Isnt Bioware making a new mmo? I am sure that shadowrealm didnt just disappear. I think they spent time testing combat mechanics and have something awesome instore for us in the future.
There's a difference between games in the same franchise being similar
and games made by dozens of different companies all playing in an identical fashion.
And no, most Zelda and Witcher games are radically different from one another.
There's a reason people are upset with the last decade of MMOs, and its not because they're good games.
Plenty of genres have games that all play very similar to one another. Arpgs, city builders, RTS', Crpgs, FPS', turn-based RPGs, JRPGs. etc... plenty of these franchises use the same game-play systems with some slight nuance, not unlike MMOs. As those mechanics are essentially what defines the respective genre.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Too many developers haven't come to grips with the reality that MMORPGs are entertainment, and the best entertainment is produced by artists not marketing departments. What you need is a group dedicated to making a game they love and the talent to pull it off. Most other arguments are as non-sensical as debating whether future bands will be like Genesis or U2. If you look at the successes in the MMORPG market and how they were created it is always by just that: a team determined to make a game of thier unique vision that was fun to play. The failures tend to be those that try to copy them.
Originally posted by Malathoos Isnt Bioware making a new mmo? I am sure that shadowrealm didnt just disappear. I think they spent time testing combat mechanics and have something awesome instore for us in the future.
There's no indication they're making an MMO, especially considering they fired most of their MMO folks after SWTOR imploded.
And why would we expect something good from them in the MMO space? SWTOR is just a worse version of a BIoware singleplayer game
Hey none of this is about what is original or copied. Damn near EVERYTHING is copied from something somewhere else.
The point is having enough developers allowed to create a game entirely from their own vision and not driven by other influences (such as being forced into market direction by a big name developer). Yes a new mmo will pull influence from other genres or games ... because THAT is what an MMORPG is! It creates a living world computer game out of a concept likely already created in another medium or genre.
What the mmo industry has lacked over the last 10 years or so is diversity of origin. All the so called jaded old school gamers are jaded because they lost their mmos based upon table top RPGs and other games also stemming from such origins. Others I am sure lost mmos more suited to them as well when industry variety was stripped by focused marketing (CoX and the NGE in SWG as likely candidates).
2 VERY different games are made when starting with these 2 distinct goals:
1. We want to make a game for a specific audience and fans of a specific genre.
2. We want to make a game targeting the largest audience to make the most money.
Number 1 is never made by big industry. No matter what game you want it SHOULD be allowed to be made. Whether it is successful is entirely another matter. The industry is healthier when ALL styles of games are allowed to be created no matter how large the trail of failures is behind it.
damn sure need to decide either PVE or PVP but NOT BOTH.
I think they can, but for actual balance they have to get rid of 2 things:
racials
PvP stat gear
I think both of your vision is lacking. In a large open world style mmo (the style of game old school was attempting to create but is lacking today in quality options) pvp and pve should be entirely integrated and seamless. It is the attempt to divide the 2 than destroys the very concept of the game. Poor design and short cuts is why is fails to work for many games. Their game scope is too small to allow both to work. The reason why open world pvp worked far better in older games is because their worlds were far larger and designed for conflict (guards in towns or simply the worlds were so large it allowed the space for it).
Racials work perfectly well in a game designed around lore and not limited to balanced and limited engagements on instances maps. RvR style, open world combat perfectly allows racial options and even classes not balanced around one another. It offers variety in tactics, group building and constructs and enforces faction/realm and race/class diversity. Balancing per class and race destroys this concept and any genre it touches like pnp rpg which these games likely draw their influence from.
What you are asking only works to make a mmo more like an esport and MOBO which is what most seem to be evolving toward instead of the exact opposite style of mmo in which is destroys.
Hey none of this is about what is original or copied. Damn near EVERYTHING is copied from something somewhere else.
The point is having enough developers allowed to create a game entirely from their own vision and not driven by other influences (such as being forced into market direction by a big name developer). Yes a new mmo will pull influence from other genres or games ... because THAT is what an MMORPG is! It creates a living world computer game out of a concept likely already created in another medium or genre.
What the mmo industry has lacked over the last 10 years or so is diversity of origin. All the so called jaded old school gamers are jaded because they lost their mmos based upon table top RPGs and other games also stemming from such origins. Others I am sure lost mmos more suited to them as well when industry variety was stripped by focused marketing (CoX and the NGE in SWG as likely candidates).
