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How do game companies get it so wrong?

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  • StoneRosesStoneRoses Member RarePosts: 1,771

    Originally posted by shinkan

    one reason they could miss so badly is because you have x number of million players and each one have their opinion of the perfect game and how it should be.

    They are catering to the right people, after all it is a business.

    MMORPGs aren't easy, You're just too PRO!
  • AlBQuirkyAlBQuirky Member EpicPosts: 7,432


    Originally posted by bunnyhopper
    Maybe the problem is they do survey people. Can you imagine if they did market research on this site, christ almighty the resultant game would be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

    ROTFLMAO

    - 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


  • HluillHluill Member UncommonPosts: 161

    Slowdoves, not sure if I understand your point at all, besides stating the obvious and acknowledged: "Companies are out to make money" fact.  This point we all understand.  Those who don't, live under a rock.

    I don't have issue with companies wanting to make money, I have issue with them setting the budget so high that they fail to truly invest in their product.  I have this issue with many of today's industries.  The stock holders and the board of directors take priority over the employees or the product.  As long as it makes money, it doesn't matter if it works.

    The problem with the "might makes right" stance is that might has several indexes of measurement, as does right.  

    TSW, LotRO, EQ2, SWTOR, GW2, V:SoH, Neverwinter, ArchAge, EQ, UO, DAoC, WAR, DDO, AoC, MO, BDO, SotA, B&S, ESO, 

  • ComafComaf Member UncommonPosts: 1,150

    Originally posted by Hluill

    Good post, thanks.

    I oversimplify the industry as a comparison between the big box store and the local hardware store.  I go to the big boxes all the time.  There I can buy groceries, ammo, shoes, movies and legos all in one stop.

    But I still go to the hardware store for specific needs.  No, it doesn't sell movies, has a limited shoe selection and its prices on ammo are five-dollars higher, but I can have a conversation with the owner about specific tools and projects.  I am paying for more than just an object.

    There are lots of big-box MMOs out there.  Seems that's the goal of most game companies.  If they can't get filthy rich off their product, then it isn't worth doing.  It's not enough just to stay in business and keep your family fed and sheltered.  They need to afford three cars and home-entertainment systems that rival movie theatres.  They need to live in homes that have extra rooms.

    I could rant that we are all slaves to media-driven consumerism and put Lenin and Mao to shame.

    My frustration with the gaming industry is that I can't find my product: no one is selling a pair of shoes that fits, neither the indies or the big boxes.  I can't find a good, local hardware store.  I am subscribing to a couple of themeparks, but they start to frustrate me in cycles.  I tried a few sandboxes but got tired of having sand constantly kicked in my face.

    I am better off logging out and going for a run with my dog.

    You said it better than I ever could.  Thank you!  /salute

    image
  • ComafComaf Member UncommonPosts: 1,150

    Originally posted by Antarious

    Originally posted by Comaf

    Eq/Dark Age of Camelot's immersive quality, the very reason so many gamers have these intense memories that make them dream of the old gaming days, in no way can be compared to PONG lol. 

     

    What you have done is looked at the cosmetic.  You see pong, which promoted part of the video game industry, and then it's final successor, Virtual Tennis, and said, "look, Pong was good in its time, but this is where it's at now..."

     

    That is a different argument.  I am pointing out beyond the purely cosmetic and looking at the depth of the product itself.  Pong had nearly 0 depth due to programming constraints of the period.  Everquest, Ultima, Dark Age, Asheron's Call, were epic in proportion when you compare them to the crap on the shelf we have now. 

     

    And if you want to go for programming potential, SW:ToR is slaughtered by games made in Korea that I can't even pronounce.  So we are not talking about a simple format that birthed an industry, i.e, PONG, we are talkiing about massively multi player in depth gaming, and trying to see a solution to the failure of the industry to continue from that level of quality.

     

     

    There is a very odd perception issue with a lot of people (not the person I'm quoting).

     

    One of the responses I see the most when people talk about the decline of MMO's is "easy mode" gaming.   That perception is entirely wrong...   Even if you accept it as true there is no reason for the quality of that product to be as bad as it is.   Just because I make it easier for you to do something does not mean by default the game is crap.   Its just an easier version.

     

    If you look at a game like Ultima Online or EQ in comparison to a modern MMO you will see a lot less of everything. (in the "modern" MMO)

     

    However, what will stand out the most is how ugly those games are.  (big UO fan here by the way).

     

    So that gives people the idea it was easier to make those games.   It is actually much easier to design a "modern MMO".   The tools we have available now either eclipse any previous tool or there was nothing comparable then.

     

    That goes from the artist right down to the programmer.  

     

    To me the largest problem is you take that "easy mode gaming" phrase and turn it into "easy mode development".

     

    Point being they remove as much as they think they can get away with and cut as many corners as they think they can... so they can ship something as soon as possible.

     

    Just because you make encounters "easier" or make it so I can solo most things.. should not by default mean that all options for character advancement are largely taken away... that class choice is largely non existant or that all classes start to become the same.   Some of the most complex games with great depth were designed for a single player audience.. there is absolutely no reason an MMO designed to be "easy mode" cannot have depth and complexity.  

     

    I just wish people would stop trying to blame other "customers" or gamers.. for things that should be put directly on developers.

     

    *edit*  To be honest I think the main reason for givng the least possible is current companies have a very dificult time fixing things that go wrong.   So they need to keep it as simple as possible.   When you think how complex older games were and they had no other examples to look at... they just seemed to have people capable of doing much more.

     

    Perhaps a lot of it... comes down to the quality of talent available or people willing to work for what a development company pays.   In the older days there may have been a much higher factor of people who just liked programming/art and wanted to make a game... where income wasn't high on their list of important things.   /shrug

    Excellent post.  I wish there was a way to solve the problem. 

     

    Perhaps there is a lack of talent in the industry.  The question then is, where has the previous talent gone?  In the case of Electronic Arts, when they bought Mythic Entertainment, they did so (or so I believed at the time) because they had faith in the Dark Age of Camelot concept of game design.  So when they made out their contracts with Games Workshop and built Warhammer, they not only had one of the best lore products behind them on paper (i.e., Warhammer fantasy battle and miniature gaming), but they had arguably one of the best if not the only advanced player vs player vs player mmorpg on the market.  I say most advanced not because only because I enjoyed it so much, but because even if you hated RvRvR in Dark Age, you had to admit there has not been anything as technically advanced between unique races and cultures since.

     

    Anyway, perhaps this level of complexity is just impossible now.  As I mentioned above, Warhammer was built and sold on a model of pvp that existed in Dark Age of Camelot, and yet, in some form of strange decision making, was not brought up to standards in Warhammer (they only had 2 factions, as opposed to three, which was at least 50% of the reason as to why RvRvR or realm vs realm worked in the first place).  Secondly, Warhammer made the fault of most mmorpgs these days, and they mirrored the classes as best as they could (kudos to them for making a small attempt at diversity but a Magus was not that much different from an Engineer...).

     

    I am digressing.  I agree that it is complex to make a solid, immersive mmorpg.  I agree that you are 100% right in that it's all about the bottom dollar and there is NO incentive to construct a work of art in an mmorpg if only a small audience can appreciate it.

     

    It's a shame, and I really don't know what the answer is.  I suppose all we can really hope for (if 38 Studios falls into the trap of corporate greed over creativity when they fashion their mmo) is that an independent, wealthy patron who loved some of the old games of the genre, invests in something independently, with perhaps no more financial interest than in making the product at least pay for itself.  This man would have to have around 50-100 million dollars if he is hiring a team to build an independent engine and planning to market a game (marketing for Warhammer was 30 million dollars in the first three months).  38 studios started with 75 million dollars (that they announced at least), so you can already see why they needed to invest in an RPG first before attempting to build an mmorpg according to modern expectations.

     

    If they fail, however, it will have to be that independent developer with a lot of personal assets (think Richard Allen Garriott  aka Lord British).  I wish I were that man, because I would gladly invest my own currency in order to create something great and bring something fantastic to the industry. 

     

    People can have their plastic mmorpgs with cosmetic races and instanced BGs.  God knows those games are defended enough and played enough by folks who love them, but those are the same folks who will jump ship as soon as the next copy paste releases (think SW:ToR and what will happen when GW2 releases). 

    image
  • ComafComaf Member UncommonPosts: 1,150

    Originally posted by shinkan

    one reason they could miss so badly is because you have x number of million players and each one have their opinion of the perfect game and how it should be.

    That's an age old defense for why we allow mediocrity.  A lot of folks have an opinion on how a movie should be made as well, but you sure as hell know the difference in quality between THE LORD OF THE RINGS, and Pokemon the Movie.

     

    Two-faction, blue team vs red team pvp games that are tauted as epic while running a Huttball across a field of lego looking environments needs to end.

     

    It's time for a quality, immersive mmorpg.  Folks who don't want that for whatever reason, folks who naysay the qualityh of EQ, Ultima, Shadowbane, Asheron's Call, Anarchy Online, and Dark Age of Camelot, will have a plethora of games to choose from on the shelf at Best Buy.

     

    I am merely stating that it's time the population with higher expectations and a desire for a challenge are alloted ONE mmorpg. 

     

    Thank you.

    image
  • LidaneLidane Member CommonPosts: 2,300

    Originally posted by bunnyhopper

    Maybe the problem is they do survey people. Can you imagine if they did market research on this site, christ almighty the resultant game would be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

    What? You don't want a huge sandbox with high res graphics that only 1000 people could easily run on their machine, and which is totally dynamic, which means that the only people who will ever see the game as the developers intended are the first people to ever play the game?

  • ClerigoClerigo Member UncommonPosts: 400

    "Paranoids, Matrix Blaster, Vice Squad, a whole slew of them. I was this close to starting my own little enterprise, man. But enter another software engineer. Not so young, not so bright, but very very sneaky. Ed Dillinger. So one night, our boy Flynn, he goes to his terminal, tries to read up his file. I get nothing on there, it's a big blank. Okay, now we take you three months later. Dillinger presents Encom with five video games, that's HE'S invented. The slime didn't even change the names, man! He gets a big, fat promotion. And thus begins his meteoric rise to - -what is he now? Executive VP?"

    Kevin Flynn - Tron

  • allegriaallegria Member CommonPosts: 682

    Originally posted by rutaq

    The big issue is that game companies are trying remake other MMOs.

      What they need to do is have a clear vision of what THEY want to make, the vision should have clear goals and specific ideas, not the jumbled a something for everyone approach.  Then each MMO ,  "love or Leave it",  will have it's own soul, its own play style, it's own objectives.   Players will gravitate to the MMO they like, rather than the entire community being forced to play the same old game and fighting with each other about how the opposed playstyles (pve vs. pvp) (solo vs. group) (casual vs. hardcore) (themepark vs sandbox) (crafting vs killing) are ruinning their MMO.

     

    Imagine if a company followed Cryptic with thier 1.5 - 2 year MMO dev model but instead fthey had a vision to make say... a community world building game.  The vision focuced on:  Sandbox, World building, Exploring, and crafting.  They would have a stable game with a unique playstyle that wouldn't worry that there wasn't any end game raids, no PvP, no PvE.  Insead they would build around what thier ( Sandbox, World building, Exploring, and crafting) players wanted.   

    With the cheap game engines out there and the cheap hardware,  it can be profitable to run a small MMO with less than 30,000 subs.  A nice niche like Eve started with that can grow and evolve and innvoate rather than copy and paste.

     

    They are copying WoW. Not in gameplay, because likely they would succeed... what they are doing is copying the fact that WOW  brought many a customer from other genres into a subscription model... which = $$$$$$$$$$$$$$. 

    Its not about innovation, risk or success based on that... it is about replicating a model that worked and frankly I wonder if even the companies/designers/publishers know why WoW was so successful based on the constant drivel they are releasing.

    Likely they don't they are just trying to imitate it ... and so often FAIL.

  • PTEDPTED Member Posts: 464

    What the market wants now, and what the market wants in 3-5 years when the game is done can be very different things.

  • RequiamerRequiamer Member Posts: 2,034

     






    Originally posted by PTED

    What the market wants now, and what the market wants in 3-5 years when the game is done can be very different things.



     

    Ye that's quiet right, but this kind of stuff like the market turned over in such a time frame really only happened once with Wow, and it was because of the internet growth. There is no other example of this kind of "the market change drastically during 5 year of development". And tbh here, if mmo company cannot predict something like what was the internet boom, i mean internet is like their first hand job, then they kind of deserve to fail. Because in 2k the internet boom was very predictable, but Soe and other totally overlooked it, not only that but when they realised what happpen they got so much offguard that they paniked like little kids, was quiet stupid. Blizz didn't, i'm personally sure they actuality worked actively with this factor in mind, but honestly when you see how much stuff they overlook when they make mmo, it's not strange.

  • Laughing-manLaughing-man Member RarePosts: 3,654

    UO, DAOC, PRE CU, PRE NGE, EQ, Miridan 59

    Ok now that you can tell I'm a hipster lets all hope my opinion has more weight to it right?

    This is how you guys all sound to me now...

    The sad thing is I played all these games, yet the people who claim to have done so now all make me sick with their claims of the good ol days and how everything use to be soo much better. 

    Game companies don't get it wrong.

    You are choosing to not be the target Audience. 

    So speak with your wallet and stop complaining about a product that is working as intended.  Sorry Apples aren't red enough for you, or oranges not orange enough.  Stop eatting apples and oranges.

     

    Thank you.

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403

    Originally posted by Laughing-man

    You are choosing to not be the target Audience.

    They get it wrong because we have a stubborn insistance that every game is one size fits all, that the "community" is one big unified identity that must be addressed.  (Instead of dozens of different agendas, often conflicting, taking place at the same time).

    Have you ever seen one assumption that is further from the truth?

    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.

  • Laughing-manLaughing-man Member RarePosts: 3,654

    Originally posted by Icewhite

    Originally posted by Laughing-man

    You are choosing to not be the target Audience.

    They get it wrong because we have a stubborn insistance that every game is one size fits all, that the "community" is one big unified identity that must be addressed.  (Instead of dozens of different agendas, often conflicting, taking place at the same time).

    Have you ever seen one assumption that is further from the truth?

    Again, if you don't like apples, why are you eatting them?

    why do you complain they taste "appleish?"

  • IcewhiteIcewhite Member Posts: 6,403

    Originally posted by Laughing-man

    Again, if you don't like apples, why are you eatting them?

    why do you complain they taste "appleish?"

    This "community" wants apples, oranges, pears, pommegranates, kiwi, breadfruit, passionfruit...

    Why are the kiwi lovers buying apples and complaining that they don't taste like kiwi?

    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.

  • BanaghranBanaghran Member Posts: 869

    Originally posted by Icewhite

    Originally posted by Laughing-man

    Again, if you don't like apples, why are you eatting them?

    why do you complain they taste "appleish?"

    This "community" wants apples, oranges, pears, pommegranates, kiwi, breadfruit, passionfruit...

    Why are the kiwi lovers buying apples and complaining that they don't taste like kiwi?

    More like we are buying fruit baskets, while we would get some kiwi in them in the past years, and very few people are hardcore kiwi lowers, we liked that there is other fruit, nowadays its all bananas, because its the most popular fruit (i read that somewhere).

    I mean, if it would be atleast true, that the banana fruit baskets are more succesful, we could say, alright, the customers have spoken, but they are not...

  • troublmakertroublmaker Member Posts: 337

    Originally posted by Onomas

    Take SWTOR for example. Its nothing more than KTOR console game which allows a handful of people to share an instance. Full of eye candy but none of the mmo features so many games have/had. They are charging 15/month to play KTOR online and there is nothing special about SWTOR. Just shocked how people can like dumbed down games, with no indepth gameplay, and the lack of features that should be there. Its new and has wonderful eye candy, but when that wears off, TOR will be just an average single player console game.

    Knights of the Old Republic was the third most popular game on the Xbox with only Morrowind and Halo beating it.  It was so popular it was released in a platinum edition because it was so popular.  Microsoft asked Bioware to release a sequel post haste and gave them a bonus if it was released on a specific deadline.  They released it and KOTOR 2 sold just as well as KOTOR.

    So how is it that you feel modeling the game as a KOTOR Online is a bad idea?  It is one of the most powerful franchises in gaming and it has shown this popularity with the largest MMO launch in history.

    You might not want a dumbed down game.  There are tones of games that are not dumbed down, none of them are MMOs.  MMOs need to be dumbed down because the complicated order of them come with the multiplayer.  If you want a hard game try out Super Meatboy its retardedly hard.  Maybe if you want a hard RPG try out Skyrim on the hardest difficulty.

    There is no such thing as a hard MMO, there never have been and never will be.  Each MMO has offered a couple of niches for skilled players but not much.

    If you want a super hard MMO.... you will always let yourself down.

    Just stop playing MMOs and start playing single player games.  I guarantee you that you will rage hard at how hard some of these non-MMO games are.

  • SuraknarSuraknar Member UncommonPosts: 852

    Originally posted by troublmaker

    Originally posted by Onomas


    Take SWTOR for example. Its nothing more than KTOR console game which allows a handful of people to share an instance. Full of eye candy but none of the mmo features so many games have/had. They are charging 15/month to play KTOR online and there is nothing special about SWTOR. Just shocked how people can like dumbed down games, with no indepth gameplay, and the lack of features that should be there. Its new and has wonderful eye candy, but when that wears off, TOR will be just an average single player console game.

