't think it would be the blockbuster that every developer is trying to make.
Darkfall, mortal online, xsyon; these are few of those OW PvP games currently played by OW PvP crowd. considering how every one of those games report that they are losing money each quarter, you really don't need any other evidence.
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Lineage 1 and 2 had ow pvp and were a loud success. EvE is considered a success too, althought isn't a big budget mmo.
I dont spoke of UO, because people can argue that there were not options in its time.
These mmos you spoke are all indie products, the majority a bugfest. So, we can't say if their lack of success is specifically because their pvp ruleset.
I wonder if there is anything else those games have in common.
I wonder if there could be some other correlations.
hmm.
It is true that those games are indie project but each of those games have more player playing than current L2 or UO or DAoC or AC or AC2 or any other fan favorite pvp games. All of these games; their combined failure to keep a healthy population of players tell every publisher what they should never do with their mmorpg.
And L1 is still running in korea and L1 is the game that makes 65% of the profit NC East makes; not B&S or Aion.
AA was charging monthly sub in their beta run in korea and constant player drop took them to a point where 1st they had to drop subscription and go buy2play; then change their decision again to go f2p and finally make the game sandpark with less focus on OW PvP. It only takes a handful gankers, trolls and/or exploiters to ruin a OW PvP game but even thousands of exploiters can never kill a boring themepark game.
Now you take your money and see if you wanna make a pure OW PvP game.
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Seems so
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well designed games don't count.
PvP games realises on a lot of players activities, which is hard to predicted and control, and those doesn't goes well when you try to pitch the idea to the investors who want to make sure that they will get the money back + profits. So far, there still not enough market research that can fully proved that open world PvP game can be a success. There are too many variables to cause the game to fails, from the game design perspective up to the unwanted players interaction.
PvE on the other hand has structure. Players can login everyday and choose where they want to have fun, and they can have that because the game is already scripted to provide entertainment repeatedly to players, even when there are no other players around.
Until an indie open world PvP MMORPG can prove the world market that it too can be a gold mine, it just hard to see someone actually want to investing in developing a AAA open world PvP game which would normally take 4-5 years minimum of development cycle to complete.
Yeah, lets take bad games as example. Eve and GW2 have plenty of PvPers and they do well because they are well made.
MMO PvP do have some problems, that is true but it isn't because PvP in itself. The problem with the games you mentioned is that they are poorly made low budget indie game (even if Im not sure about Xsyon, never tried it).
There are other problems MMO PvP games face, most of them coming from bad mechanics made for PvE. Levels for example don't really work that well in PvP as they are made in most MMOs at least. The powergap between players just get so big that many fights are auto-win for one player no badly how bad he/she plays. The real problem isn't the levels in themselves but the huge powergap they make, turns off many players.
Another problem is that many games kinda miss a point to actually PvP and clear objectives for the players. Some games like DAoC nailed this though but most games just sets up 2 or more sides and say that the other side is evil, just go and kill them without any reasons, tactical objectives and in some cases not much of a reward either. Lineages focus on wars between bloodpledges/guilds were pretty good as well since you declared war on guilds that annoyed you.
But the biggest problem of most PvP MMOs that don't do well enough is that they aren't fun enough.
There are plenty of gamers that love PvP, just look on the hug FPS market. I don't buy that MMOers are just a bunch of carebears that have 90% PvEers since it is less personal. If 90% of all MMOers (made up number can be 80%, 95% or whatever) it is because most MMOs just don't make PvP good enough or because the best games are PvE focused.
Yes, but would not sustain big budget AAA MMORPG where 100+ millions dollars spent and need those investment return + profit within it first quarter year.
That is space sim and only proper(lots of freedom and adventure) space sim, so of course people would play it in numbers, come star citizen and elite dangerous the market for space sim will saturate. we will see what happens when they do come.