2 VERY different games are made when starting with these 2 distinct goals:
1. We want to make a game for a specific audience and fans of a specific genre.
2. We want to make a game targeting the largest audience to make the most money.
Number 1 is never made by big industry. No matter what game you want it SHOULD be allowed to be made. Whether it is successful is entirely another matter. The industry is healthier when ALL styles of games are allowed to be created no matter how large the trail of failures is behind it.
You have to look at the why of some of these things. Chief reasoning being you can't squander hundreds of millions in company assets on ideas, you need working models when that kind of money is on the line. Hence why big projects typically stick to known mechanics. As once a project gets the greenlight, it becomes a race more or less, get as much in before you have to launch. This leaves little time for prototyping new ideas, iterating on them, etc...
You say any type of project should be allowed to be made, on who's dime though? While a novel idea, it's really a pipe dream, at least when it comes to MMORPGs. The money and time investment in these projects can be astronomical. More and more people are showing a distaste for crowdfunding, so where do these funds come from to just make any project happen? How can companies just throw away money in such a manner and stay in business?
Anyway before I go off on a tangent on the subject, I'll just say I think it's evident many "jaded" gamers are looking at the wrong genre and project scope to get their shallow wants filled. They want niche ideas out of projects that essentially require mass appeal to turn costs into profits, when the chief complaint is "there's nothing just for me", it's obvious they want something other than a AAA MMORPG will ever be.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
we want a certain set of features in a unique combination delivering a unique experience.
That pretty much describes WoW. It changed old concepts and inconvenient standards.
Questing became more convenient.
Seamless zoning and phasing improved Virtually every mMO had this, but WoW had shit loads of instancing.
Downtime became negligible.
Finding groups and raids became easier. The Opposite happened.
Combat became more engaging, with mobility & CC. No
PvP became more competitive and less zergy.Nope
etc..
Not really. Most of the features that WoW had existed in the exact configuration WoW had. The difference is WoW had a massive budget, 3 years extra dev time, and the biggest ad campaign and best brand name in MMO history, aimed at non MMO gamers.
And several of those aren't even true, or were common in every game.
What? Are you serious? WoW didn't have that much instancing at all. The only things that were instanced were dungeons, and the only zoning was traveling across continents. PvP was added later with instancing. In fact, it's still pretty much the same way. You can seamlessly travel throughout all the zones without a loading screen. Phasing is a form of instancing, and it wasn't until Wotlk that they heavily phased WoW from that point on. It still puts modern MMO's to shame with seamless zoning. Swtor and GW2? Heavily instanced with non-seamless zoning, among other MMO's. Archeage was the latest MMO that also has seamless zoning, if i remember correctly.
As for the highlighted text in your quote, that's not a bad thing. I'd rather play a MMO with great graphics, animations, and models, than some piss poor budgeted MMO with graphics that look worse than WoW.
we want a certain set of features in a unique combination delivering a unique experience.
That pretty much describes WoW. It changed old concepts and inconvenient standards.
Questing became more convenient.
Seamless zoning and phasing improved Virtually every mMO had this, but WoW had shit loads of instancing.
Downtime became negligible.
Finding groups and raids became easier. The Opposite happened.
Combat became more engaging, with mobility & CC. No
PvP became more competitive and less zergy.Nope
etc..
Not really. Most of the features that WoW had existed in the exact configuration WoW had. The difference is WoW had a massive budget, 3 years extra dev time, and the biggest ad campaign and best brand name in MMO history, aimed at non MMO gamers.
And several of those aren't even true, or were common in every game.
What? Are you serious? WoW didn't have that much instancing at all. The only things that were instanced were dungeons
Every dungeon was instanced, and every raid was instanced, at a time when that wasn't normal or desired. The only game that NEEDED instancing to function was EQ. And guess what Wow was based on.. the flawed designs of EQ.
To me, AAA doesn't mean anything. AAA means money grab today. Avoid At All cost.
The best mmorpgs I've ever played were made with less than 10% of modern AAA budget, so what does triple A mean anyway?
It means a lot of things, most importantly market presence and visibility. IF blizzard as an example announced a new MMORPG, the coverage for such a game would be all over, small companies on the other hand may not get any coverage at all.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Every dungeon was instanced, and every raid was instanced, at a time when that wasn't normal or desired. The only game that NEEDED instancing to function was EQ. And guess what Wow was based on.. the flawed designs of EQ.
