Originally posted by clumsytoes44 Okay here is an example, I make a game with 5 server's, 2 PVP, 1 PVE, 1 PVX, and 1 PD server. If the 1 PD server doesn't meet the financial expectation's of say around 5-6k player's on it, then that single server get's shut down not the whole game. I will still have 4 server's hopefully going fairly well.
Yeah, but you have to design the whole game with 4 drastically different versions, ideally make them all good and later you have to maintain and keep all those versions good.
Again; you make it sound so simple.
EDIT: Every design decision closes doors. You're thinking you can design a great game and keep all of them open? Its not possible.
Its not simple however it is possible. Like uo siege perilous that server rarely if ever got patches if I remember correctly. If there is a break within the game itself they fixed it other than that no patches period. The developers treated it as a red headed step child. Which a publisher can do, and most on that server would have to just suck it up that it will be a buggy as hell server on top of a bend over your going to get screwed server. If thats what they want then hey be my guest beat your head on the wall for all I care. Trying to get others to join you, not going to happen.
You have to take into account that a big part of UO's success came from the fact that it had little to no competition.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
First, When I die because of my ISP, say a random modem reset, that is an outside force acting on the character. You can't force someone to reroll, because of an ISP failure. Just like when your designated driver, gets pulled over for speeding, the cops don't pull your drunk ass out of the backseat and give you a DUI.
Second, if there is this great desire to have "death consequences", why don't more play FFA PvP? That is death with consequences.
I just would like to add, that twice today, and twice yesterday, while playing my modem reset itself, disconnecting me. Just more fodder for my arguments against perma-death.
This isn't an argument against perma-death just because you guys have sh!tty devices or ISP...
The only case that can be made if the game server fails and in that case an acception "should" be made.
It is still a a factor unless you believe everyone in world has top quality internet connections which never go down randomly? that is one of the main reasons why a lot of players avoid perma death games which make this minority that loves perma death even smaller. And then you wonder why no big budget quality MMO wants to touch this feature.
World of Darkness and Eq-Next are some of the major ones with Perma-death... but do you really go the "All the most popular games don't have it so it must be bad " route? Any game with perma-death should have a progression system to accommodate the risk. You dont need the best ISP but if you get disconnected twice a day thats ALOT and this would be a huge problem for any game.
Nothing has been confirmed about perma death in WOD and EQ NEXT and how they are going to implement it.So i would suggest hold on to your horses.
EQNEXT Premadeath was a Joke and I still cannot believe people hang on to it as something that really will happen.
Hello the lead developer of EQNEXT game out and said that he wishes that, that statement about Premadeath was never said because it caused so many issues. Wake up Pro Permadeath people it will never be in a popular MMO. NEVER. For every 1 person that likes it 99 other people will never touch the game so why would any game thats going to be made with nearly 30 Million or more dollars ever cater to 10k or 20k players? It makes no business sense at all. Its a Pipe dream.
You seem to be missing the point...
The most consumed meat on earth is Goat meat (google it) ... so that means people all over the world are eatting goat meat over pig, chicken and cow. I love steak and I want to eat at a restaurant that prepares steak and I DONT CARE IF MOST OF THE WORLD IS EATTING GOAT THEY WILL NEVER CONVINCE ME STEAK IS BAD BECAUSE ITS NOT THE MOST POPULAR...
My ISP and computer can handle a perma-death game because I rarely disconnect
I understand that the possibility of losing my character forever exist and it doesnt cull my desire to play
if you cant say the above then you shouldnt play a game with perma-death...
Dude No good publisher is going to risk making a game for 2K at best players. Keep dreaming keep posting how your wannabe logic works out. It never has and never will add up to a game with permadeath period stop arguing for it and trying to convince people to play your game so you have more than 2K players. Its a waste of time.
You just joined this thread so im sure you dont know but it looks like we arrived at my original post... my first post in red*
Anyways, OP don't waste your time trying to win over this crowd. they've made it clear they aren't doing anything outside their comfort zone. Pretty soon... instead of a subscription players will expect money from developers, the word grind won't exist and players will just choose the level they want to be and they will actually gain levels from dying.
Thanks bro
Hell if Developers want to pay me $100K a year I would gladly play a PD game.
Becareful... you might find that you can deal with the loss of your character due to the fact that there are more important things to be had now that you make all that money XD
You just joined this thread so im sure you dont know but it looks like we arrived at my original post... my first post in red*
Anyways, OP don't waste your time trying to win over this crowd. they've made it clear they aren't doing anything outside their comfort zone. Pretty soon... instead of a subscription players will expect money from developers, the word grind won't exist and players will just choose the level they want to be and they will actually gain levels from dying.
Thanks bro
So you admit you didn't come here to test the waters or bounce off ideas - you came to proselytize. Everything anyone said was for nothing - atleast if you're concerned.
And a strawman at the end? Classy.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
You just joined this thread so im sure you dont know but it looks like we arrived at my original post... my first post in red*
Anyways, OP don't waste your time trying to win over this crowd. they've made it clear they aren't doing anything outside their comfort zone. Pretty soon... instead of a subscription players will expect money from developers, the word grind won't exist and players will just choose the level they want to be and they will actually gain levels from dying.
Thanks bro
So you admit you didn't come here to test the waters or bounce off ideas - you came to proselytize. Everything anyone said was for nothing - atleast if you're concerned.
And a strawman at the end? Classy.
The intent of this thread was to provide insight to game mechanic that is normally dismissed. The OP went on to give examples on how one might find meaning in said mechanic hoping, at the very least to win a consideration. To say I didnt come to here to "conceptualize" or try the waters is a gross misunderstanding of the original purpose of the thread. I was just merely pointing out that the OP efforts were inconsequential given the somewhat resolute nature of todays crowd.
With that being said... I would be more than happy to provide "idea's" but nobody here wants that. Everybody just wants to keep on playing the same game that caters to their playstyle, thus my "concern".
Nice try. Dayz is a mutliplayer game. NOT and MMO. Just like people arguing using D3 permadeath as an example. Still people in the MMO world are not buying Arcade like games. Try again.
How big do you think ToA's maps are going to be? Hell the map in ToA is twice the size of Namalsk. Its going to be a small map with a bit of people. Not thousands upon thousands on a single map.
Just like DayZ. Also did you know League of Legends and World of Tanks are MMOs? The term MMO is massively multiplayer online. It doesn't say "Single open world map with billions of players" whatsoever.
Think of Trials of Ascension like Planetside 2. Now add in Mount and Blade setting to it. Now give the players the ability to build cities, empires, craft player made armor and weapons, and allow some players to get unique skills, weapon, equipment. That's what Trials of Ascension will be.
Originally posted by Mkilbride Yeah, I'm sure the maps will be of a nice size, and Friendly fire to, so teams will have to be well cordinated, not just random zergs.
First, I would like to suggest that I don't believe there has yet been an MMO that can serve as a strong analog to the ToA design, so citing other games as an example of the design's merit can be a bit limited. In particular, I'd like to address the SWG Jedi thing that some folks have been bringing up. That was a permadeath character type in a NON-permadeath game. There's an inherent disadvantage, as every other player can still cannon-fodder their character at you indefinitely. A full permadeath game changes that equation because a player has to ask his or herself whether they're willing to risk their own character's life to go after a character who may be more powerful than they. Also, and I'm not an expert on SWG, but my recollection is that the original Jedi design was canned not just because the permadeath made it too hard on Jedis, but at least equally because of people complaining that they couldn't get access to the Jedi character slot because it was too difficult/rare to obtain. As such I don't know if we can definitively say that they canned that feature because of the permadeath mechanic, but as I stated above, I do think the implementation was somewhat flawed.
Secondly, it's commonly misunderstood that the purpose of permadeath is to make the game more difficult/hardcore, or to give some sort of adrenaline rush like an extreme sport. I don't believe this is true. The purpose of permadeath is manifold, but primarily I believe it is to change the mental calculus of the player, . I am not a "hardcore" gamer, but this concept appeals to me because it brings a new level of strategy and decision making to every facet of the game, from exploring to training to battle to the player economy. It's imbues the game with a feeling that my choices really matter and have real, measurable effects on the inhabitants of a persistent world. I don't think this design element explicitly encourages PvP, in fact it wouldn't surprise me if ToA is less pvp-centric than many non-PD games. What it does encourage is defending your settlement like you've really got something riding on it. Bluffing that stranger you meet in the woods somewhere out of attacking you. Deciding to call a friend before you try to take down some big game that wandered a bit too close to your home.
You have to take into account that a big part of UO's success came from the fact that it had little to no competition.
And it is not that successful. Only like 250k at the highest point. EQ eclipsed it in no time. It only looked like a success because it is the first.
I wouldn't belittle a game's success just because it's sub numbers are exceeded by a later game. From my perspective, the only real barometer of success for an MMO, besides good design, is whether it can take in enough money to sustain itself and keep servers up. I believe UO is still going at age 16; I'd say that's incredibly successful.
With regard to Trials of Ascension, I don't think anybody is so foolish as to think it's likely to be the next smash, but I don't think it unrealistic to think that it could cultivate a small, dedicated following sufficient to keep up a few small servers in the short term. If it's well executed and fun it could grow from there. If it's not, well it will go the way of many other MMOs that came before it. The fact is technology like the Hero Engine (which they've stated they're using) makes the production of these games much less expensive than it was years ago, and moreover I believe sandbox-style design requires less developer resources overall than themepark-style design because of the reduced demand for scripted content. They're not going to be starting this in the same kind of hole that MMOs of yore did, and they also won't have to push for a major content update shortly after launch to keep people busy and can instead worry about perfecting the user experience.
You have to take into account that a big part of UO's success came from the fact that it had little to no competition.
And it is not that successful. Only like 250k at the highest point. EQ eclipsed it in no time. It only looked like a success because it is the first.
I wouldn't belittle a game's success just because it's sub numbers are exceeded by a later game. From my perspective, the only real barometer of success for an MMO, besides good design, is whether it can take in enough money to sustain itself and keep servers up. I believe UO is still going at age 16; I'd say that's incredibly successful.
With regard to Trials of Ascension, I don't think anybody is so foolish as to think it's likely to be the next smash, but I don't think it unrealistic to think that it could cultivate a small, dedicated following sufficient to keep up a few small servers in the short term. If it's well executed and fun it could grow from there. If it's not, well it will go the way of many other MMOs that came before it. The fact is technology like the Hero Engine (which they've stated they're using) makes the production of these games much less expensive than it was years ago, and moreover I believe sandbox-style design requires less developer resources overall than themepark-style design because of the reduced demand for scripted content. They're not going to be starting this in the same kind of hole that MMOs of yore did, and they also won't have to push for a major content update shortly after launch to keep people busy and can instead worry about perfecting the user experience.
You're beautiful man.
Its true, theme-park style MMOs require tons more money than a sandbox. Reason why? Scripted events, quests, raid algorithms, class balancing, monster spawns and behavioral AI, *voice acting*, combat, etc etc
While a sandbox works on mechanics, weapon balance(if weapons are presented in the game), combat(if combat is presented in the game), crafting, giving tools the players can use to shape the world, dynamic spawning and a world players can progress.
The fans of Trials of Ascension have stated numerous times, we know the game won't be a WoW killer. The developers aren't going for 500k, although they probably hope for it. Hell the developers said "We probably won't even need 2 servers." This game is going to be designed around a small community. Using the hero engine cuts down on both cost and time it takes to make a game.
Many of the finer things in life were never popular and I am certainly not going to cry about how profitable McDonalds is .
Yeah but investors pumping millions in big budget games do care about the popularity. They want their games to be profitable and they are not here to satisfy a small minority.
This is why permadeath is limited to shoddy low budget crap like Salem and Wizardry Online.
Even EVE the most popular sandbox MMO does not have a perma death what makes people think that even more expensive MMO like WOD by CCP will have this feature and scare away majority of players? maybe the put a separate server who enjoy this but i doubt it will be a main feature.
Yes, creating a "good" game and creating a "very profitable" game do not need to be strongly connected.
Why? because good game doesn't need a lot of money these days? as if you guys are so forgiving if game is bad in quality right?
Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and play SALEM if you truly believe what you said?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
Originally posted by Mkilbride A indie MMO with as little as 10,000 subs is more profitable than a game like LOTRO.
Interesting. Sources?
I doubt it myself, as LOTRO by all accounts is pretty darn profitable.
According to Turbine, only 2% of people who play a F2P MMO use the cash shop, these 2% are supporting the other 98% of players.
So say LOTRO has 100,000 players. Reasonable number, I myself play it on occasion, but honestly it's pretty dead and I think 100,000 may be much.
so 2% of 100,000 is 1,000 players buying cash shop items. Let us say they buy 50-60$ a month in the cash shop each. That's 50-60,000$.
However, 10,000 players @ 9.99$ = 100,000 a month, and with the additional revenue, the ability for new content increases, as well as growth.
Look at LOTRO. 500% increase in profits when it went F2P. Servers at the bursting. New ones added. One year after F2P, about 80% of the servers are closed, and the 20% remaining are near death. (I walked around for a few hours without finding anyone in the biggest cities in the game, on the most populated server, Brandywine.)
