My only hope at this point is that Pillars of Eternity (yes, not an MMO), will come out, sell like hotcakes, and prove that Old does not equal bad. As seems to be the opinion of all developers of all mmo's and 95% of the mmo playerbase. (90% of which arent even MMO gamers, but thats another argument altogether).
Basically ive grown weary of the fact that developers and players seem to assume that old mechanics are like old graphics, where new is always better. I firmly believe the movement away from many of the old mechanics set in games like EQ and DAOC are what killed this genre.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
Archeage was the nail in the coffin for me. SWG was the pinnacle.
P2W options, advanced bots/hacks, small & instanced worlds, easy/everyone can win gameplay and cash shops are just some of the reasons this genre is over.
I know you can never "go back". But EQ and SWG were magical, and had it right. EQ was actually dangerous, and SWG was a living breathing, player built world.
Archeage was the nail in the coffin for me. SWG was the pinnacle.
P2W options, advanced bots/hacks, small & instanced worlds, easy/everyone can win gameplay and cash shops are just some of the reasons this genre is over.
I know you can never "go back". But EQ and SWG were magical, and had it right. EQ was actually dangerous, and SWG was a living breathing, player built world.
Where are these types of games today?
I've been playing single player rts.....
Three words: Citadel of Sorcery.
Wow. I haven't heard about that game in years. I remember thinking it would've been great if they could had pulled off what they were aiming for.
The closets thing to old school mmorpg out there right now its Darkfall unholy wars, however it is so fubar in so many aspects it takes away from it. Not to mention everything revolves around pvping in the game(which is my favorite part) so only have wolves playing that game. Then you get to part where they took all the good parts from Darkfall 1 and flushed them down the shittier with their playerbase.
Shame it could have turned out good, or at least opened the doors to more full loot, fps style combat mmorpgs made by a competent company and financial backing and with actually sandbox features.
Archeage was the nail in the coffin for me. SWG was the pinnacle.
P2W options, advanced bots/hacks, small & instanced worlds, easy/everyone can win gameplay and cash shops are just some of the reasons this genre is over.
I know you can never "go back". But EQ and SWG were magical, and had it right. EQ was actually dangerous, and SWG was a living breathing, player built world.
Where are these types of games today?
I've been playing single player rts.....
Three words: Citadel of Sorcery.
Wow. I haven't heard about that game in years. I remember thinking it would've been great if they could had pulled off what they were aiming for.
It's being developed in slow motion, but still very much alive.
COS and EQN are just 2 examples of MMOS in development with non-traditional features. EQN gets all the hype and, cough... premature awards, but in many respects COS is more innovative.
Most people haven't heard of it because they're following a development plan that focuses on the infrastructure (i.e. world and game development) first, they don't have fantastic graphics (yet) that make the impressionable drool, and the developer isn't SOE.
"Social media gives legions of idiots the right to speak when they once only spoke at a bar after a glass of wine, without harming the community ... but now they have the same right to speak as a Nobel Prize winner. It's the invasion of the idiots”
― Umberto Eco
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?” ― CD PROJEKT RED
Dunno about being dead, but they sure feel like lifeless, soulless abominations that are churned out in an assembly line with little more than a new coat of paint.
Modern games have cut those features out for the sake of attempting to grab the most users for a viable life of about 1-4 months of prime growth for a game. Which is fine, but if you are going to build it that way, how much harder is it to just include the extra features and allow for more retention? Like have the frequent use stuff stand out, but building complexity and exploration of features for players who would like to use the product longer.
It is not about hard or not .. it is about cost benefit analysis.
Think about it this way .. if a feature costs x, and only 5% of the players will use, shall the devs cut the feature and spend x on another dungeon where most players will use?
They *can* do it does not mean that they should do it, given no company has infinite resources.
My only hope at this point is that Pillars of Eternity (yes, not an MMO), will come out, sell like hotcakes, and prove that Old does not equal bad. As seems to be the opinion of all developers of all mmo's and 95% of the mmo playerbase. (90% of which arent even MMO gamers, but thats another argument altogether).
Basically ive grown weary of the fact that developers and players seem to assume that old mechanics are like old graphics, where new is always better. I firmly believe the movement away from many of the old mechanics set in games like EQ and DAOC are what killed this genre.
Who assumes that?
It is tested ... like camping is highly unpopular, and people prefer instances. So no one "assumes" camping is bad .. it is bad because people are complaining about it.
And when you say "kill", you mean "evolve". If all MMOs are still like UO & EQ, i would not even be here.
And what is a "mmo player"? It is not very well defined. Does someone who has played a MMO a minute count? How about an hour? How about a month? Most players play games in multiple genres, do they count?