It's things like that that set WOW apart back then and a big reason why it was taking peeps from every other game. Just about everything WOW was doing at the time was seen as where many wanted the genre to go, otherwise they wouldn't have left the games they were playing for it.
You sure have a weird recollection of history though.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
damn sure need to decide either PVE or PVP but NOT BOTH.
I think they can, but for actual balance they have to get rid of 2 things:
racials
PvP stat gear
I think both of your vision is lacking. In a large open world style mmo (the style of game old school was attempting to create but is lacking today in quality options) pvp and pve should be entirely integrated and seamless. It is the attempt to divide the 2 than destroys the very concept of the game. Poor design and short cuts is why is fails to work for many games. Their game scope is too small to allow both to work. The reason why open world pvp worked far better in older games is because their worlds were far larger and designed for conflict (guards in towns or simply the worlds were so large it allowed the space for it).
Racials work perfectly well in a game designed around lore and not limited to balanced and limited engagements on instances maps. RvR style, open world combat perfectly allows racial options and even classes not balanced around one another. It offers variety in tactics, group building and constructs and enforces faction/realm and race/class diversity. Balancing per class and race destroys this concept and any genre it touches like pnp rpg which these games likely draw their influence from.
What you are asking only works to make a mmo more like an esport and MOBO which is what most seem to be evolving toward instead of the exact opposite style of mmo in which is destroys.
I disagree totally. You can't 'have PVE and PVP in the same game unless you have cookie-cutter classes for each race. You have to have balance in PVP and in order to do that each side, race etc. must have the exact stuff available to them. Just take a look at any PVP game out there. Each side or each person has access to the exact same stuff as everyone else. It's boring bland and I'm sick of good PVE games getting ruined by PVP. Want to play PVP then go play a PVP game. Leave the PVE to the PVE players. No reason to mix them.
If you take PVP out of the PVE game classes and races can be totally different. You can balance each class individually and not have to worry about flavor of the day stuff. Tanks can be designed to Tank but not do a lot of damage. Healers could be designed to heal but again, not much damage. DPS classes can do tons of damage but be designed to die easier.
DAOC was RVR. The problem with it was again, class balance. Everyone pounced on the Healers and totally ignored any Tanks. Once all healers dead it was game over. You can't taunt a human player like you can an AI.
we want a certain set of features in a unique combination delivering a unique experience.
That pretty much describes WoW. It changed old concepts and inconvenient standards.
Questing became more convenient.
Seamless zoning and phasing improved Virtually every mMO had this, but WoW had shit loads of instancing.
Downtime became negligible.
Finding groups and raids became easier. The Opposite happened.
Combat became more engaging, with mobility & CC. No
PvP became more competitive and less zergy.Nope
etc..
Not really. Most of the features that WoW had existed in the exact configuration WoW had. The difference is WoW had a massive budget, 3 years extra dev time, and the biggest ad campaign and best brand name in MMO history, aimed at non MMO gamers.
And several of those aren't even true, or were common in every game.
What? Are you serious? WoW didn't have that much instancing at all. The only things that were instanced were dungeons
Every dungeon was instanced, and every raid was instanced, at a time when that wasn't normal or desired. The only game that NEEDED instancing to function was EQ. And guess what Wow was based on.. the flawed designs of EQ.
EQ was not instanced until POP came out. Now there were zone walls but that is different. It was not your own private instance like we know today.
The real truth s since this free to play,kickstarter and early access nonsense started,the market is absolutely flooded.There are thousands of studios let alone thousands of mmorpg's.There is no way enough players to support such a flooded market.
We were 100x better off without these new gimmicks being accepted because it would have weed out all the low budget games and most likely leaving lots of gamer's a lot more happy they did not hand out their free money.
Excellent point.
But I think it also goes hand in hand with the other issues. There's just no cream to rise to the top anymore with all the sameness of concept being churned around with a few new takes on the same 'ol same 'ol. WoW is still the cream of the crop after how many years now? And even that's turning to cheese.
No, the problem is the players. MMO players have a serious problem with entitlement the likes of which has rarely been seen before. Single player RPGs gamers don't have this problem. People still buying, playing, looking forward to the next Final Fantasy game. People still buying, playing, looking forward to the next Zelda game. People still buying, playing, looking forward to the next GTA game. People still buying, playing, looking forward to the next TES game. People still buying, playing, looking forward to the next Witcher game.
