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Better Niche Games
FarReach
Member Posts: 229
All I want Is a game exactly like Wurm Online, but with at least the quality of Darkfall. I would even settle for the quality of Fallen Earth.
I've been recently playing alot of Wurm Online, and I am just amazed at how deep the game is. The only real problem I have with the game, is that you can tell it was made by a small group of friends, and not a professional company, even a small professional company. It feels more like a MUD, than a 3D game. I even read somewhere last night that "Wurm is not a true 3D Game" when talking about how the map was layed out and how to mine. I'm still fairly new and I'm not sure what that even means, but it's what I read (I think on the Wurmpedia Wiki).
I understand that companies make games, solely for money. But, there is a market out there for games like this. It's no where near a WoW sized market, or maybe even a LoTRO market, but there is a profitable market out there none-the-less. Fallen Earth, took 2.5million to make. Lee Hammock, once said that they would only have to have sold 50,000 copies of the game or sustained over 25,000 for 6 months, to turn a profit and pay off their investors.
The only game I see out there, that is what I want, is Xsyon. But, the problem there is that I don't think the developers have a clear design for the future of the game, with many subtle things left out. Such as the game is post Apoc, but feels more wild west, and they care more about Mages and Priests, than they do about anything electronic, or really anything that would be left after an apocalypse.
I just read the other day that one of the head developers said he hadn't even thought about guns. "Guns, I don't have any real plans for this. " (word for word quote) To me, that's a big red flag saying that they really don't even know what direction they want to take with the game and alot of their ideas are half baked. They may have planned in a different sort of way and are going to provide a ton of depth to make up for not really thinking about the setting their game is in, but oversights like that don't give me much hope. You can find rubber, cash, coins, and a ton of other things in the trash piles. But you're telling me people forgot how to make gun powder and that I can't find any anywhere? Seriously? I see this game ending up just like MO.
The fact is though, there is a market for a smaller, well organised, indy company to create a game just like Wurm Online, but with more style and more professionalism. I was hoping on Darkfall for almost 8yrs, but as we all know it fell very short of that mark.
I am not a medieval person, or a fantasy person. I like SciFi and I even like Post-Apoc the most. But, I don't even care. If you smashed Wurm Online and Darkfall together, I would be the happiest gamer in the world. Sadly, I think with the type of players that Darkfall has already attracted, it's too late for them. As if they would ever try to live up to what they were supposed to have been anyway.
A professional, quality game, will sell. Regardless of the market it's directed at.
Comments
"A professional, quality game, will sell. Regardless of the market it's directed at."
Only if quality infers accessibility (and well...the level of accessibility is one of the primary factors in which market a game is directed at, really.)
If you're a car-maker and you make a totally badass car -- but it's sized for people with Gigantism -- it's not going to sell very well because it's unusable by the general populace.
Similar if you're a game-maker and you make a game so hopelessly (and unnecessarily) complicated that the average person can't use it, it won't sell well (regardless of quality.)
But if you take the core things you feel make WURM an interesting game and make them accessible so everyone can partake of that type of fun, that's essentially "creating the car for normal-sized people."
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
True, but I think your comparison is a bit to the extreme. Most of the reason Wurm is so hard to use, is because the player base is so small and the wiki and in game help, is extremely lacking of information. From what I've seen, the player base tends to take pride of this. I'm not really sure why, but it seems like they do. Other than that, it's extremely easy to use. Click, mine, done.
EVE is a fairly complicated game, that most people can't access. It does extremely well for a niche game with depth, and maybe one day it will get to the point of what I'm talking about, a couple or few years after Incarna is launched. Incarna, may be a dream come true one day. But, it's a very long way away. Probably another 10yrs or more.
Farreach i totally disagree with you about Xsyon, Just because they do not have firearms does not mean the game is bad. They will have bows. And how does the game lack vision? Have you actually played this or are you going by what you have read?
Not everyone wants another Darkfall type game, I know i don't. Darkfall is full of people who do nothing but greif each other. It is refreshing to see a game like Xsyon try to go a different route. Yes you can pvp and loot people etc. But there is so much more tot he game than just running around saying i pwn you. I think this game will be more of an adult type game for those who do want to craft explore build and yes kill. the majority of people I have encountered have been pretty respectful. And if the game is going to bring that type of players to it then count me in. I really think it is unfair of you to bash the game all due to no firearms. Having played the game, I find most of your thoughts nothing more than assumption. No flame intended.
Is the game perfect? No. But I think if people give it a shot they will see something much different than the norm.
I never said just because they don't have Firearms, the game will be bad. Only that it sets off some red flags, questioning as to whether or not they have actually planned for what they will be doing. They can say this or that, but do you know if that's true? They say that they have all this stuff done, but have you seen it for yourself? If it is actually done as they say it is, how done is it really? Add this to the problems they had with the launch date, and it makes me very worried if the game is actually going to be a solid game, or another game like Roma Victor that promised a whole lot, but really didn't deliver any of it. I see the same lack of attention to detail, as I saw with Roma Victor. Reading developer comments remind me of an ADHD child. I'm not saying the devs are incompetent or children or anything like that, only that their visions seem to be all over the place with a lack of focus.
I mean, doesn't it kinda make you wonder why the hell there are nothing but Native Americans in a post-Apoc MMO? I understand that the Washoe are from that area, but why is the theme so dominating in a game that is supposed to be Post-Apoc? Everything from weapons, to armor, to buildings, to even the name of the player groups (tribes). It completely dominates everything. Where does this come from? It makes you feel as if they just had a fascination with the tribe and Native American culture, so they decided to throw it into the game. The whole time I spent Salvaging, find basket after basket after basket of stuff, I don't think I found a single poker chip. I'm pretty sure Carson City is the 4th largest gambling town in the US.