So F2P is good for a game you want to make one last surge of cash off, that subscription is no longer supporting. But after that huge burst, it'll probably be earning less than before...but then they can just shut it down. I wouldn't be shocked if LOTRO went down by 2015 or earlier.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
I'd be fine with a permadeath system like this if it was PVE only...Once they put in PVP though taht 100 number becomes very reachable and possibly very quickly with some of these jerks today.
I think people might still be a little dumbfounded when you claimed an indie game with 10k subs could be more profitable than LOTRO. Are you still sticking to that claim by the way?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Spend the rest of your time on the game playing low level content only, no thanks!
Spend hundreds of hours to develop a high level character only to have your character die due to yet more lag in an online game, would only lead to rage quitting, rather than re-rolling!
PVP (especially open world) would greatly reduce the amount of players willing to play!
People shouldn't put down a perma death system, until they've actually tried a game with it. Go play Rogue, Dwarf Fortress or Faster Than Light, then come back and revisit this thread - all good games, all addictive and all perma-death.
The ability to simply save and "redo" kills any game. Even games with one-time choice systems have this same mechanic. Play through the Fallout games as they should be, then go back and hack your game for max stats and see which is more fun and creates a better sense of immersion and tension.
The sense of adventure is what makes games fun and without any penalization for failure, the adventure goes down. If I run into a cave and get mauled by a dragon, all I need to do is resurrect and not go back to the cave. If I see that same cave but know a careless action could erase all the progress I've made up to that point, I'm actually going to sit back and strategize first.
According to Turbine, only 2% of people who play a F2P MMO use the cash shop, these 2% are supporting the other 98% of players.
So say LOTRO has 100,000 players. Reasonable number, I myself play it on occasion, but honestly it's pretty dead and I think 100,000 may be much.
so 2% of 100,000 is 1,000 players buying cash shop items. Let us say they buy 50-60$ a month in the cash shop each. That's 50-60,000$.
However, 10,000 players @ 9.99$ = 100,000 a month, and with the additional revenue, the ability for new content increases, as well as growth.
Look at LOTRO. 500% increase in profits when it went F2P. Servers at the bursting. New ones added. One year after F2P, about 80% of the servers are closed, and the 20% remaining are near death. (I walked around for a few hours without finding anyone in the biggest cities in the game, on the most populated server, Brandywine.)
So F2P is good for a game you want to make one last surge of cash off, that subscription is no longer supporting. But after that huge burst, it'll probably be earning less than before...but then they can just shut it down. I wouldn't be shocked if LOTRO went down by 2015 or earlier.
500% increase in profit is 500% increase in profit. At all points, LOTRO made more profit. It probably continues to make more than double what it would've made as a subscription game
Old games die, and LOTRO was always rather average and unexciting so it was going to be dead-ish by this point regardless of how it approached things. But double profit when dead-ish is still double profit.
Regardless of scale, F2P is nearly always the vastly better business model. Only in the MMORPG genre specifically is it even a debate.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by Theocritus I'd be fine with a permadeath system like this if it was PVE only...Once they put in PVP though taht 100 number becomes very reachable and possibly very quickly with some of these jerks today.
This. As soon as you give someone the opportunity to be a miserable prick, enough people will grab on to it to detroy even the most well thought out plan.
Another option would be to have a full world PvE sandbox game, then throw in a PvP Hunger Games style perma death.
Once every 6 months, 24 people are chosen at random and only 1 comes out. If your account is chosen, you have an option to opt out of the next one or not.
You have 6 months to build a character that might or might not get selected and your survival will be on the line if you are chosen.
Dunno if I'd play but it would be an interesting concept.
I think people are blowing this way out of proportion. 100 lives, even in a pvp environment is a lot, if it is done properly. I've played DayZ for around 5 months. How many times have I died to other players? Around 30. That would mean a careful player can keep their account for a year and a half. Most MMOs these days bore me in 3 months. Year and a half would be a good run.
I don't understand people on this site. Everyone and their mother complains about wow clones. One would expect people to embrace a game that works completely differently, but no. People still complain.
How do they handle character progression? Is it based on gear and character skills, or more on the person's skill like FPSes?
Maybe they'll even let you inherit properties of your previous character with your new one, sort of like a family system with generations.
Comments
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Becareful... you might find that you can deal with the loss of your character due to the fact that there are more important things to be had now that you make all that money XD
So you admit you didn't come here to test the waters or bounce off ideas - you came to proselytize. Everything anyone said was for nothing - atleast if you're concerned.
And a strawman at the end? Classy.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
The intent of this thread was to provide insight to game mechanic that is normally dismissed. The OP went on to give examples on how one might find meaning in said mechanic hoping, at the very least to win a consideration. To say I didnt come to here to "conceptualize" or try the waters is a gross misunderstanding of the original purpose of the thread. I was just merely pointing out that the OP efforts were inconsequential given the somewhat resolute nature of todays crowd.
With that being said... I would be more than happy to provide "idea's" but nobody here wants that. Everybody just wants to keep on playing the same game that caters to their playstyle, thus my "concern".
How big do you think ToA's maps are going to be? Hell the map in ToA is twice the size of Namalsk. Its going to be a small map with a bit of people. Not thousands upon thousands on a single map.
Just like DayZ. Also did you know League of Legends and World of Tanks are MMOs? The term MMO is massively multiplayer online. It doesn't say "Single open world map with billions of players" whatsoever.
Think of Trials of Ascension like Planetside 2. Now add in Mount and Blade setting to it. Now give the players the ability to build cities, empires, craft player made armor and weapons, and allow some players to get unique skills, weapon, equipment. That's what Trials of Ascension will be.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
Well the map size is only 80km^2. lol
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
Late to the party here, but a couple of points...
First, I would like to suggest that I don't believe there has yet been an MMO that can serve as a strong analog to the ToA design, so citing other games as an example of the design's merit can be a bit limited. In particular, I'd like to address the SWG Jedi thing that some folks have been bringing up. That was a permadeath character type in a NON-permadeath game. There's an inherent disadvantage, as every other player can still cannon-fodder their character at you indefinitely. A full permadeath game changes that equation because a player has to ask his or herself whether they're willing to risk their own character's life to go after a character who may be more powerful than they. Also, and I'm not an expert on SWG, but my recollection is that the original Jedi design was canned not just because the permadeath made it too hard on Jedis, but at least equally because of people complaining that they couldn't get access to the Jedi character slot because it was too difficult/rare to obtain. As such I don't know if we can definitively say that they canned that feature because of the permadeath mechanic, but as I stated above, I do think the implementation was somewhat flawed.
Secondly, it's commonly misunderstood that the purpose of permadeath is to make the game more difficult/hardcore, or to give some sort of adrenaline rush like an extreme sport. I don't believe this is true. The purpose of permadeath is manifold, but primarily I believe it is to change the mental calculus of the player, . I am not a "hardcore" gamer, but this concept appeals to me because it brings a new level of strategy and decision making to every facet of the game, from exploring to training to battle to the player economy. It's imbues the game with a feeling that my choices really matter and have real, measurable effects on the inhabitants of a persistent world. I don't think this design element explicitly encourages PvP, in fact it wouldn't surprise me if ToA is less pvp-centric than many non-PD games. What it does encourage is defending your settlement like you've really got something riding on it. Bluffing that stranger you meet in the woods somewhere out of attacking you. Deciding to call a friend before you try to take down some big game that wandered a bit too close to your home.
And it is not that successful. Only like 250k at the highest point. EQ eclipsed it in no time. It only looked like a success because it is the first.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
I wouldn't belittle a game's success just because it's sub numbers are exceeded by a later game. From my perspective, the only real barometer of success for an MMO, besides good design, is whether it can take in enough money to sustain itself and keep servers up. I believe UO is still going at age 16; I'd say that's incredibly successful.
With regard to Trials of Ascension, I don't think anybody is so foolish as to think it's likely to be the next smash, but I don't think it unrealistic to think that it could cultivate a small, dedicated following sufficient to keep up a few small servers in the short term. If it's well executed and fun it could grow from there. If it's not, well it will go the way of many other MMOs that came before it. The fact is technology like the Hero Engine (which they've stated they're using) makes the production of these games much less expensive than it was years ago, and moreover I believe sandbox-style design requires less developer resources overall than themepark-style design because of the reduced demand for scripted content. They're not going to be starting this in the same kind of hole that MMOs of yore did, and they also won't have to push for a major content update shortly after launch to keep people busy and can instead worry about perfecting the user experience.
Interesting. Sources?
I doubt it myself, as LOTRO by all accounts is pretty darn profitable.
You're beautiful man.
Its true, theme-park style MMOs require tons more money than a sandbox. Reason why? Scripted events, quests, raid algorithms, class balancing, monster spawns and behavioral AI, *voice acting*, combat, etc etc
While a sandbox works on mechanics, weapon balance(if weapons are presented in the game), combat(if combat is presented in the game), crafting, giving tools the players can use to shape the world, dynamic spawning and a world players can progress.