All of those games have been playing mostly the same for years. You don't even see a 100th' of the complaints you do towards mmorpgs though. Entitlement and perspective. These are the mortal problems with mmorpg players these days. People don't realize the tools to having fun are given to them in most mmorpgs, but they fail to see it because they don't have the right perspective and have a huge sense of entitlement that they just complain and are never happy.
For as much as WoW is still going strong, it has a lot of haters that hate on it for the stupidest reasons. If those self-same haters actually looked at WoW differently, they'd realize it offers most of what they're asking for but they don't, they're content just hating on it and complaining and not changing their perspective. Now, I don't mean say all the problems are on the players end, but the majority of them are unfortunately.
Someday, someone's going to realize that all those complainers could be their customers. If only they offer them what they want.
When Game of War makes a million dollars a DAY, why would publishers even try to fund AAA MMO games anymore?
$ in "online" gaming is moving to mobile and MOBAs... it's very sad.
Winner!
The fad of making crap for today's ADHD crowd that make impulsive In App Purchases is where all the talent is gravitating to (or at least what I would be doing if I could code worth a damn)
People don't want vast worlds any more, they just want fast food games they can play while on the toilet.
The biggest problem is that certain people on this forum haven't worked out that their not the target market anymore and those that do target them are doomed to fail, because it's impossible to recapture your youth....
MOBAs and lobby based games are the future, it's the target market. Young people have gotten into gaming through that way and aren't interested in, 'seamless', worlds or hard grinding for something in a group, or many of those other elements we went through.
The MMOs of the past were actually pretty crappy games but they were a unique experience to those there at the time. Those days of wonder are gone never to be recaptured. Accept it or be doomed to get angry on forums forever.
The biggest problem is that certain people on this forum haven't worked out that their not the target market anymore and those that do target them are doomed to fail, because it's impossible to recapture your youth....
MOBAs and lobby based games are the future, it's the target market. Young people have gotten into gaming through that way and aren't interested in, 'seamless', worlds or hard grinding for something in a group, or many of those other elements we went through.
The MMOs of the past were actually pretty crappy games but they were a unique experience to those there at the time. Those days of wonder are gone never to be recaptured. Accept it or be doomed to get angry on forums forever.
The biggest problem is that certain people on this forum haven't worked out that their not the target market anymore and those that do target them are doomed to fail, because it's impossible to recapture your youth....
MOBAs and lobby based games are the future, it's the target market. Young people have gotten into gaming through that way and aren't interested in, 'seamless', worlds or hard grinding for something in a group, or many of those other elements we went through.
The MMOs of the past were actually pretty crappy games but they were a unique experience to those there at the time. Those days of wonder are gone never to be recaptured. Accept it or be doomed to get angry on forums forever.
Thank god for Pantheon.
Thank god for GW2. Thank god for ArcheAge. Thank god for The Secret World.
With no AAA releases in sight (Besides some eastern releases, but korean games usually turn up with hardcore cash shops.) it seems like MMORPG's are just getting kickstarted and small indie developers are taking over. This may be a good thing or bad thing. What do you guys think? (Crossing fingers for Pantheon to be good.)
As long as top world class programmers stay with Wow and Swtor, I'm fine. And from time to time Gw2, Rift, ...
we want a certain set of features in a unique combination delivering a unique experience.
That pretty much describes WoW. It changed old concepts and inconvenient standards.
Questing became more convenient.
Seamless zoning and phasing improved Virtually every mMO had this, but WoW had shit loads of instancing.
Downtime became negligible.
Finding groups and raids became easier. The Opposite happened.
Combat became more engaging, with mobility & CC. No
PvP became more competitive and less zergy.Nope
etc..
Not really. Most of the features that WoW had existed in the exact configuration WoW had. The difference is WoW had a massive budget, 3 years extra dev time, and the biggest ad campaign and best brand name in MMO history, aimed at non MMO gamers.
And several of those aren't even true, or were common in every game.
What? Are you serious? WoW didn't have that much instancing at all. The only things that were instanced were dungeons
Every dungeon was instanced, and every raid was instanced, at a time when that wasn't normal or desired. The only game that NEEDED instancing to function was EQ. And guess what Wow was based on.. the flawed designs of EQ.
It always amuses me when people think instancing is evil.
Instancing was created for a reason, and yes, it was desired. They took the non-instancing flaws of EQ and improved gameplay, by instancing them.
