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Game of the year 2014! How they can make it happen!
fistorm
Member UncommonPosts: 868
After playing all the major populated mmo's for the last five years, and seeing the latest successful game XIV now with 2.1 and its failure to deliver on housing, with no profits to be made in crafting or farming, and their raid gear having boxed in and awkward stats, and with EQ 2 and WoW on old systems with old graphics and gameplay, I can honestly say ESO will be the next huge successful game, and has a chance now to actually capitalize on game by making strong the weaknesses in these other games in their current state.
Where can ESO capitalize on being the next long term successful game?
1. Housing, make housing huge as EQ Next housing is going to be, and to make it cheap and accessible to everyone, this will allow them to get rid of competition from FFXIV which failed to deliver in that area, and will compete with EQ Next when it hits the markets in 2014.
2. Crafting. Make sure that crafting is useful and most profitable for end game. Another area where FFXIV has failed in 2.1 patch, and where EQ2 seemed to have failed also with the allowing of selling of raid gear to other players. If you keep the crafters at the top of the game in second best spot to raiding or other activities, you'll see you'll win the heart of every crafter out there and disgruntled crafter on other games.
3. Farming. Make sure farming is profitable and not being controlled so heavily which XIV also has just done. Not sure what EQ Next will be like for farming yet but its got to be worth doing. EQ2 also had great farming rewards with Exquisite chest drops on mobs. I'm sure ESO can do better in rewarding farmers who love to spend hours in the field farming mobs for crafters. Throwing a nice reward bone every once in a while after grinding on mobs would seal the deal and win over all farmers who like this type of gameplay.
4. Raid Gear. Make sure raid gear is worth using and wearing, with really rewarding raiding to all members and not just one or two per a raid. I would like to see more customization with stats on raid gear, where you can choose your stats or abilities on your raid gear.... I see boxed in raid gear and only a few members getting rewards far too often lately and its not very good for moral of guilds or their members. Throw each member in the guild a 5% or 10% progress per a raid towards something useful endgame, and youll have a lot of happy raiders on your hands.
6. Storylines and RPG. You must have a well written and timeline lore in game that makes the player feel part of the game . This is the most important part of the game, and the reason Mines of Moria got Expansion of the year, and XIV became such a success. It allowed the player to move through a timeline in the world and actually feel the adventure of something big happening around them XIV did such a great job of this and this is where a lot of the real competition will come from in the future. I have no doubt after seeing skyrim that they have what it takes to get this part right and the feel of RPG.
7. Dungeons. Your going to have to have dungeons that have hidden chests, secret puzzles and other things in them to be better then other games out right now and to compete with future games who will someday make their dungeons complex and puzzle orientated as a huge bonus and reward side quest to a dungeon. These puzzles and bonus rewards in dungeons should not affect completion of the dungeon though, so less smart people will still be able to progress to the end. Its going to have to be really enjoyable in the aspect of exploration and mind puzzles. Keep gameplay flowing really good and challenging on mini bosses and end bosses of the dungeons, but not cheapshot players.
8. Game World. This one is something I really have not seen a bunch of yet in recent mmo's so the bar for exploration is pretty low, but to keep any other game from competing in the future with this game is to have a massive world. One that takes atleast an hour or more to cross the entire thing.... Have a lot of hidden rewards in unexplored areas, that are randomized around the world and you can bet this could seal the deal for competition with EQ Next or any other game that might capitalize on this as a weakness in this game.
I think if all this is payed attention to and done, you will see ESO as the Next BIG One we have to play for years to come.
Comments
While I agree with absolutely everything you said. I feel if we applied your formula to any game releasing it would push it to GOTY status. Hell I'd even go for Game of the Decade.
ESO has me worried that they are going to be counting on replayability for longevity with regard to storylines. Which has been to not work in SWTOR.
While we are asking for things, the only extra thing I would add to your list is a full expansion's worth of content every 3-4 months. IMO the players should always be playing catch up to the content, not the other way around.
I agree with all your points............. except for the fact that ESO won't be the game that is going to deliver it.
The more I read about ESO, the more I think about SWTOR.
Great Single Player storyline.......... but that's all.
Nothing that could not be achieved by making TES 6.............. and with better results.
Considering I just finished Skyrim for the 4th time, I am disappointed by the direction ESO is taking, it's going to be nothing like Skyrim.
Yes I will buy the game, but I am pretty sure I won't play it past the second month, like I did with SWTOR.
My idea of ESO is more like The Repopulation with a TES skin rather than SWTOR...............
The largest mistake that ESO is going to make it having NO player housing of any kind. If they were smart they would have GUILD housing and really let all the detail of making it feel like your Guild housing stand out. With in the guild housing you can have player owned area, they also need to implement the feeling of rasing mounts, farming food, and something like a blacksmiths shop. These are things they will NOT have in the game and in the end will be the undoing of ESO.
Get smart really fast ESO dont be like SWTOR and get left behind because of self inflicted wounds.
I don't care about #1 & #4 and don't think they really add anything to a game. You didn't put PvP in your little list so I assume you are a PvE player only. I do agree with the others you suggested. The most important is the game to be fun, as soon as the game gets boring or makes you think to yourself why the hell am I playing this its usually over. If it can last longer than the new standard of 2-3 months I think it could get goty, but time is the only true test.
I thought that post looked familiar, OP, and it's basically a rewrite of your FFXIV thread I just read.
Seems to me that your major wishes for any MMO, are about housing, farming and crafting. Which are all things I would appreciate as added content, but absolutely not what makes or breaks any MMO.
And btw, ESO isn't going to become GOTY 2014, unless they pay some site for that title. I hope this game gets far better than my expectations, but I've seen enough releases to have learnt to read between the lines, and this one isn't going to be a major success, I'm pretty sure of that.
The only way this can make GOTY is to:
Sandbox means open world, non-linear gaming PERIOD!
Subscription Gaming, especially MMO gaming is a Cash grab bigger then the most P2W cash shop!
Bring Back Exploration and lengthy progression times. RPG's have always been about the Journey not the destination!!!
Pretty much sums it up. It'll do OK. It has the excitement factor of leftover pizza. It's pizza, and that's great, but you've already had it.
If they want game of the year 2014 its easy...
1. Pay for reviews and place lots of ads around internet forums
2. Use the 'gaming media' to hype the fanboys, the fanboys to hype the other fanboys and the forum moderators on forums you advertise heavily with to censor "negativity".
3.????????
4. Profit
Yes, I did tend to leave that out. I think PVE is probably the most important aspect of a MMORPG game, its the base/foundation. In past games PVE and PVP always eneded up destroying games in an RPG due to the ruining of the classes to allow for a more equal power between classes. Someday they will get this right but even I don't know how they can achieve this, and you will always see PVP changes to PVE classes that end up hurting the PVE aspect of the game to a degree that always ends up in boxed classes and abliies or stats.
I tend to want to see a lot more PVE focus roles that can stray far enough lobsided as possible that no two classes could ever be equal. I don't mean to discredit PVP, I just have not seen a way to make PVP and PVE coexist in a way that would not hurt the uniqueness of PVE roles.
I don't understand why you posted this in the ESO forum. I see a generic list of things you like about MMOs and then "oh, yeah...ESO."
This post is just a copy/paste of the same post in the FF forums except over there the title was "Why I'm taking a Long Break From This Game."
What next? Wildstar? Can't wait to see the new title
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
Looking at your list I have a feeling you are going to be very disappointed with ESO....
But that is just my opinion and since this is the internet it doesn't really matter.
For me it will be whether the PvP realm stuff is actually meaningful and makes me care enough to want to log in every day. I'm sure that I'll hate the questing and won't touch raids and dungeons. If I wanted that there are a million games that offer it and I'm sick of it. Give me something I can get invested in though, where what I do actually matters even a bit after I log off and I'll sub for a long time. Make it another PvE quest grind/endgame grind focused game and I'll quit after the first month if I play at all.
First things first, take time to read them.... Second, the items I list are shocklingly to your amazement might be found in yes... both mmo's amazing that I would comment on things like housing, farming, crafting, wow and even dungeons.... haha.
Read things rather then just seeking how someone puts paragraphs together in their writing. Both are far different from each other.
Oh yes and by the way FFXIV was named game of the year, and has now fell a bit flat with 2.1, which this post is part of why it will be successful by capitalizing on last years game of the year.
But, if YOU take the time, you'd realize that you r list has sweet F all to do with a game that has been in development for 5 years and will be out in less than 90 days... It has nothing to do with your wish list no matter how much you like voxels and housing.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
As long as its not F2P I am going to give it a try regardless.
Played every ES game since Daggerfall on release and have even played Arena so I have no problem throwing money at this even if it ends up horrible.
Not sounding very elsder scrolls-ish though and I am reminded of Middle Earth Online and what it finally became and see some similarities.
Love Daggerfall, Think Morrowind is the best of the series by far (still play a heavily modded copy to this day), hated Oblivion but thought the Xpansion was decent (the crazy god or whatever) and loved Skyrim. So yeah, I certainly will be trying this but in all truthfulness I do not have very high hopes.
When will people learn that this isn't how sites covering the gaming industry works?