As for EVE being well designed, not sure how to respond. i was trying to watch the last big space battle on twitch; several streamers who were trying to join the event spent 30min to 1 hour in loading screen, i was hopping from one channel to another and it seemed those who managed to load map before the event began were the only people able to enjoy the event. and by enjoy i mean destroying ships that were still in loading; those who tried to join event later got creamed while they were in loading screen. if that is what goes for "well designed" then ok...
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It would be crazy if there was a company that started sort of small with just like 20 or so folks and a couple million dollars and then over the course of a decade and a half grew to a much larger entity with 15-20x that number of employees all on profits based pretty much on that one game with open pvp.
Until something like that happens though, we'll just have to wonder if its even possible.
To the guy above: No. I was talking about high level game design as in the spirit of the OP's topic. Not coding/network/bugs/technical issues.
Uhm, Arenanet started it with a handful of employees, a really small budget and have over 300 now. CCP did the same even if they are smaller unless you count the White wolf people who make pen and paper games which they have merged with.
It is possible.
GW2 is not OW PvP game.
EVE is space sim and the only proper space sim in market, there is no comparison between space sim market and hugely saturated mmorpg market. trying to compare EVE to mmorpg is a mistake.
And that fps comparison is also bonkers, different genre; different player base.
DAoC did things right, ok but how many people play daoc now? read a few post above yours and see what i wrote there.
Boobs are LIFE, Boobs are LOVE, Boobs are JUSTICE, Boobs are mankind's HOPES and DREAMS. People who complain about boobs have lost their humanity.
"This is repeated constantly in every discussion about ow pvp"
No it's not.
"Is really true that there isn't enough fans of ow pvp in the world to sustain and give profit to a big budget MMO?"
Until you run some statistical studies your guess is as good as mine.
"is there any evidence to that statement?"
You have not provided a statement that requires validating.
Sadly the answer is a bit more complex than your passing observation. The Indie games you observed are all still running after many years so there must be money in OW PvP and you neglected to mention the oldest and most successful, EVE. It is difficult to predict the number of OW PvP players based on the amount of money the mentioned games generate.
1. Tough to count the OW PvP players becuase they are spread all over the place.
The OW PvP Audience is large but also has shades of gray across it from Hardcore PvP players that want no PvE just PvP all the time down to the casual PvP players that enjoy the more mature risk based environment but enjoy PvE as well. This large demographic is spread across many games and a large portion is lured to the compromised PvP offerings of the next new Themepark that comes along temping them with lots of PvP promises that are rarely delivered.
2. There must be a bunch of OW PvP players given the PvP being offered in almost every new MMO created, but again difficult to count.
The PvP market is obviously large. The greater majority of AAA titles includes PvP for a reason, there is alot of money out there in the PvP world but sadly they instead make a game that compromises and tries to meet the demands of PvP players and PvE players at the same time and that is how we come up with the mess we see today with games that have split personalities and conflicting interests.
The developers try to encapsulate PvE and PvP and then struggle with the content demands to keep both fresh and the nightmare of the rules systems to try to keep the game styles from competing against each other.
3. Sustainable is different than millions of players.
If you check out Gamasutra and other game industry site you can find articles that talk about minimum player bases for a sustainable MMO. the most recent discussion was from Brad McQuaid about his dream MMO, Pantheon, puts population at 30,000 subscribers to keep the MMO healthy.
Given the millions of MMO players and the large group of them that enjoy PvP, it is likely that you could sustain the estimated 30,000 subscribers for a well made Open World PvP MMO.
Eastern developers are making AAA pvp focused mmos right and left, big budget aswell. Their budget goes into systems and system development though. In the west that money goes into graphics and voice overs.
I don't think there is enough tech to make a game to please the american texture snobs and can fit more than 100 people on the screen at once.
Age of Wushu +15 million playing right now.
Sure, if you count multi-boxing PVP with 5 or more accounts.
Honestly, EVE has to be one of the worst examples of a good PVP MMORPG.
(Not to say it's not a good game but it's not a good example for MMORPGS)