Some will argue it destroyed the social component of MMORPG's, but it never happened. People just found other ways to socialize. It was not to diminish MMORPG's to a singleplayer game, as many people believe. It was to stop the abuse of trolls and griefers, and to counter zerg playstyles.
It actually made dungeons & raids more challenging, just like almost all sports restrict their teams to a set number of people, otherwise you have outsiders come in and ruin the game.
It's the same with PvP. Zerg vs. Zerg in open-world pvp isn't strategic at all. Just look at GW2, Black Desert, and contrary to what DAoC fanboys say, in that game too (i'm going to take flak for this one. lol.). This is why MOBA's are so popular.
Don't get me wrong, i love open-world gameplay, but if i want more challenging tactics, i join an instanced game of Arenas or Battlegrounds, or a Dungeon or Raid for pve.
Either way, WoW is very light on instancing, and as i said, it only applies to Dungeons, Raids, and PvP.
It's not like WoW, or many other MMO's, put quests, entire zones (exception for Pandaren, Worgen, & Goblins), or the whole leveling process into instances like GW1. If they did, then your argument would hold.
Originally posted by Tibernicuspa But the last 10 years have been full of soulless titles and wasted potential. Talented devs that understand the genre driven by passion, rather than publishers, is what made MMOs great at the start and what will make them great again.
Hard to imagine a more souless game than eq1, grinding same monsters for hours in hope to find some epic to prove your epeen. You can dream all you want but those days are over and no quality mmo will use the eq1 recipe ever again, at best you will get some B class mmo with second class graphics,animations,repetitive music and lot of npcs to grind on - should make "old school" players happy.Mark Jacobs like other old school mmo creators was not capable of creating another successful mmo, Warhammer had awful animations, awful pve and awful pvp after tier 2.
LOL EQ a more soul less game?
Show me a game that has released since EQ that actually made you afraid? Every game has its own faults, camping was both bad and great at the same time. Sure you fought the same mobs over and over again but you had time to actually talk to the people you were grouped with and actually make some lasting online friendships outside of being in some guild that just wants to dominate the server.
With EQs faults, it has many more positives. No other game has truely matched the distinctiveness in zones that EQ had. Its world was massive compared to todays worlds. You actually had to learn your class and play well instead of just mashing buttons like people do in todays games. You were forced to make actual choices and suffer the wrath or victory of those choices. The game was not on easy mode like todays games are. There were always creatures in every zone that were higher level then the rest and they roamed around to keep you on your toes. Yes EQ had faults, but I made more random non guild friends in that game than I have in EVERY single game made since then. Show me another game were death actually means anything at all (outside of full loot pvp). The death system in EQ was harsh but it served multiple purposes. It kept you on your toes, it made you think before just running into a fight. It made you fear not only death but actually being able to find your body again. I look at todays mmos and if I had to compare them to anything, I would compare them to todays mindless smart phone games. Fun for short bursts but ultimately useless.
Yep... EQ's faults were also it's greatest strengths. I miss "needing" a group, but also didn't like when groups were picky and you had to painfully solo.
Every dungeon was instanced, and every raid was instanced, at a time when that wasn't normal or desired. The only game that NEEDED instancing to function was EQ. And guess what Wow was based on.. the flawed designs of EQ.
It's things like that that set WOW apart back then and a big reason why it was taking peeps from every other game. Just about everything WOW was doing at the time was seen as where many wanted the genre to go, otherwise they wouldn't have left the games they were playing for it.
You sure have a weird recollection of history though.
Most of WoW's players didn't come from other MMOs... they came from outside the genre. It was a well marketed casual game.
And well designed MMOs had no need of instancing. Saying that all MMOs needed instancing because EQ needed instancing just proves you have no knoweldege of pre WoW MMOs.
Comments
When Game of War makes a million dollars a DAY, why would publishers even try to fund AAA MMO games anymore?
$ in "online" gaming is moving to mobile and MOBAs... it's very sad.
Plenty of genres have games that all play very similar to one another. Arpgs, city builders, RTS', Crpgs, FPS', turn-based RPGs, JRPGs. etc... plenty of these franchises use the same game-play systems with some slight nuance, not unlike MMOs. As those mechanics are essentially what defines the respective genre.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
There's no indication they're making an MMO, especially considering they fired most of their MMO folks after SWTOR imploded.
And why would we expect something good from them in the MMO space? SWTOR is just a worse version of a BIoware singleplayer game
Hey none of this is about what is original or copied. Damn near EVERYTHING is copied from something somewhere else.
The point is having enough developers allowed to create a game entirely from their own vision and not driven by other influences (such as being forced into market direction by a big name developer). Yes a new mmo will pull influence from other genres or games ... because THAT is what an MMORPG is! It creates a living world computer game out of a concept likely already created in another medium or genre.
What the mmo industry has lacked over the last 10 years or so is diversity of origin. All the so called jaded old school gamers are jaded because they lost their mmos based upon table top RPGs and other games also stemming from such origins. Others I am sure lost mmos more suited to them as well when industry variety was stripped by focused marketing (CoX and the NGE in SWG as likely candidates).
2 VERY different games are made when starting with these 2 distinct goals:
1. We want to make a game for a specific audience and fans of a specific genre.
2. We want to make a game targeting the largest audience to make the most money.
Number 1 is never made by big industry. No matter what game you want it SHOULD be allowed to be made. Whether it is successful is entirely another matter. The industry is healthier when ALL styles of games are allowed to be created no matter how large the trail of failures is behind it.
You stay sassy!
I think both of your vision is lacking. In a large open world style mmo (the style of game old school was attempting to create but is lacking today in quality options) pvp and pve should be entirely integrated and seamless. It is the attempt to divide the 2 than destroys the very concept of the game. Poor design and short cuts is why is fails to work for many games. Their game scope is too small to allow both to work. The reason why open world pvp worked far better in older games is because their worlds were far larger and designed for conflict (guards in towns or simply the worlds were so large it allowed the space for it).
Racials work perfectly well in a game designed around lore and not limited to balanced and limited engagements on instances maps. RvR style, open world combat perfectly allows racial options and even classes not balanced around one another. It offers variety in tactics, group building and constructs and enforces faction/realm and race/class diversity. Balancing per class and race destroys this concept and any genre it touches like pnp rpg which these games likely draw their influence from.
What you are asking only works to make a mmo more like an esport and MOBO which is what most seem to be evolving toward instead of the exact opposite style of mmo in which is destroys.
You stay sassy!
You have to look at the why of some of these things. Chief reasoning being you can't squander hundreds of millions in company assets on ideas, you need working models when that kind of money is on the line. Hence why big projects typically stick to known mechanics. As once a project gets the greenlight, it becomes a race more or less, get as much in before you have to launch. This leaves little time for prototyping new ideas, iterating on them, etc...
You say any type of project should be allowed to be made, on who's dime though? While a novel idea, it's really a pipe dream, at least when it comes to MMORPGs. The money and time investment in these projects can be astronomical. More and more people are showing a distaste for crowdfunding, so where do these funds come from to just make any project happen? How can companies just throw away money in such a manner and stay in business?
Anyway before I go off on a tangent on the subject, I'll just say I think it's evident many "jaded" gamers are looking at the wrong genre and project scope to get their shallow wants filled. They want niche ideas out of projects that essentially require mass appeal to turn costs into profits, when the chief complaint is "there's nothing just for me", it's obvious they want something other than a AAA MMORPG will ever be.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
What? Are you serious? WoW didn't have that much instancing at all. The only things that were instanced were dungeons, and the only zoning was traveling across continents. PvP was added later with instancing. In fact, it's still pretty much the same way. You can seamlessly travel throughout all the zones without a loading screen. Phasing is a form of instancing, and it wasn't until Wotlk that they heavily phased WoW from that point on. It still puts modern MMO's to shame with seamless zoning. Swtor and GW2? Heavily instanced with non-seamless zoning, among other MMO's. Archeage was the latest MMO that also has seamless zoning, if i remember correctly.
As for the highlighted text in your quote, that's not a bad thing. I'd rather play a MMO with great graphics, animations, and models, than some piss poor budgeted MMO with graphics that look worse than WoW.
To me, AAA doesn't mean anything. AAA means money grab today. Avoid At All cost.
The best mmorpgs I've ever played were made with less than 10% of modern AAA budget, so what does triple A mean anyway?
Every dungeon was instanced, and every raid was instanced, at a time when that wasn't normal or desired. The only game that NEEDED instancing to function was EQ. And guess what Wow was based on.. the flawed designs of EQ.
It means a lot of things, most importantly market presence and visibility. IF blizzard as an example announced a new MMORPG, the coverage for such a game would be all over, small companies on the other hand may not get any coverage at all.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
It's things like that that set WOW apart back then and a big reason why it was taking peeps from every other game. Just about everything WOW was doing at the time was seen as where many wanted the genre to go, otherwise they wouldn't have left the games they were playing for it.
You sure have a weird recollection of history though.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I disagree totally. You can't 'have PVE and PVP in the same game unless you have cookie-cutter classes for each race. You have to have balance in PVP and in order to do that each side, race etc. must have the exact stuff available to them. Just take a look at any PVP game out there. Each side or each person has access to the exact same stuff as everyone else. It's boring bland and I'm sick of good PVE games getting ruined by PVP. Want to play PVP then go play a PVP game. Leave the PVE to the PVE players. No reason to mix them.
If you take PVP out of the PVE game classes and races can be totally different. You can balance each class individually and not have to worry about flavor of the day stuff. Tanks can be designed to Tank but not do a lot of damage. Healers could be designed to heal but again, not much damage. DPS classes can do tons of damage but be designed to die easier.
DAOC was RVR. The problem with it was again, class balance. Everyone pounced on the Healers and totally ignored any Tanks. Once all healers dead it was game over. You can't taunt a human player like you can an AI.
EQ was not instanced until POP came out. Now there were zone walls but that is different. It was not your own private instance like we know today.
Someday, someone's going to realize that all those complainers could be their customers. If only they offer them what they want.
Which isn't "more of the same".
Once upon a time....
Winner!
The fad of making crap for today's ADHD crowd that make impulsive In App Purchases is where all the talent is gravitating to (or at least what I would be doing if I could code worth a damn)
People don't want vast worlds any more, they just want fast food games they can play while on the toilet.
What are your other Hobbies?
Gaming is Dirt Cheap compared to this...
The biggest problem is that certain people on this forum haven't worked out that their not the target market anymore and those that do target them are doomed to fail, because it's impossible to recapture your youth....
MOBAs and lobby based games are the future, it's the target market. Young people have gotten into gaming through that way and aren't interested in, 'seamless', worlds or hard grinding for something in a group, or many of those other elements we went through.
The MMOs of the past were actually pretty crappy games but they were a unique experience to those there at the time. Those days of wonder are gone never to be recaptured. Accept it or be doomed to get angry on forums forever.
This looks like a job for....The Riviera Kid!
Thank god for Pantheon.
Thank god for GW2. Thank god for ArcheAge. Thank god for The Secret World.
Stop people. Fucking stop. Jesus Christ.
Be the Ultimate Ninja! Play Billy Vs. SNAKEMAN today!
As long as top world class programmers stay with Wow and Swtor, I'm fine. And from time to time Gw2, Rift, ...
It always amuses me when people think instancing is evil.
Instancing was created for a reason, and yes, it was desired. They took the non-instancing flaws of EQ and improved gameplay, by instancing them.
Some will argue it destroyed the social component of MMORPG's, but it never happened. People just found other ways to socialize. It was not to diminish MMORPG's to a singleplayer game, as many people believe. It was to stop the abuse of trolls and griefers, and to counter zerg playstyles.
It actually made dungeons & raids more challenging, just like almost all sports restrict their teams to a set number of people, otherwise you have outsiders come in and ruin the game.
It's the same with PvP. Zerg vs. Zerg in open-world pvp isn't strategic at all. Just look at GW2, Black Desert, and contrary to what DAoC fanboys say, in that game too (i'm going to take flak for this one. lol.). This is why MOBA's are so popular.
Don't get me wrong, i love open-world gameplay, but if i want more challenging tactics, i join an instanced game of Arenas or Battlegrounds, or a Dungeon or Raid for pve.
Either way, WoW is very light on instancing, and as i said, it only applies to Dungeons, Raids, and PvP.
It's not like WoW, or many other MMO's, put quests, entire zones (exception for Pandaren, Worgen, & Goblins), or the whole leveling process into instances like GW1. If they did, then your argument would hold.
And so it goes on and on....and on....and on and on.
And nothing ever changes.
Except the increasing exodus from MMOs.
Once upon a time....
Yep... EQ's faults were also it's greatest strengths. I miss "needing" a group, but also didn't like when groups were picky and you had to painfully solo.
Most of WoW's players didn't come from other MMOs... they came from outside the genre. It was a well marketed casual game.
And well designed MMOs had no need of instancing. Saying that all MMOs needed instancing because EQ needed instancing just proves you have no knoweldege of pre WoW MMOs.