Gaming Media follows trends from players. That's how GW2 got so much hype. No media outlet would dare bring up any negatives of that game at the time before release because of gamer blow back. Everyone was on the messiah train and the narrative was formed early on. Other games suffered from it. The Secret World was probably the most damaged. Sure some sites tried a mea culpa after the fact, but it was too late.
On top of that they need ad dollars to run their sites and if you're seen to have a bias or slant against a company, getting those ad dollars from said company might be a little difficult. What's worse is that other companies will see you as not a legitimate site and will choose not to be associated with you as well. This means no exclusive interviews, previews, videos, screenshots.
To resolve this you play neutral with the bad games, scourge the REALLY bad games and hype the hell out of the games that the author loves. Remember that many of the people writing these articles are gamers as well and are just as prone to fall victim to the hype monster. This is were bias can slip in. It can corrupt the viewpoint of the author to other games if they aren't vigilant. It can shade ones perception to write articles that will placate the masses and give them more clicks on their articles which in turn gives more ad dollars. Which then brings me to the devil advocate articles. While the pretense of an article like that is to seem objective, the truth is to piss people off so they will click on the article and read it. It drives traffic and that equals more ad dollars for their site. That's a news website thing, not just gaming news. It's the reason why you see all the headlines that don't match what the article says. Go check out CNN.com They are the worst at doing crap like this.
Sure there are articles that are paid for from companies, but those sites tend to be aligned with a specific company or platform.
Sites like MMORPG have to keep some professionalism when putting things out. They have most certainly hyped things up a bit much, but that's due to them being gamers like all of us and not from being paid by companies to do so.
Just because you haven't seen how to make PvP and PvE co-exist doesn't mean that PvP should be completely disregarded. Especially in ESO where PvP is a huge portion of the game. Additionally, if you look at some of the most populated mmos in the history of the genre, PvP was a major factor to that popularity.
Additionally, if you don't feel that class balance is important in PvE, you are sorely mistaken. Class balancing isn't just a "PvP thing", it has to exist in PvE as well. If all classes/roles aren't within a certain margin of one another then you'll see the playerbase shifting to match what the flavor of the month is for any given role. Then comes in class elitism where the "undesired" classes get left out, and those players cannot progress in PvE because of the general min-max mindset of PvE populations. If you try to add unique systems where you need certain classes for certain things (like having to have a thief to unlock a door on a bonus boss in a dungeon), then you'll create two new problems. First, only one player of that class will be allowed in those groups (unless it's a fotm class). Secondly, if it's not a fotm class, then you may end up waiting around for someone of that class to come along before you get to run the dungeon, because they will be more rare.
Finally, ESO has great potential, but I have my serious doubts about the game being very successful overall. It'll have it's niche fanbase after the initial launch, but I don't feel that the game is going to be a serious contender in the mmo market. Especially with games like WildStar, WoD and Landmark all making appearances this upcoming year. If they can make Cyrodil PvP more than a zergfest then it might have a chance at soaking up pvp players who want a DAoC experience, and didn't have that in GW2 (or any other game for that matter). Ironically, ESO's best chance for success most likely lies upon the one thing you disregarded on your list.
Sorry but what you're saying contradicts everything else I've heard about corruption in "gaming journalism". Maybe a small site like MMORPG.com is on the level (I hope so) but a lot of the very big sites will not give out negative or even neutral reviews to big AAA games. If they don't the companies will embargo them/take away their access because they know that 99% of "gaming journalists" have very little real talent and if site A won't give them a good review there are hundreds of other sites that will to get the ad revenue from exclusive early access to games.
I trust a small blogger or videomaker way more that crap like IGN. At least the blogger has probably played the game and is giving his or her honest opinion about it.
To Kaneth. I think ESO might have actually been able to do it right, It has stats you can go down to completely lobside your character certain directions that will unbalance classes, I just hope they keep it that way. I don't know enough about their pvp yet to see how it fully functions with PVE, but it seems to look like its working good, and you might even be able to kill people with ease and die from others with ease, which is the way I like it.
I think the abilities you choose will show the unbalancing of this game very well. atleast that's my opinion on it, and I like that type of play a lot.
Wait there is no housing in patch 2.1? I thought they added it in?
How to make ESO GotY?
They could start by-
1- Removing the Race = Faction Lock. Any Race can join any Faction. Faction only matters in Cyrodiil (PvP)
2- Open up the PvE world. All races should be free to explore the whole of Tamriel. Race/Faction has no restriction on where you can go in the PvE areas
Bringer of Eternal Darkness and Despair, but also a Nutritious way to start your Morning.
Games Played: Too Many
How much did they pay you to write this post. =P