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What should an MMO sequel be?
Dreamo84
Member UncommonPosts: 3,713
There have been several MMO sequels over the years. And it seems like every time there is a group of fans of the original upset that the sequel isn't just an updated version of the game they already love.
Now, I can understand why someone would have expected "MMO 2" to be similar to "MMO 1". In most genre of games you pick up "Single Player One!" and you play it, you beat it then you move on. Eventually, "Single Player Two: Even More Single Player!" comes out and you play it, it's a similar experience but with some extra features and a new story. You enjoy it, you move on etc.
Do developers of MMOs really want their players to do this? When EverQuest 2 came out EQ1 fans wanted it to be the same game with better graphics. But given the long term nature of MMOs why would a company want to do that? The people who like EverQuest are probably going to keep playing EverQuest. Someone else might like EverQuest 2 though, and the whole idea is to expand your player base and profits right? You don't want to just shift all your players into the next game.
At least these are my opinions. What does everyone else think?
Do you expect an MMO sequel to be mostly the same as the original and a replacement for it?
Or do you want them to try something different and reach a different market?
Comments
Unlike SP games, MMOs evolve all the time, so if a company wants to make the same game with more modern visuals and some other tweaks, they could ideally just patch the old game. I think it's perfectly alright for an MMO sequel to be quite different, although it probably should target the same-ish audience. That is, a themepark EVE2 would be pretty weird.
Sequels should be set in the same world and general feeling but should still have very different mechanics from the original game.
If you just want better graphics and a few new quest you might as well just update the original game.
I have seen this sort of statement a number of times always has me shaking my head and thinking why does this person not understand the business process.
So you spend a whole wad of cash on a new client/engine, redoing all of the graphics to fit the new client/engine testing, quality control etc. So how do you recover the cost?
If you give it out to everyone for free then you just blew most of the cash required to develop a new game
If you put a box price on it and sell it as an upgrade then you will have some players on the old client/engine and some on the new client/engine so now you have to do nearly twice as much for each future graphic change you make (zone, mob, item etc) so again more dollars down the drain.
Or you say lets make it a sequel and add sufficient content to make it saleable.
To answer the question asked at the title of this string. It should be good LOL.
Everything else seems like shenanigans to me. Your statements (and their responses) seem like injections instead of actual questions. Maybe it's just me.
That Guild Wars 2 login screen knocked up my wife. Must be the second coming!
With a sub-based game, your clients pay you the price of a new game every four months. Even with 500K subscribers, every year you're getting as much money as selling 3 million copies of a brand-new game would yield. Yes, some of that goes into upkeep, but then again, the sub money does go directly to you, unlike the money from box sales.
For example, EVE is very old and used to be low-budget, but it still looks great. I think it even got an engine overhaul at some point, but that was before I started playing.
When it comes to F2P/B2P games, this is a more difficult issue.
MMO sequels .. drastic change .. may be even non-MMOs.
If you just want more similar content, make an expansion instead.
Jagex has the best demonstrations with Runescape.
Runescape 1 - 3D world character 2D sprites no acceleration
Runescape 2 - acclerated 3D world, completely changed combat
Runescape 3 - Complete recode of client to HTML-5, massive updated to level of detail(still pretty horrible), and similar
all of them the same grindy game that hides the rest of the game. Players even kept their characters from one game to the next, and Jagex also eventually dropped the number from the game(after promotion period).
Practice doesn't make perfect, practice makes permanent.
"At one point technology meant making tech that could get to the moon, now it means making tech that could get you a taxi."
http://forum.gloriavictisgame.com/member.php?action=register&referrer=2457
Gamer two: This sequel is the exact same as the original with a few added features. I want innovation!
/yawn
You just described the Diablo 3 paradox...
I only have one franchise in my mind as the example, but I think the complaint is justified when the sequel not only is different from the original, but when it actively alienates the original fan base. When you choose an entirely new audience to market to, forcing them to either adapt or leave. There are a lot of reasons, most of them being engine/technology related, for why they would choose a sequel rather than an expansion, but that new engine or technological capabilities should go towards delivering on the same vision and design philosophies that define the franchise.
If you're going to forsake that, then you should just be making a different game altogether.
I am quite glad Blizz went with the first approach in D3. I like the new stuff ... no more skill tree, better experimentation of builds, and different choices actually do something different.
I was going to mention Jagex as well. My wife and I have played Runscape since 05. I enjoy that the game gets updated to the sequel, but the name of the game stays the same. It is also great that our characters don't get wiped, but we can play them unchanged in the new game.
Runescape 3 is coming out the 22nd of this month, and I am looking foward to the story, as well as the grafical updates and the customizable UI. It is going to be a sweet update with the Gods influence in Gilenor returning.
Jagex also creates servers running the old versions of Runescape. They made Classic, or Runescape 1 servers, but I don't think people can join them anymore. Recently they made Runescape 07 servers, these are the Runescape 2 servers and the characters are different from the RS3 characters.
Oderint, dum metuant.
It should be a very different game sharing a common setting.
e.g. successful sequel: Guild Wars 2. Set in the same world, a few centuries (?) later, but completely different game (traditional open-world MMO vs. squad-based instanced multiplayer game).
Unsuccessful sequel: EverQuest 2, didn't really have a clear vision of what it offered to players invested in the original EverQuest.
this pretty much it. Also, if the sequel takes place in the same cities and the same timeline, there has to be the same things, same npcs. Maybe the same king for example. And if it takes place in the same cities but in a future timeline then the players should be able to learn about the life in the first game within the second game from the lore. GW2 did it great in my opinion. Going to some GW1 old places in ruins and npcs talking about it is really immersing and nostalgic.