If you want to define "mmo players" as those who would spend their lives in a single MMO and nothing else, the group will be so small that no sane developer would care.
Modern games have cut those features out for the sake of attempting to grab the most users for a viable life of about 1-4 months of prime growth for a game. Which is fine, but if you are going to build it that way, how much harder is it to just include the extra features and allow for more retention? Like have the frequent use stuff stand out, but building complexity and exploration of features for players who would like to use the product longer.
It is not about hard or not .. it is about cost benefit analysis.
Think about it this way .. if a feature costs x, and only 5% of the players will use, shall the devs cut the feature and spend x on another dungeon where most players will use?
They *can* do it does not mean that they should do it, given no company has infinite resources.
I get that, and I agree. It is interesting that now I am seeing games with more guts to the internal systems. It's essentially like when Mario Bros. had invisible squares to hit. It was considered an evolutionary step. Regression seems too destructive for the financial take. Baby with the bathwater and all that.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
It is tested ... like camping is highly unpopular, and people prefer instances. So no one "assumes" camping is bad .. it is bad because people are complaining about it.
I'm sorry but there is a huge market for non instanced games. Almost every time someone talks about a virtual world they imply no instances. There are already tons of games that are running live servers with no instancing.
It is tested ... like camping is highly unpopular, and people prefer instances. So no one "assumes" camping is bad .. it is bad because people are complaining about it.
I'm sorry but there is a huge market for non instanced games. Almost every time someone talks about a virtual world they imply no instances. There are already tons of games that are running live servers with no instancing.
It is tested ... like camping is highly unpopular, and people prefer instances. So no one "assumes" camping is bad .. it is bad because people are complaining about it.
I'm sorry but there is a huge market for non instanced games. Almost every time someone talks about a virtual world they imply no instances. There are already tons of games that are running live servers with no instancing.
I'd really love to see all this marketing data that is somewhere out in the cloud that shows what there is currently a market for and not.
Now if we are talking about what has more profitability, that might be different, but because something is less profitable, doesn't mean there is no market for it.
MMOs are dead because of the publishers and developers not having the balls to take risk and lacking any sort of real imagination.
It amazes me that my two favorite mmos, WoW and SWG, were made over ten years ago and NO ONE has been able to match them since. No one has been able to create SWG's awesome crafting and profession system. No one has been able to make an open world to rival Azeroth. Everything is generic, plastic and instanced now.
I also fear that the golden age of mmos is long gone, something that will never return. But I still have a little hope, there are indi developers with great ideas, but so far all they bring to the table is unfinished buggy games that were only good on paper. One of these days one of these indi devs will make the right game for the right market at the right time with the right financing, until then we are doomed to wallow in failed AAA crapfests and the wishful dreams of kickstarter.
I'd really love to see all this marketing data that is somewhere out in the cloud that shows what there is currently a market for and not.
Now if we are talking about what has more profitability, that might be different, but because something is less profitable, doesn't mean there is no market for it.
I don't think there are people in the industry saying there is no market for thing X or thing Y. That's just the people on these forums. There certainly is market information, but it's probably much more nuanced than just "Market A: 1, Market B: 0". More along the lines of "concerning the game being built, the market is expected to be a certain size, which warrants a certain amount of investment money. Now, can you, the developer, build the game for that amount of investment money?"
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It is tested ... like camping is highly unpopular, and people prefer instances. So no one "assumes" camping is bad .. it is bad because people are complaining about it.
I'm sorry but there is a huge market for non instanced games. Almost every time someone talks about a virtual world they imply no instances. There are already tons of games that are running live servers with no instancing.
As huge the instanced game market? .. including WoW, LoL, WoT, ....
If your going to bring LoL and WoT into the picture then I raise you every open world game including GTA.
As a single player game GTA is functionally closer to a heavy instance MMORPG like WoW than an open world MMORPG. It's one big instance where other players cannot interfere with what your doing and the decisions you make do not affect other players' instances of the game.
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
I'd really love to see all this marketing data that is somewhere out in the cloud that shows what there is currently a market for and not.
Now if we are talking about what has more profitability, that might be different, but because something is less profitable, doesn't mean there is no market for it.
I don't think there are people in the industry saying there is no market for thing X or thing Y. That's just the people on these forums. There certainly is market information, but it's probably much more nuanced than just "Market A: 1, Market B: 0". More along the lines of "concerning the game being built, the market is expected to be a certain size, which warrants a certain amount of investment money. Now, can you, the developer, build the game for that amount of investment money?"
Where is the artistry and human interface in all of that garbage? For shit's sakes I wish they would just make things that are good.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
I'd really love to see all this marketing data that is somewhere out in the cloud that shows what there is currently a market for and not.
Now if we are talking about what has more profitability, that might be different, but because something is less profitable, doesn't mean there is no market for it.
I don't think there are people in the industry saying there is no market for thing X or thing Y. That's just the people on these forums. There certainly is market information, but it's probably much more nuanced than just "Market A: 1, Market B: 0". More along the lines of "concerning the game being built, the market is expected to be a certain size, which warrants a certain amount of investment money. Now, can you, the developer, build the game for that amount of investment money?"
Where is the artistry and human interface in all of that garbage? For shit's sakes I wish they would just make things that are good.
If it were that simple, we'd be rolling in them now....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
I'd really love to see all this marketing data that is somewhere out in the cloud that shows what there is currently a market for and not.
Now if we are talking about what has more profitability, that might be different, but because something is less profitable, doesn't mean there is no market for it.
I don't think there are people in the industry saying there is no market for thing X or thing Y. That's just the people on these forums. There certainly is market information, but it's probably much more nuanced than just "Market A: 1, Market B: 0". More along the lines of "concerning the game being built, the market is expected to be a certain size, which warrants a certain amount of investment money. Now, can you, the developer, build the game for that amount of investment money?"
Absolutely! You can make an MMORPG for $5mil, but there are inevitable tradeoffs. Those tradeoff decisions occur in every game design. And developers have to match the expense of development against the income they'll get.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Let's say a modest AAA quality MMO takes 3 years to develop from idea to release, and the avg salary is 80k including costs , now add hardware costs, advertising costs. 5 million would barely get you started.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Originally posted by Bladestrom Let's say a modest AAA quality MMO takes 3 years to develop from idea to release, and the avg salary is 80k including costs , now add hardware costs, advertising costs. 5 million would barely get you started.
That's where the tradeoffs come in. Corners need to be cut, accommodations made. It might not be AAA, but if it brings in enough players to make it profitable, it has the chance to survive and grow.
I think City of Heroes was made on a $5 mil budget (over a decade ago of course). Shroud of the Avatar is probably being built for under $10 mil now.
But you do have to really understand the playing field. I think a ton of people who are pining for the old days would dismiss something similar done today due to advanced expectations.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
It is tested ... like camping is highly unpopular, and people prefer instances. So no one "assumes" camping is bad .. it is bad because people are complaining about it.
I'm sorry but there is a huge market for non instanced games. Almost every time someone talks about a virtual world they imply no instances. There are already tons of games that are running live servers with no instancing.
As huge the instanced game market? .. including WoW, LoL, WoT, ....
If your going to bring LoL and WoT into the picture then I raise you every open world game including GTA.
If you want to say MMO should be like single player games like GTA and Skyrim where you can always pause the game, and teleport to area you have visited .. i am all for it.
And since we are at it, let's include Hearthstone, D3, and SC2 ... they are instanced games not very different from WoT anyway.
Comments
My only hope at this point is that Pillars of Eternity (yes, not an MMO), will come out, sell like hotcakes, and prove that Old does not equal bad. As seems to be the opinion of all developers of all mmo's and 95% of the mmo playerbase. (90% of which arent even MMO gamers, but thats another argument altogether).
Basically ive grown weary of the fact that developers and players seem to assume that old mechanics are like old graphics, where new is always better. I firmly believe the movement away from many of the old mechanics set in games like EQ and DAOC are what killed this genre.
"The surest way to corrupt a youth is to instruct him to hold in higher esteem those who think alike than those who think differently."
- Friedrich Nietzsche
Three words: Citadel of Sorcery.
Played: UO, LotR, WoW, SWG, DDO, AoC, EVE, Warhammer, TF2, EQ2, SWTOR, TSW, CSS, KF, L4D, AoW, WoT
Playing: The Secret World until Citadel of Sorcery goes into Alpha testing.
Tired of: Linear quest games, dailies, and dumbed down games
Anticipating:Citadel of Sorcery
Wow. I haven't heard about that game in years. I remember thinking it would've been great if they could had pulled off what they were aiming for.
The closets thing to old school mmorpg out there right now its Darkfall unholy wars, however it is so fubar in so many aspects it takes away from it. Not to mention everything revolves around pvping in the game(which is my favorite part) so only have wolves playing that game. Then you get to part where they took all the good parts from Darkfall 1 and flushed them down the shittier with their playerbase.
Shame it could have turned out good, or at least opened the doors to more full loot, fps style combat mmorpgs made by a competent company and financial backing and with actually sandbox features.
MurderHerd
It's being developed in slow motion, but still very much alive.
COS and EQN are just 2 examples of MMOS in development with non-traditional features. EQN gets all the hype and, cough... premature awards, but in many respects COS is more innovative.