I also never said a Darkfall game, only the quality of it and that Darkfall was supposed to be much like Wurm is or what Xsyon is supposed to be. What was released is very different. I was hoping for an organic world MMO and what I played was the grindiest FPS ever made.
Most of them are assumptions, but I did play the game for a short time and read almost every post I could find on the forums. I have been around the MMO world for awhile and am no stranger to the way developers present things, and what they actually churn out into the final product. I would like to think of my time with Xsyon is more of an Educated Guess, than an Assumption.
I think the issue you are addressing is lore development. A lot of games these days are trying to lure people in with some fancy mechanic, but they are forgetting the lore aspect. One of the first things I look at in any game is a good story, becasue then I kcan tell how much effort they have put into their game. Firefall is a current example:
They just finished their 'Days of Christmas' which was a series of short stories that told the history of their game to bring people up to scratch. It wasnt about mechanics, or fancy hoo-hah, it was just stories. Developing this story more shows that they are going for more than money. Eve-online did the same with their background, developing each culture with sub stories, and continuous events through the game that changed things related to that story. It keeps fans enthralled, and attentive and refelcts on their attention to detail and their effort in the world.
Only in the case of when a game doesn't seem to have it.
It's kind of the same thing if you walk into a high paying job interview, wearing Affliction blue jeans and an Affliction shirt. You may be able to do that job better than anyone in the entire company, but you're not going to get hired. Because, it sets off flags in the employer's head that you may not have really thought too hard about getting that job. Sure, you're wearing a $100 T-Shirt and $200 Jeans, but it doesn't take the place of wearing a suite and tie.
You kind of take it for granted when it's there, it's only when it's not there is when you start to notice. This is how I feel with Xsyon.
I mean, by all means Xsyon could be great and just what I've been waiting for all these years. And I really truly hope it is. But, just like the guy in the example above could be the best person to ever work for the company. But just like the employer, from the oversights I've seen so far, it doesn't give me much hope.
as Albert Einstein already said: "We dont know about the weapons of the 3rd World War, but we know, what they will use in the 4th one: Clubs!"
so this dev, being surprised about firearms, had a clear vision about the game. it was just not yours.
played: Everquest I (6 years), EVE (3 years)
months: EQII, Vanguard, Siedler Online, SWTOR, Guild Wars 2
weeks: WoW, Shaiya, Darkfall, Florensia, Entropia, Aion, Lotro, Fallen Earth, Uncharted Waters
days: DDO, RoM, FFXIV, STO, Atlantica, PotBS, Maestia, WAR, AoC, Gods&Heroes, Cultures, RIFT, Forsaken World, Allodds
A lot of it is subjective too based on what is important to you, for example I found Fallen Earth far, far, far, more polished than Darkfall. It runs much smoother and has light years better animations for my tastes. The poor performance and woeful animations were what turned me off Darkfall.
At the end of the day however it is all down to $$$, and the niche titles simply don't have that much of it.
Catch-22... having big money investors could make a kick-butt niche game.
Big money investors usually won't invest in niche, because of low return. They force mainstream.
I never played Wurm. What are the cool features and what makes it deep?
in a few years there will be enough tools and engines for small indie devs to make high quality mmos with a small budget. it just takes time for the accessibility to trickle down into more realistic price ranges. what costs bioware 150 will most likely be done with 1/4th of the budget in 5 or 6 years. its just the way this stuff works.
the catch is is 5 or 6 years, the big devs will be cranking out even better stuff at outrageous costs. will you be happy in 6 years playing a new mmo from an indie dev that looks like tor or gw2? the answer right now would most likely be yes, but you never know what stuff is gonna be like even a couple years down the road. maybe by then, gw2 and tor with all their innovation will look like old hat.
OP you should check out earthrise. It looks to be a good sandbox PvP game with decently high production values. I'm just worried because they haven't released many gameplay videos, but since release is less than a month away thier should be a flood of information.
But, with any indie mmo, its always a bit of a gamble. I for one will be buying it day one, but I can understand if others are weary.
(TO OP First: I agree with what you are saying and I agree with what most people are saying here and I like the games listed as examples).
To s126shadow:
The idea of Darkfall and how the community plays it (although in fairness also the game mechanics) is sadly different but I think its because of a lack of options for the pvp 'hard core community which then just attracts all the players in the community who want to greive'. The idea of Darkfall was to be warfare in my mind, not random pvp farming but I fear you are correct more than wrong, most of it is just small groups pvp hunting not organized massive warfare.
The mechanics of the game support massive war very well but it simply doesnt happen enough. I lean toward changing the system a bit so that pvp only happens between war dec clans but I also see the fail in that concept for player who want to go rouge. Either that or I need to get my clan to start fighting at a higher level
THIS: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJETzhlMAEE is what darkfall should be for most players about once a month
Please do not respond to me, even if I ask you a question, its rhetorical.
Please do not respond to me
It's more than just accessibility though. It is possible for "game A" to be more accessible than "game B" but game B to attract more players due to it's theme for example. It's also possible for a game to attract more players than a more accessible game from marketing, genre (eg MMORTS or MMOFPS), saturation of similar games, replayability etc.
PS Xyson is a joke!
Yeah, I'd agree with that.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver