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Successor to the MMO crown.
Mexenlives
Member UncommonPosts: 42
I've been lurking this forum for a few years. Love most MMORPG's and single player RPG's. Played many and many more betas. I feel the time is right for some brave individuals to strike. Never have a seen a more desperate want, or maybe need for a a niche game. The market is poised and it will be a win/win with whoever decides to branch out of the Wowclone shadow.
Harder games, harder loot equals into longer progressions through content which is extremely developer friendly. Personally I've been watching Pantheon and formerly EQ2. Would really like to see ol McQ rise from the ashes so to speak. I'd like to hear more thoughts.
Comments
Welcome to the boards after lurking here from 2009. It is always good to see new people who decided it is time to have their say.
I think niche can only come from indie currently, but if there are any really big successes the whole industry will start to play cut and paste again. So not sure that will lead to the nirvana some think it will. Like MOBA games, we won't have one or two we will end up with dozens. I would normally favour the completion, but MMOs are strange beasts, having loads of WoW clones has not exactly pushed the industry to new heights.
MMOs are dead, they've been replaced with "the service" which is just continued online support for standard multiplayer games. Every online game has RPG features, a hub, DLC and constant updates, maybe even a subscription service.
The likes of Destiny are you "MMOs" now, even though they existed 10+ years ago with the likes of Phantasy Star Online and Guild Wars and no one called them MMOs back then.
The world is dead, even the likes of WoW have gotten rid of the world, all just standing in a hub and instant traveling everywhere. It is clear developers have blamed the world for why their MMOs failed, it is weird though since the whole genre was based upon having one. WoWs success was built upon travelling, those amazing zone transitions and the amazing world PVP it once had back in Vanilla.
All that is lost, the genre is dead and no more are coming.
This is true.
It seems like its over, at least for now
Yes, theme park style MMO's have become the only experience available. All the sandbox / slow progression games have been dollar store items. If you wan't to play a game that requires a graphics card, you're stuck with a theme park.
Theme parks have content that can be measured in 'hours'. That is the identifier. After approximately this many 'hours' you've seen/done it all, or at least tried. Which means you have to go play something else or repeat one of the missions/dungeons indefinitely to get a pretty piece of gear.
Wow did it well, and when they release new content via a patch, it's enough new content to feed the locusts a few more months and they go back to it. Wow has tired a lot of us, and all the people copying it don't do a very good job. I wan't an old fashioned MMO like original EQ, but one that required a graphics card.
None of you guys on this forum that say 'nobody wants to play that' have to play the game, but me and the OP will have fun on it.
Destiny? Never played it and I am doing great with a choice of no less than 20 mmos that are all alive and well.
The genre is dead because you choose to fast travel? Simply don't fast travel.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
That sounds like a great idea.... "Hold on group!!! I'm waiting for the zepplin!" By the time you get to the dungeon they'll have already pulled the last boss.
I understand what he means, the availability of hub and instant action play have pervaded the genre. I don't have a problem with the feature, would just like to play a game without it for once.... you don't have to, just us that want to.
This is the players fault and if you/us as a player(s) don't want instant gratification than choose not to use it. Play with like minded friends or guilds that see the same way. It's not the developers that are causing the trend, it's us.
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
In reality, it's more of a ratio between two rates: the rate at which new players enter the market versus the rate at which new MMORPGs are finished. It takes only a casual survey to see that presently there are far more experiences available then there are players interested in experiencing them to the degree that they become "alive".
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
I think we will see some good games over the next few years. The indie studios are still trying to fill in the gaps and make MMOs that are closer to their roots. I think the markets are shifting and they are shifting away from AAA themepark games since you need huge numbers to keep these games profitable. Plus players have played various versions of WoW clones over the last 10 years and are ready for something new. The market is ready in my opinion is ripe for something fresh to take it by storm. It won't be a huge cultural phenom like Warcraft but I'm betting some of these kickstarter games like Star Citizen, Camelot, or Crowfall might turn a few heads.
It would make sense that MMORPGs are declining, seeing how a large portion of the consumer base refuses to pay a dime for the experience. Hence why F2P has become the new model. I am one of the people who want another game like FFXI, SWG, Vanilla EQ, etc.
Unfortunately for us we are the minority now. It's too easy for people to play MMOs in this day and age. Casuals outnumber us traditional gamers 3:1, I'm afraid. Devs want to make money and they've found making MOBAs and micro-transact you to hell F2P games are the best solution. You could even say that wasn't a dev decision, but a market-driven decision. The consumers pushed the develops in the direction we are going. The consumers are the only ones that can cause the market to shift in yet another direction.
Now, which one of you will adorn me today?
I think another good example of this is television. Before the proliferation of cable TV we had 3 major channels and a few "indie" channels. Since many millions of people watched those few channels, they received huge payoffs that allowed them to create great content. Then 100s of channels became available to the masses and they split those people across lowering the budget which has lowered the content quality. Now we get fast copies of the same type of content (reality tv, cop shows, etc).
I hope the game content developers follow suit and bring back great tv like Netflix and HBO did with series like House of Cards, Game of Thrones, etc.
Reminds me of another of these threads. It basically went like this:
Hater: "OMG! I hate quests! MMOs need to get rid of them and make grinding mobs the way to level again!"
Me: "You can still do that. No one's forcing you to do the quests."
Hater: "And lose out on the fastest way to level?! Are you nuts?"
Keep in mind that earlier in the thread he was also whining that today's MMOs are all too easy. (It was a "full option" whine :P)
And then they are surprised no developer takes them seriously. Why on earth would they waste time making worlds when everyone just wants to race through them anyway, and get to the "endgame" (or "lobby game" as they are always whining about on this site).
Every development choice is the result of developers acting upon what players want.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I'm not really sure where the genre can go from here. Korea keeps burping out MMOs at a pretty consistent rate, but their transition to a Western audience doesn't always work. The only enhancement to MMOs I feel they can make is integrating them with newer technology such as VR. Mechanically I'm not sure what more they can do.
There's just no MMO games on the horizon I'm looking forward to, probably because my choices are usually based on a popular IP moreso than just trying out whatever new MMO is about to come out. Outside of the primary MMORPG I play, I find myself playing a lot more single player or smaller coop games like Diablo. I'm pretty sure the MMORPG I'm playing now is going to be my last, because I don't see anything groundbreaking that's going to happen in the genre anytime soon.
All games will die sooner or later and having a few old ones finally closing down and a few new ones is a must to keep the genre going. It is really hard to find new players (to the genre) for aging games so there should always be a few AAA games in production.
Now, too many new games the same year ain't good either since it means they will cannibalize eachother and none of them really will make it big but at the moment are all games in production with a good budget made from the East with the possibly exception of "Class 4" from Undead labs/Microsoft. Possible since we havn't heard much about it the last 2 years and they seems to focus on singleplayer games at the moment. Since Strain is leading it that might not be that strange since he isn't the type that posts pointless hypes all the time (Paul Barnett comes to mind there) but it might as well have been silently canned.
At the moment I only know small indie and kickstarter games besides that and even if games like Crowfall did impress with their kickstarter their budget still is only a small part of the AAA games we seen the last 10 years.
MMOs currently have problem gaining new players who never played a MMO before. New and a bit different games is really the best way to get in fresh blood.
My point anyways is that things currently doesn't look that great. And while some of the kickstarter games sounds really fun do most have the problem thta they are trying to remake older games instead of trying something new (yes, there are some exceptions). We really need one of those games to succeed and make it big or people will still play the same by then ancient games we play now and have played a long while 10 years from now.
The MMO video game industry is in a state of confusion. It needs to redefine itself. I find that in general, the MMO player base is having a difficult time understanding that different MMO genres exist and that they can co-exist. Game developers are just as complicit in that regard in that although they understand the different genres, they refuse to adhere to them in their quest to maximize their profits. As a result, there is much too much "blurring of the lines" leaving no one satisfied. We will continue on this downward spiral until developers adopt a hardline approach and begin targeting their respective players bases accordingly. MOBA's, FPS, MMORPG's, etc ... these are all different genres of video games. Stop trying to combine them all into one game in an all out greed quest to maximize profits. Its not working and all it is accomplishing is a lot of frustration and discord between players and their favored genres. Stick to a genre and do it well. There is no shame in a developer telling a gamer "move on, this game is not for you." Developers, however, have been unable to muster the courage to do so, and instead repeatedly continue their attempts to satisfy the masses for that almighty dollar, to the gaming industry's own detriment. Here's hoping they wake up soon. Otherwise, this industry is going to be remembered as nothing more than a gaming fad of a distant by gone era.
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
What I would love to see is a fantasy mmorpg with a skill system similar in mechanics to Eve Online, where skills are "learnt" in real time and prerequisite skills need to be learnt before higher level skills are learnt. I want a game where my decisions matter to my character and the npcs I deal with. I don't want cheesy "kill 5 rats" quests, because no matter how the quest blurb is done, it will never make quests of that nature feel fresh or even interesting.
I like mmorpgs to take their time getting to high level, so I don't want to hear about characters hitting 80+ in 3 days or less. I don't want simplistic, button-mashing combat, and I don't want a crafting system that makes me spend hours producing vendor junk just to gain experience in crafting.
It might not end up as the successor to the mmo crown, but it would suit me!
Do i get college credit for reading this?
Just kidding, I like the way you think!
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
That post amounts to nothing more than the ol' "what came first - the chicken or the egg?" argument. Video games are a multi-billion dollar industry. The demand is there if it is warranted. The catch is that video games are not the only source of entertainment out there. If video game entertainment is not up to par, they lose their share of the market to other entertainment sources. No market = no capital investment funding. No capital investment funding = broke game developers. Broke game developers = making worthless games that no one wants to play or find another job. Games no one wants to play = infinite number of empty virtual worlds. Infinite number of empty virtual worlds = find another job = developers selling life insurance. In other words, bring the video game entertainment up to par, and the demand will not only be there, but it will grow exponentially. To put it simply, it really all just breaks down to Eco 101 and the rule of supply and demand. As much as we love, need and depend on cars, if they were incapable of effectively and efficiently getting us from point A to point B they would have gone the way of the do do bird or become a niche possession, and we'd be predominantly taking the bus, trains, or riding a bike.
There never was and never will be a MMO crown.
Every game is doing something better than the other or worse than the other,it comes down to choice on what you find acceptable.
My personal fave FFXI,does not have cutting edge graphics or shader's ,it misses out on water zones and some other not so top of the line factors.However it offers the most class and combat depth of any game.This gain comes down to what you want,do i care if my player can jump or sit in a chair,nope not at all,i prefer effort goes into class and combat and creatures and AI.I also like that FFXI's crafting si the most robust out there,however lacks when compared to say EQ2's housing crafts,so again you can see every game has a plus and a minus.
As to Brad,i like the guy,i have said it before,he is a good guy to have on your team but i do not believe he as the main leader can make a great QUALITY game,he needs help.That is where it will always be hit n miss ,some guy on the systems has a weird idea it might ruin the entire game no matter how good of ideas the other members have.If a producer is telling his guys to rush everything,again quality fails.
Bottom line is that it is extremely tough to pull of that GREAT game,you need a lot of positives going for your game,from money to producers,to CEO/board members/investors to game engine,system designers,network designers,Ai,mappers,cut scene guys,models,depth it is endless as to many parts it takes to make that engine roar.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
No it doesn't, it's actually the opposite.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo