After BioWare's SWTOR F2P model, Sony is actually looking pretty good. A new EverQuest game is a must-try for me, anyway, unless of course it looks like it's turning out horrendously. But we'll just have to wait for some real info and gameplay footage.
It's true, however, that content in the current model of MMO is eaten up at a crazy rate. GW2 comes the closest to removing this problem by making a lot of the content repeatable with scaling rewards... but people really don't want to run the same stuff over and over and over.
The only time I go back to old stuff is if I want to grind a bit to gain a level or two before moving on to harder stuff, or if I have a friend leveling a new character. In the end, people still complain about a lack of content very quickly -- as in NEW content. Repeatable events don't seem to be a prolonged entertainment for a lot of people.
I'm curious as to what is planned for EQ2 to alleviate the content locust issue. But my hopes aren't gonna be raised too much at this point.
I don't see how players "eating up" the content quickly, while developers endlessly make more, is a bad thing... It certainly works, as all of the most popular games do it. People like to bitch about it on forums, yet these are the only games the bitchers are actually playing.
I must be crazy out of touch to think this sandbox idea is DOA... Player made quests are asinine... Player made dungeons are uncreative and completely unimmersive; they have these in EQ2 and they are the stupidest addition I've ever seen. If players are making the cities, quests, dungeons, equipment... wtf is the point of the game?
Like I said before, it just sounds like Farmville... I'm a powerful gnome wizard named Finkle Krinkton, able to slay werewolves and dragons; but first I have to maintain my garden, put up that new fence around my house, hire Lukus Winterfall, the wood elf druid to babysit my kids, while I go to my day job as an accountant for Qeynos Mutual. THIS SOUNDS AWFUL! THIS IS NOT A GAME, THIS IS WORK!
I don't see how players "eating up" the content quickly, while developers endlessly make more, is a bad thing... It certainly works, as all of the most popular games do it. People like to bitch about it on forums, yet these are the only games the bitchers are actually playing.
I must be crazy out of touch to think this sandbox idea is DOA... Player made quests are asinine... Player made dungeons are uncreative and completely unimmersive; they have these in EQ2 and they are the stupidest addition I've ever seen. If players are making the cities, quests, dungeons, equipment... wtf is the point of the game?
Like I said before, it just sounds like Farmville... I'm a powerful gnome wizard named Finkle Krinkton, able to slay werewolves and dragons; but first I have to maintain my garden, put up that new fence around my house, hire Lukus Winterfall, the wood elf druid to babysit my kids, while I go to my day job as an accountant for Qeynos Mutual. THIS SOUNDS AWFUL! THIS IS NOT A GAME, THIS IS WORK!
^^^ never played a sandbox
You entire statement is bogus and your opinion.
When you wrote the red part i just laughed. Thats what sandboxes are about lol. And ill bet you a million dollars ill have more fun every single day while you wait for more content
I've heard these promises from far better studios than SOE, and they failed to deliver, as well.
I'm not about to take Smed's word on not chasing WoW, since all SOEs games are catered to that gamestyle.
Everquest, Everquest 2 werent cattered to WOW and long time running with steady playerbase.
SWG wasnt chasing WOW and lasted 8+ years.
None of these games were cattered or wow clones. All came out before WOW.
PS2 seems to be doing well and is far from a wow clone. PS1 also didnt chase WOW.
SOE has more than one sandbox in production one is in closed beta as i type this.
Vanguard is not a wow clone, though a rocky start and neglect, still a decent game with great features. Just certain things killed it off, but again not a wow clone.
So over half of SOE games are taken off the target board............
I do believe SOE learned its lesson. And many other dev teams are not following WOW any longer. Hence the 15+ sandboxes coming out within the next 1-3 years. Not everything is about wow, and things will change soon. Glad someone is atleast making an attempt.
I would not blame Smedley. Many of the problems with current MMO come from gamers themselves, to wit:
- people lack patience and desire to expend effort = games cater to easy and quick gratification
- player freedom hampered by population of griefer morons who destroy any space for freedom = theme parks
The MMO developers have been giving people what they want, which is a steady diet of twinkies and ho-ho's so they can keep their sugar levels high.
The only reason it is changing now is human psychology. Having stuffed themselves with candy for years without having to get off the couch, people are now realizing what an empty hollow experience that is. There is a renewed craving for challenge.
I like what Smedley is saying, but I don't want to put too much stock in it until there's something on the table to back it up. SWG PreCU is proof enough that they know the recipe of mechanics, systems and gameplay that make a great sandbox, but I can't see a great sandbox living up to its full potential in a F2P model. Maybe with a low sub fee and a shop with items similar to the cosmetic TCG stuff they could find a good middleground to capture both the F2P & P2P players. Personally, I'd be more than happy & willing to pay a sub for a polished game that has sustainable rather than consumable content.
I don't see how players "eating up" the content quickly, while developers endlessly make more, is a bad thing... It certainly works, as all of the most popular games do it. ...
The problem is not that the mainstream players don't like the approach - they like it. The problem is that it costs more money to develop the content than what the mainstream players are willing to pay for it. It's not viable financially.
Most (maybe all) big recent games are underperforming from a financial point-of-view: SWTOR, TSW and GW2 all earned less money than was expected by the business men. Sure, millions of mainstream players buy them - but those people dont stay long enough with a game before they hop to the next big thing.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
I don't see how players "eating up" the content quickly, while developers endlessly make more, is a bad thing... It certainly works, as all of the most popular games do it. People like to bitch about it on forums, yet these are the only games the bitchers are actually playing.
I must be crazy out of touch to think this sandbox idea is DOA... Player made quests are asinine... Player made dungeons are uncreative and completely unimmersive; they have these in EQ2 and they are the stupidest addition I've ever seen. If players are making the cities, quests, dungeons, equipment... wtf is the point of the game?
Like I said before, it just sounds like Farmville... I'm a powerful gnome wizard named Finkle Krinkton, able to slay werewolves and dragons; but first I have to maintain my garden, put up that new fence around my house, hire Lukus Winterfall, the wood elf druid to babysit my kids, while I go to my day job as an accountant for Qeynos Mutual. THIS SOUNDS AWFUL! THIS IS NOT A GAME, THIS IS WORK!
^^^ never played a sandbox
You entire statement is bogus and your opinion.
When you wrote the red part i just laughed. Thats what sandboxes are about lol. And ill bet you a million dollars ill have more fun every single day while you wait for more content
So... I don't know what I'm talking about, yet I'm exactly right... Got it!
They seem to be going back to there roots with this one look like there taking alot of the core features from Everquest 1 and updating thema nd adding more features to it aswell, you will probaly see racial cities for each race, there will probaly be open world raid, there also a good chance of trains coming back (one of the things i acualy miss cause it can throw a spanner in the works of routine farming) there also rumors of hardcore servers and normal servers (hardcore may get corpse runs back)
Yeeesh some people are really freaking bitter. Don't get me wrong, you have ever right to be bitter with several of the MMOs being....meh 2 month lasting games generally and failed hopes on any given mmo.
Still though, I try to at least hold my judgement on the game being an utter failure until I at least see a screenshot or a video. More often I try to see if I can see beta videos or get in beta itself before I judge if the game is......short term rather then long term. So I hope Smed is right, and that they're really making an MMO that actually has an adventure feel to it like the first one did. I'm not going to hype myself into thinking this one will, though I'm not going to go LAWL THE GAMES A FAILURE! Before I've seen a single video of it.
Also, of course this game will never be like the original EverQuest for me. It was the first time playing a game like it(MMO) and so that feel is gone. Also there will be a ton of data out on the game, whereas with the first it was more niche....plus kinda hard to pull up a webpage AND play the game on a 56k modem lol. Still maybe they can, not going to count on it happening, but I'm also not going to disregard any possibility of it having something click.
This clown Smedley has no credentials to give any type of advice to anyone. The idiot is totally clueless when it comes to MMO's.
In fact, under his leadership, what MMO has done well? None! If anything, SoE has a huge stable of games and they've all failed. As long as Smedley continues to work for SoE, they will never have any game worth playing.
I don't see how players "eating up" the content quickly, while developers endlessly make more, is a bad thing... It certainly works, as all of the most popular games do it.
Uhhh, it doesn't work actually. That's why all the AAA MMOs of the last 8 years have crashed and burned.
Originally posted by Caldrin Well after how well they have handled PS2 I am now looking forward to EQ:next quite a bit.. they have restored my faith in SOE.
They you don't know much about the gaming world. Only those who are new or don't really know anything about MMO's would say something as weird as this.
I have said it many times before, if Sony wants to get back on top in the mmo genre, they have got to fire smedley and get some one in there that actually can do the job. Until then, SOE will remain near the bottom of the pack in pretty much anything game related.
Aside from being released too early( I was in early beta for months, and many many of the more noticable bugs that the game released with were in the game 3 months prior to release, and the testers were trying tp bring them to deve attention)
Planetside has NO content at all asidefrom the typical FPS grind. With all the 2x XP days they keep doing, people are blowing through the levels and getting enough certs to buy anything they want.
Is PS2 fun as a FPS in concerned? Yes it is. Is it anything more then a FPS(depsite all the propaganda SOE tries to put out) Not even close. PS2 caters to the XP mongers you typically find in CoD and BF, and any shred of strategic gameplay goes out the window due to how easy it is to just pull whatever vehicle your empire needs (typically just 50 MBT's and a shit ton of liberators and ESF's) and roll with the zerg.
No one defends, as defence nets little to no XP gain compred to taking base after base with the zerg.
Continents are only taken by one empire(and thus netting a bonus) when that empire has 70+% of the population, and its grand game of musical chairs. When one empire moves in a ton of players ot a continent, the other two empires just leave to take a less populated continent, and this just goes back and forth. When you have a continent with 2 or 3 evenly populated teams, then you just get three giant zerg armies moving around the map dodging each other and taking territory that the enemy zerg just left.
And Smed is just making it worse. There is a lot more he could be doing to make the game better in its current state, namely better design of the bases(one reason no one defense, except for the few large facilites, bases are 100% undefensible, even if you have the superior numbers). Something could be done to limit the numbers of vehicles on the battlefield at one time. As it is, infantry engagements are few and far between, and anytime you get a fun infantry fight going, its not long before 30 tanks and 20 liberators roll up and just blow everyone to bits, and why.
But what IS smedley doing? well same thing as in beta. Ingoring glaring bugs that have been in the game since beta, swatting aside the majority of players calling for smarter base design and a better meta game, and just fluffing the in game store. Hey they are putting in another continent as well. The art director said the art team has no time to FIX the bases that the vast majority of the players say are broken, because their priority is to put in another continent...you know, as it is, most players will avoid the populated continents so they can easily take base after base on underpopulated continents(taking a base is the fastest way to net XP if you can do it quickly). So a fourth continent will just mean yet anothet empty space barren of conflict that players can take bases at without having to fight. Oh and that says nothing that this fourth base will guess what, have the same broken base designs that the other three already have.
BUT...having a fourth continent will make the advertisments look better...
There is also almost no infantry gameplay when it comes to large battles. Infantry are not even needed to take a base. All you need is to get a few tanks or liberators in range of the small outhouse spawn rooms, and camp the two doors that defenders need to get out. And bam, you just took the base. All that is needed is one single infantry to come in, without fear of dying, and stand next to the capture point. There are a few bases like tech plants and biodomes that are mostly infantry engagements, but these usually turn into giant camp fests where the defenders will just farm XP of the attackers.
Comments
After BioWare's SWTOR F2P model, Sony is actually looking pretty good. A new EverQuest game is a must-try for me, anyway, unless of course it looks like it's turning out horrendously. But we'll just have to wait for some real info and gameplay footage.
It's true, however, that content in the current model of MMO is eaten up at a crazy rate. GW2 comes the closest to removing this problem by making a lot of the content repeatable with scaling rewards... but people really don't want to run the same stuff over and over and over.
The only time I go back to old stuff is if I want to grind a bit to gain a level or two before moving on to harder stuff, or if I have a friend leveling a new character. In the end, people still complain about a lack of content very quickly -- as in NEW content. Repeatable events don't seem to be a prolonged entertainment for a lot of people.
I'm curious as to what is planned for EQ2 to alleviate the content locust issue. But my hopes aren't gonna be raised too much at this point.
I don't see how players "eating up" the content quickly, while developers endlessly make more, is a bad thing... It certainly works, as all of the most popular games do it. People like to bitch about it on forums, yet these are the only games the bitchers are actually playing.
I must be crazy out of touch to think this sandbox idea is DOA... Player made quests are asinine... Player made dungeons are uncreative and completely unimmersive; they have these in EQ2 and they are the stupidest addition I've ever seen. If players are making the cities, quests, dungeons, equipment... wtf is the point of the game?
Like I said before, it just sounds like Farmville... I'm a powerful gnome wizard named Finkle Krinkton, able to slay werewolves and dragons; but first I have to maintain my garden, put up that new fence around my house, hire Lukus Winterfall, the wood elf druid to babysit my kids, while I go to my day job as an accountant for Qeynos Mutual. THIS SOUNDS AWFUL! THIS IS NOT A GAME, THIS IS WORK!
I've heard these promises from far better studios than SOE, and they failed to deliver, as well.
I'm not about to take Smed's word on not chasing WoW, since all SOEs games are catered to that gamestyle.
^^^ never played a sandbox
You entire statement is bogus and your opinion.
When you wrote the red part i just laughed. Thats what sandboxes are about lol. And ill bet you a million dollars ill have more fun every single day while you wait for more content
Everquest, Everquest 2 werent cattered to WOW and long time running with steady playerbase.
SWG wasnt chasing WOW and lasted 8+ years.
None of these games were cattered or wow clones. All came out before WOW.
PS2 seems to be doing well and is far from a wow clone. PS1 also didnt chase WOW.
SOE has more than one sandbox in production one is in closed beta as i type this.
Vanguard is not a wow clone, though a rocky start and neglect, still a decent game with great features. Just certain things killed it off, but again not a wow clone.
So over half of SOE games are taken off the target board............
I do believe SOE learned its lesson. And many other dev teams are not following WOW any longer. Hence the 15+ sandboxes coming out within the next 1-3 years. Not everything is about wow, and things will change soon. Glad someone is atleast making an attempt.
Cant blame SOE for this... Lucas art fault i would say..
Seem that 13 years of experience might finally pay off..
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
I would not blame Smedley. Many of the problems with current MMO come from gamers themselves, to wit:
- people lack patience and desire to expend effort = games cater to easy and quick gratification
- player freedom hampered by population of griefer morons who destroy any space for freedom = theme parks
The MMO developers have been giving people what they want, which is a steady diet of twinkies and ho-ho's so they can keep their sugar levels high.
The only reason it is changing now is human psychology. Having stuffed themselves with candy for years without having to get off the couch, people are now realizing what an empty hollow experience that is. There is a renewed craving for challenge.
We shall see how long it lasts.
That serves what end? People are going to judge his product on what it offers regardless of what he says.
wut?
I like what Smedley is saying, but I don't want to put too much stock in it until there's something on the table to back it up. SWG PreCU is proof enough that they know the recipe of mechanics, systems and gameplay that make a great sandbox, but I can't see a great sandbox living up to its full potential in a F2P model. Maybe with a low sub fee and a shop with items similar to the cosmetic TCG stuff they could find a good middleground to capture both the F2P & P2P players. Personally, I'd be more than happy & willing to pay a sub for a polished game that has sustainable rather than consumable content.
The problem is not that the mainstream players don't like the approach - they like it. The problem is that it costs more money to develop the content than what the mainstream players are willing to pay for it. It's not viable financially.
Most (maybe all) big recent games are underperforming from a financial point-of-view: SWTOR, TSW and GW2 all earned less money than was expected by the business men. Sure, millions of mainstream players buy them - but those people dont stay long enough with a game before they hop to the next big thing.
I maintain this List of Sandbox MMORPGs. Please post or send PM for corrections and suggestions.
They already canned eq2next (eq3) two times now and they are working on the 3rd game build. I will believe it when I see the game make it to beta.
However smed does have a point about devs being stuck in the mindset of coping other games.
So... I don't know what I'm talking about, yet I'm exactly right... Got it!
Ooo...that's gonna hurt when the SWG mourners get a hold of you.
I agree with you, but it's still gonna hurt.
They seem to be going back to there roots with this one look like there taking alot of the core features from Everquest 1 and updating thema nd adding more features to it aswell, you will probaly see racial cities for each race, there will probaly be open world raid, there also a good chance of trains coming back (one of the things i acualy miss cause it can throw a spanner in the works of routine farming) there also rumors of hardcore servers and normal servers (hardcore may get corpse runs back)
Yeeesh some people are really freaking bitter. Don't get me wrong, you have ever right to be bitter with several of the MMOs being....meh 2 month lasting games generally and failed hopes on any given mmo.