The fans of Trials of Ascension have stated numerous times, we know the game won't be a WoW killer. The developers aren't going for 500k, although they probably hope for it. Hell the developers said "We probably won't even need 2 servers." This game is going to be designed around a small community. Using the hero engine cuts down on both cost and time it takes to make a game.
"The map in Trials of Ascension is only 80km^2"
Thank you man, you summed up my thoughts.
Why? because good game doesn't need a lot of money these days? as if you guys are so forgiving if game is bad in quality right?
Why don't you put your money where your mouth is and play SALEM if you truly believe what you said?
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
According to Turbine, only 2% of people who play a F2P MMO use the cash shop, these 2% are supporting the other 98% of players.
So say LOTRO has 100,000 players. Reasonable number, I myself play it on occasion, but honestly it's pretty dead and I think 100,000 may be much.
so 2% of 100,000 is 1,000 players buying cash shop items. Let us say they buy 50-60$ a month in the cash shop each. That's 50-60,000$.
However, 10,000 players @ 9.99$ = 100,000 a month, and with the additional revenue, the ability for new content increases, as well as growth.
Look at LOTRO. 500% increase in profits when it went F2P. Servers at the bursting. New ones added. One year after F2P, about 80% of the servers are closed, and the 20% remaining are near death. (I walked around for a few hours without finding anyone in the biggest cities in the game, on the most populated server, Brandywine.)
So F2P is good for a game you want to make one last surge of cash off, that subscription is no longer supporting. But after that huge burst, it'll probably be earning less than before...but then they can just shut it down. I wouldn't be shocked if LOTRO went down by 2015 or earlier.
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
Been about a week.
Further thoughts?
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
I think people might still be a little dumbfounded when you claimed an indie game with 10k subs could be more profitable than LOTRO. Are you still sticking to that claim by the way?
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Help get Camelot Unchained made, a old-school MMORPG, with no hand holding!
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/13861848/camelot-unchained
3 reason why it would never work:
Spend the rest of your time on the game playing low level content only, no thanks!
Spend hundreds of hours to develop a high level character only to have your character die due to yet more lag in an online game, would only lead to rage quitting, rather than re-rolling!
PVP (especially open world) would greatly reduce the amount of players willing to play!
People shouldn't put down a perma death system, until they've actually tried a game with it. Go play Rogue, Dwarf Fortress or Faster Than Light, then come back and revisit this thread - all good games, all addictive and all perma-death.
The ability to simply save and "redo" kills any game. Even games with one-time choice systems have this same mechanic. Play through the Fallout games as they should be, then go back and hack your game for max stats and see which is more fun and creates a better sense of immersion and tension.
The sense of adventure is what makes games fun and without any penalization for failure, the adventure goes down. If I run into a cave and get mauled by a dragon, all I need to do is resurrect and not go back to the cave. If I see that same cave but know a careless action could erase all the progress I've made up to that point, I'm actually going to sit back and strategize first.
500% increase in profit is 500% increase in profit. At all points, LOTRO made more profit. It probably continues to make more than double what it would've made as a subscription game
Old games die, and LOTRO was always rather average and unexciting so it was going to be dead-ish by this point regardless of how it approached things. But double profit when dead-ish is still double profit.
Regardless of scale, F2P is nearly always the vastly better business model. Only in the MMORPG genre specifically is it even a debate.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
This. As soon as you give someone the opportunity to be a miserable prick, enough people will grab on to it to detroy even the most well thought out plan.
Another option would be to have a full world PvE sandbox game, then throw in a PvP Hunger Games style perma death.
Once every 6 months, 24 people are chosen at random and only 1 comes out. If your account is chosen, you have an option to opt out of the next one or not.
You have 6 months to build a character that might or might not get selected and your survival will be on the line if you are chosen.
Dunno if I'd play but it would be an interesting concept.
I think people are blowing this way out of proportion. 100 lives, even in a pvp environment is a lot, if it is done properly. I've played DayZ for around 5 months. How many times have I died to other players? Around 30. That would mean a careful player can keep their account for a year and a half. Most MMOs these days bore me in 3 months. Year and a half would be a good run.
I don't understand people on this site. Everyone and their mother complains about wow clones. One would expect people to embrace a game that works completely differently, but no. People still complain.
How do they handle character progression? Is it based on gear and character skills, or more on the person's skill like FPSes?
Maybe they'll even let you inherit properties of your previous character with your new one, sort of like a family system with generations.