    Knights of the Old Republic was the third most popular game on the Xbox with only Morrowind and Halo beating it.  It was so popular it was released in a platinum edition because it was so popular.  Microsoft asked Bioware to release a sequel post haste and gave them a bonus if it was released on a specific deadline.  They released it and KOTOR 2 sold just as well as KOTOR.

    So how is it that you feel modeling the game as a KOTOR Online is a bad idea?  It is one of the most powerful franchises in gaming and it has shown this popularity with the largest MMO launch in history.

    You might not want a dumbed down game.  There are tones of games that are not dumbed down, none of them are MMOs.  MMOs need to be dumbed down because the complicated order of them come with the multiplayer.  If you want a hard game try out Super Meatboy its retardedly hard.  Maybe if you want a hard RPG try out Skyrim on the hardest difficulty.

    There is no such thing as a hard MMO, there never have been and never will be.  Each MMO has offered a couple of niches for skilled players but not much.

    If you want a super hard MMO.... you will always let yourself down.

    Just stop playing MMOs and start playing single player games.  I guarantee you that you will rage hard at how hard some of these non-MMO games are.

    Because adding multiplayer function to KOTOR does not make it an MMORPG.

    - Duke Suraknar -
    Order of the Silver Star, OSS

    ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
  • jpnzjpnz Member Posts: 3,529

    Originally posted by Suraknar

     

    Because adding multiplayer function to KOTOR does not make it an MMORPG.

    It is posts like this that always confuses me.

    Why do you think your personal definition of 'what an MMORPG is' is the only one?

    Gdemami -
    Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.


  • Originally posted by jpnz

    Originally posted by Suraknar


     

    Because adding multiplayer function to KOTOR does not make it an MMORPG.

    It is posts like this that always confuses me.

    Why do you think your personal definition of 'what an MMORPG is' is the only one?

    Absolutely agreed. 

    As far a I am concerned a mmo is any game you're playing with a ton of other players, and that doesn't mean forced grouping either. There is absolutely nothing wrong playing primarily solo in a mmo if you so choose. There's nothing wrong with a preference for 5-10 man groups, and heck there's nothing wrong with raids either. It's when one of those groups make the others suffer that there's a problem, ala raiding and gear gating.

    Even though D2 (and soon to be D3) is technically not a mmo, I've always considered it more "massive" in terms of players than any mmo.  D3 is going to be even more massive as there are very few servers to support a larger market for the RMAH.  Compared to a mmo that shards people up into roughly 30k groups (or shards of shards like SWTOR or STO), a Diablo game feels like I'm playing in a much more robust mutliplayer environment despite the fact that it does not have an open world.

    Bottom line, if a person thinks they absolutely know what a mmo is, odds are they don't know much about mmos.  Because anyone who actually does know a lot about mmos knows that they can be very different, and that is not a bad thing.

  • fenistilfenistil Member Posts: 3,005

    Originally posted by zaxxon23

    Originally posted by jpnz


    Originally posted by Suraknar


     

    Because adding multiplayer function to KOTOR does not make it an MMORPG.

    It is posts like this that always confuses me.

    Why do you think your personal definition of 'what an MMORPG is' is the only one?

    Absolutely agreed. 

    As far a I am concerned a mmo is any game you're playing with a ton of other players, and that doesn't mean forced grouping either. There is absolutely nothing wrong playing primarily solo in a mmo if you so choose. There's nothing wrong with a preference for 5-10 man groups, and heck there's nothing wrong with raids either. It's when one of those groups make the others suffer that there's a problem, ala raiding and gear gating.

    Even though D2 (and soon to be D3) is technically not a mmo, I've always considered it more "massive" in terms of players than any mmo.  D3 is going to be even more massive as there are very few servers to support a larger market for the RMAH.  Compared to a mmo that shards people up into roughly 30k groups (or shards of shards like SWTOR or STO), a Diablo game feels like I'm playing in a much more robust mutliplayer environment despite the fact that it does not have an open world.

    Bottom line, if a person thinks they absolutely know what a mmo is, odds are they don't know much about mmos.  Because anyone who actually does know a lot about mmos knows that they can be very different, and that is not a bad thing.

    In this case we just would need new term for seamless, persistant game worlds.

    Cause Diablo is not more of an MMO than for example Call of Duty is.


  • Originally posted by fenistil

    Cause Diablo is not more of an MMO than for example Call of Duty is.

    Don't know how anyone could say this with a straight face, but I'm not going to try and convince you.  That's a waste of our time.

  • SuraknarSuraknar Member UncommonPosts: 852

    Originally posted by jpnz

    Originally posted by Suraknar


     

    Because adding multiplayer function to KOTOR does not make it an MMORPG.

    It is posts like this that always confuses me.

    Why do you think your personal definition of 'what an MMORPG is' is the only one?

    Confusing you is not my intent, but if I start explaining where I come from with that you will probably find my post too long and not even read it which would be a waste of my time too. So these days, I content myself to post mainly one liners, up to you to find out the meanings since you want to re-invent the wheel. All I can say is that i been around for a long time playing these games, and I think that does intiotle me to have a very good grasp of what an MMORPG's definition is.

    - Duke Suraknar -
    Order of the Silver Star, OSS

    ESKA, Playing MMORPG's since Ultima Online 1997 - Order of the Silver Serpent, Atlantic Shard
  • BossalinieBossalinie Member UncommonPosts: 724

    Originally posted by Lidane

    Originally posted by bunnyhopper

    Maybe the problem is they do survey people. Can you imagine if they did market research on this site, christ almighty the resultant game would be a clusterfuck of epic proportions.

    What? You don't want a huge sandbox with high res graphics that only 1000 people could easily run on their machine, and which is totally dynamic, which means that the only people who will ever see the game as the developers intended are the first people to ever play the game?

     Heh, there is not enough time in the day to tell you how awesome you are.

    Between the 100 regular posters on this board voicing that gaming companies are not doing it right, there are 99 different ideas of the perfect MMO. Yet people, people still refer the crew as 'we,' when you actually have less in common than you realize.  It makes you wonder why developers should even listen to MMORPG pros.

    Developers do not have it wrong, they just know better that to target an already small audience who think they are 'One and united,' yet have very different ideas.

  • LeetheLeethe Member UncommonPosts: 893

    Sorry to be the the "only reads the OP" poster but...

    CO and STO both suffer from from one major concept failure: Both games lack scale.

    Let me explain. I'll use CO as an example. In this game we have a varied powerset that can be configured to interact with powers from different trees in many ways. We have a character creator that let's the imagination run wild. What we don't have is a world big enough and detailed enough to justify the complexity of the abilities we have. Both games need a space/mob/content increase by a factor of 4. This isn't a matter of intension but time. As another poster said, The games were developed according to Atari's busted ass McFactory schedule and clearly could have used an additional 18 months of developement. What folks here should find interesting is that SOE spent even more money on DCUO and that went F2P even faster than Champions Online

    While the pen and paper adaptation that is CO is a pretty unknown body of lore, the same cannot be said for DCUO and STO. Both IPs are huge and both game developers were relying on their IP's momentum to carry the game. DCUO even had VO.  DCUO's failure was to call it an MMO at all when it was clearly a console game button mash extravaganza. It's different and there is nothing wrong with that but it won't work when the PC users expect a fully stocked MMO.

    This brings us to nicely to Tor, another big IP game which I'll talk about since I'm playing it. ToR made the mistake of thinking that the SW IP was enough to make old MMO mechanics feel new. The story is new and as my first Bioware game, I'm truely impressed. Haven't we all been going on for ages about how much we wanted a story driven MMO? Bioware listened and delivered story with a capital "S". Unfortunately we were also expecting a new MMO and you cannot deny that if you peel back the assets and the copy, you have a pretty standard MMO underneath. More similar to CoH than WoW in my opinion but standard none the less (I only played WoW for my 14 day trial and CoH for 6 years).

    Why do they keep getting it wrong? They just keep getting different parts of the whole wrong. For a genre that has only been around for as little time as it has, it's doing pretty well.  It's like assembling your hypothetical perfect mate. Some what more brains than body. Some want a pervert and a chef. Most want a combination of everything but hope that the good bits outweigh the bad ones and you can get on for a while. We're all digital divorcees of one variety or another and everytime we dip our feet into the single scene we come back with a slightly more hardened view of what will make us happy. That's why we sleep around. At CO's house I can get classless creativity. Over at ToR's place it's a sweet and tender story and over at Borderlands I know I can get it hard, fast, don't have to stay the night or call the next day.

     

    There is NO miracle patch.

    95% of what you see in beta won't change by launch.

    Hope is not a stategy.
    ______________________________
    "This kind of topic is like one of those little cartoon boxes held up by a stick on a string, with a piece of meat under it. In other words, bait."

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