Still though, I try to at least hold my judgement on the game being an utter failure until I at least see a screenshot or a video. More often I try to see if I can see beta videos or get in beta itself before I judge if the game is......short term rather then long term. So I hope Smed is right, and that they're really making an MMO that actually has an adventure feel to it like the first one did. I'm not going to hype myself into thinking this one will, though I'm not going to go LAWL THE GAMES A FAILURE! Before I've seen a single video of it.
Also, of course this game will never be like the original EverQuest for me. It was the first time playing a game like it(MMO) and so that feel is gone. Also there will be a ton of data out on the game, whereas with the first it was more niche....plus kinda hard to pull up a webpage AND play the game on a 56k modem lol. Still maybe they can, not going to count on it happening, but I'm also not going to disregard any possibility of it having something click.
This clown Smedley has no credentials to give any type of advice to anyone. The idiot is totally clueless when it comes to MMO's.
In fact, under his leadership, what MMO has done well? None! If anything, SoE has a huge stable of games and they've all failed. As long as Smedley continues to work for SoE, they will never have any game worth playing.
Smedley is the gaming worlds biggest failure.
Uhhh, it doesn't work actually. That's why all the AAA MMOs of the last 8 years have crashed and burned.
They you don't know much about the gaming world. Only those who are new or don't really know anything about MMO's would say something as weird as this.
Smed is spewing utter bullshit.
The evidence is in PS2.
Aside from being released too early( I was in early beta for months, and many many of the more noticable bugs that the game released with were in the game 3 months prior to release, and the testers were trying tp bring them to deve attention)
Planetside has NO content at all asidefrom the typical FPS grind. With all the 2x XP days they keep doing, people are blowing through the levels and getting enough certs to buy anything they want.
Is PS2 fun as a FPS in concerned? Yes it is. Is it anything more then a FPS(depsite all the propaganda SOE tries to put out) Not even close. PS2 caters to the XP mongers you typically find in CoD and BF, and any shred of strategic gameplay goes out the window due to how easy it is to just pull whatever vehicle your empire needs (typically just 50 MBT's and a shit ton of liberators and ESF's) and roll with the zerg.
No one defends, as defence nets little to no XP gain compred to taking base after base with the zerg.
Continents are only taken by one empire(and thus netting a bonus) when that empire has 70+% of the population, and its grand game of musical chairs. When one empire moves in a ton of players ot a continent, the other two empires just leave to take a less populated continent, and this just goes back and forth. When you have a continent with 2 or 3 evenly populated teams, then you just get three giant zerg armies moving around the map dodging each other and taking territory that the enemy zerg just left.
And Smed is just making it worse. There is a lot more he could be doing to make the game better in its current state, namely better design of the bases(one reason no one defense, except for the few large facilites, bases are 100% undefensible, even if you have the superior numbers). Something could be done to limit the numbers of vehicles on the battlefield at one time. As it is, infantry engagements are few and far between, and anytime you get a fun infantry fight going, its not long before 30 tanks and 20 liberators roll up and just blow everyone to bits, and why.
But what IS smedley doing? well same thing as in beta. Ingoring glaring bugs that have been in the game since beta, swatting aside the majority of players calling for smarter base design and a better meta game, and just fluffing the in game store. Hey they are putting in another continent as well. The art director said the art team has no time to FIX the bases that the vast majority of the players say are broken, because their priority is to put in another continent...you know, as it is, most players will avoid the populated continents so they can easily take base after base on underpopulated continents(taking a base is the fastest way to net XP if you can do it quickly). So a fourth continent will just mean yet anothet empty space barren of conflict that players can take bases at without having to fight. Oh and that says nothing that this fourth base will guess what, have the same broken base designs that the other three already have.
BUT...having a fourth continent will make the advertisments look better...
There is also almost no infantry gameplay when it comes to large battles. Infantry are not even needed to take a base. All you need is to get a few tanks or liberators in range of the small outhouse spawn rooms, and camp the two doors that defenders need to get out. And bam, you just took the base. All that is needed is one single infantry to come in, without fear of dying, and stand next to the capture point. There are a few bases like tech plants and biodomes that are mostly infantry engagements, but these usually turn into giant camp fests where the defenders will just farm XP of the attackers.
tl;dr version. Smedley is blow smoke out his ass.