Most people haven't heard of it because they're following a development plan that focuses on the infrastructure (i.e. world and game development) first, they don't have fantastic graphics (yet) that make the impressionable drool, and the developer isn't SOE.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
That's it!
Change the name of the thread
The MMO is UnDead
It is not about hard or not .. it is about cost benefit analysis.
Think about it this way .. if a feature costs x, and only 5% of the players will use, shall the devs cut the feature and spend x on another dungeon where most players will use?
They *can* do it does not mean that they should do it, given no company has infinite resources.
Who assumes that?
It is tested ... like camping is highly unpopular, and people prefer instances. So no one "assumes" camping is bad .. it is bad because people are complaining about it.
And when you say "kill", you mean "evolve". If all MMOs are still like UO & EQ, i would not even be here.
And what is a "mmo player"? It is not very well defined. Does someone who has played a MMO a minute count? How about an hour? How about a month? Most players play games in multiple genres, do they count?
If you want to define "mmo players" as those who would spend their lives in a single MMO and nothing else, the group will be so small that no sane developer would care.
I get that, and I agree. It is interesting that now I am seeing games with more guts to the internal systems. It's essentially like when Mario Bros. had invisible squares to hit. It was considered an evolutionary step. Regression seems too destructive for the financial take. Baby with the bathwater and all that.
I'm sorry but there is a huge market for non instanced games. Almost every time someone talks about a virtual world they imply no instances. There are already tons of games that are running live servers with no instancing.
MMORPG Poll
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/As huge the instanced game market? .. including WoW, LoL, WoT, ....
If your going to bring LoL and WoT into the picture then I raise you every open world game including GTA.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/I'd really love to see all this marketing data that is somewhere out in the cloud that shows what there is currently a market for and not.
Now if we are talking about what has more profitability, that might be different, but because something is less profitable, doesn't mean there is no market for it.
MMOs are dead because of the publishers and developers not having the balls to take risk and lacking any sort of real imagination.
It amazes me that my two favorite mmos, WoW and SWG, were made over ten years ago and NO ONE has been able to match them since. No one has been able to create SWG's awesome crafting and profession system. No one has been able to make an open world to rival Azeroth. Everything is generic, plastic and instanced now.
I also fear that the golden age of mmos is long gone, something that will never return. But I still have a little hope, there are indi developers with great ideas, but so far all they bring to the table is unfinished buggy games that were only good on paper. One of these days one of these indi devs will make the right game for the right market at the right time with the right financing, until then we are doomed to wallow in failed AAA crapfests and the wishful dreams of kickstarter.
I don't think there are people in the industry saying there is no market for thing X or thing Y. That's just the people on these forums. There certainly is market information, but it's probably much more nuanced than just "Market A: 1, Market B: 0". More along the lines of "concerning the game being built, the market is expected to be a certain size, which warrants a certain amount of investment money. Now, can you, the developer, build the game for that amount of investment money?"
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
As a single player game GTA is functionally closer to a heavy instance MMORPG like WoW than an open world MMORPG. It's one big instance where other players cannot interfere with what your doing and the decisions you make do not affect other players' instances of the game.
hyperbole, however, is apparently alive and well
RIP Ribbitribbitt you are missed, kid.
Currently Playing EVE, ESO
Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and not clothed.
Dwight D Eisenhower
My optimism wears heavy boots and is loud.
Henry Rollins
Where is the artistry and human interface in all of that garbage? For shit's sakes I wish they would just make things that are good.
If it were that simple, we'd be rolling in them now....
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
Absolutely! You can make an MMORPG for $5mil, but there are inevitable tradeoffs. Those tradeoff decisions occur in every game design. And developers have to match the expense of development against the income they'll get.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
Being "truly innovative", Eve is maybe the only game that has pushed that envelope and is currently running.
Nothing is close to the player interaction that Eve offers. Think of how large a Eve-like fantasy setting MMO would do.
But for the future, we will have to wait to see what it brings.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
That's where the tradeoffs come in. Corners need to be cut, accommodations made. It might not be AAA, but if it brings in enough players to make it profitable, it has the chance to survive and grow.
I think City of Heroes was made on a $5 mil budget (over a decade ago of course). Shroud of the Avatar is probably being built for under $10 mil now.
But you do have to really understand the playing field. I think a ton of people who are pining for the old days would dismiss something similar done today due to advanced expectations.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
If you want to say MMO should be like single player games like GTA and Skyrim where you can always pause the game, and teleport to area you have visited .. i am all for it.
And since we are at it, let's include Hearthstone, D3, and SC2 ... they are instanced games not very different from WoT anyway.