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Game will "Flop" harder than RIFT did...
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No it will do much better than Rift. Just say the two games out loud and you'll see. "Rift" = unknown IP prior to the game's creation. "Star Wars" = it's practically spliced into our genetics.
yup RIFT flopped considering it still has a huge amount of people playing it and never really saw a huge drop even after the end of the 30 free days. Can't wait for this game to put all the haters to shame.
The real issue here is that we, as gamers, don't know what we 're dealing with until we have played it... The thing that seperates successful games from obvious flops isn't really that long and can be described like Bridal Attire.
Something Old
We all want some form of familiarity in the games we play, something that allows us to more easily grasp the system implemented or allows us to tailor the system to fit our individual needs or styles.
Example: Tanks, Rogues, Mages, Buffers, and De-Buffers, Heal Potions (first aid kits), and the list goes on.
Something New
When people call something dynamic, they use this to describe something that changes or offers experiences outside of the norm from what they expect. If a game doesn't offer that "breath of fresh air" we call it a "clone"
Good Examples: WoW offered hybrid classes that didn't suck (they did) while most games in the industry steered clear of OG classes.
Something Borrowed
The best games in the business borrowed styles, systems, or methods of implementing those styles or systems that players said they liked. Even though it wasn't their own idea, their games profited from having done so.
Good Example: Warhammer offered Public Quests and PvP queing from anywhere and you have multiple games launching offering this feature now.
Something Blue
...Or Orange, Purple, or even Green. We love our stuff.
Players love to earn it, find it, make it, and sell it. Some of us even fondly remember losing it in the good old days (wasn't fond when it happend though...)
If it ain't in there, isn't unique, and doesn't involve some brand of work to get it the game sucks in our minds.
Tons of people have hung on in games they had gotten bored with just to get those new boots or gloves or kote (for you FFXI folks) which of course , served to reignite their interest when the next new thing got introduced.
Good Example: I remember watching a friend of mine in game once wearing a legendary from Vanilla WoW when asked why he still had it when lowbie greens outdamaged it, he said he had "put so much work into getting it he couldn't bear parting with it."
Short blurb about sandboxes...
They are designed to encourage explaoration and discovery. (Normally, I just discover ants)
Those discoveries, pleasant or unpleasant, shouldn't be the game in and of itself. they should keep pace along side the game though and most companies don't do this which they should.
If you want to travel to Planet XU-382 only to find black sand (and probably Giant Space Ants). That's your perogative and I think you should be able to do what you wanna do. Devs should keep that option alive for explorers.
Great Examples of games that did this right (in my opinion): Mass Effect 1 and the .Hack series
In closing, I'd submit that we just won't know what we are dealing with in this or any other game until it's been played some.
As a community, we have been wrong too many times to do anything other than resign ourselves to "wait and see".
I'm thinking "I've seen this troll before, and you 'sandbox' guys need some new lines".
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
If Rift is a Wow Clone then Wow is a Eq Clone
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In an interview at E3 the devs said they were approaching 1 million customers, since they used customers instead of subscribers I take it to mean they had nearly sold a million boxes, but I suppose that's open to interpretation. The link is floating around these forums somewhere, though you have to watch almost 20 minutes of a 30 minute interview to get to it.
When I see people like the OP who display such poor logic I am indeed frightened for the future of the human race. His logic fails at a fundamental level due to discarding fact in favor of fictionalized evidence to support his hypothesis. Rift didn't flop or fail in any way. It is a very successful game and business which will both lend themselves to further success. Even Blizzard cannot compete with the anomoly that is WoW in terms of overwhelming success. Please stop creating topics just to "hear" yourself speak.
In other words if an EQ clone didn't work, clone UO or SWG?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Yeah....noob devs.
The largest sandbox MMO tops out at around 400K subs. The best a 'semi' sandbox could do was around 300K subs. There are millions of people happily playing themeparks. Who do you think a developer is going to go after? Sandbox games are a niche market. Live with it. If you can't - create your own.
don't forget the and EQ is a meridian 59 clone....
Meridian59 was an Isle of Kesmai clone... o/ Joking, stop throwing things.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Thats not a great analogy, but, you could still use it, I mean should we see more fantasy books directed towards a younger crowd without dumbing it down? Yeah... a few authors do that, like Rick Riordan. While not specifically a clone, these books are also widely popular. Should more writers appeal to that market? I think it would be a good idea to do so.
It doesn't mean everything will have to be the same just because its geared towards a similar market.
-RIFT was supposed to kill WoW
No, it wasn't. Trion actively targetted WoW subscribers, but why wouldn't they? Those are the type of people that would be playing the game. Trion never came out and said they were going to "kill WoW." Fans did, and you can't blame them for that.
-RIFT was also a WoW-copy (please move away from WoW-clone, it sounds immature, clone =/= copy)
Its not a WoW-copy. If you are going to talk semantics on clone not equaling a copy, then you really can't call RIFT a copy either. An immitation, maybe. Even that is a weak argument as RIFT borrowed from WoW (and WAR), and WoW has borrowed from numerous other games. MMO development is a vicious cycle. Someone comes up with an idea that works, others duplicate it. Its not rocket science.
-RIFT had the same UI, inventory, and skill system of WoW (same thing SWTOR is doing)
Now you are just trolling, but I'll bite. Same UI? Eh, maybe. But that style of UI is fairly common. Inventory? I forgot having bags to put things in was exclusive to WoW. Ultima Online would like a word with you. Skill system? Nothing like WoW. At all.
-RIFT flopped REALLY hard, so hard in fact that they viewed their sub number drop rate as a "failure in the making" and have started an aggressive freetrial, discount && "veteran return" plan.
RIFT didn't flop. Subscribers have dropped since launch, but that doesn't mean they are losing money. Trion is doing extremely well for themselves, they don't have to have 6 million subscribers to be a success. Thats the kind of attitude that kills truly groundbreaking games.
The main reason WoW is successful is because they offer a little of everything and cater it to casuals. Raiders and PVPers are the vocal minority, but its the millions of people who log on maybe 3 times a week that are Blizzard's bread and butter. SWTOR will be around for a while based on the Star Wars IP alone. If they add content after launch (without making us pay for it), and add more social aspects (outfits, pets, more RP elements), they'll keep the casuals happy enough to keep paying.
I think the greater point was that in all other forms of art niche markets are catered to, not shoved in to the corner of doom.
Heck, it's a running joke among painters that maybe they'll be famous when they die. In other words, many creators of art can't even eke out a basic living based on thier talent. Does that fact stop them from creating? No. Because the jingle of coin is not even the slightest consideration when performing or creating thier craft.
Not so in the sellout world of MMO where marketing and return on your investement dollar is all that matters. MMOs don't even deserve to be called art anymore, really, because what matters artistically is no longer the creator's primary concern.
As I said... sellouts.
What a boring world this would be if all artists catered only to the almighty dollar and the lowest common denominator.
Any development house that wants to be solvent would pick "A" every time.
This is the only way that they'd secure any outside funding to complete their project. Sandbox MMOs are a huge financial gamble, as has been mentioned, typically have a smaller group of hardcore players. Less players = less sales.
I'm really curious as to what world some of you guys live in, where venture capital grows on trees and anyone can figure out how to make a relatively unpopular niche game type popular.
I'd love to live there.
Echo this. It didn't take the world by storm but it's performed pretty solidly. I can't see how it can be considered a flop by any stretch.
WoW was clearly influenced by EQ, but I think it's a stretch to call it an EQ clone. EQ's gameplay typically consisted of finding a group, and camping one or two spawns for hours on end. WoW's gameplay typically consists of quest grinding...going to quest node, getting quests, completing quests, next quest node etc...
Sure WoW had classes, levels, the holy trinity, but the actually gameplay differences between WoW and EQ were pretty profound.
Now look at Rift. Rift's gameplay also consists primarily of quest grinding. In addition, they have PvP BGs (what other game has that? hmm...) AND dungeons that are extremely similar to WoW.
The only major differences between WoW and Rift are Rift's more flexible class system, and the Rift invasions which to be honest get old real fast.
Are you team Azeroth, team Tyria, or team Jacob?
Based on what data or information do you think that people prefer freedom in their MMOs? I'm sure you do, but that doesn't mean your desires are the wishes of the better funded and greater size of the general public. Live with it.
Blizzard is a rare case where they were self funded, and honestly, didn't do anything that revolutionary. They took the theme park model, added a ton of content and lots of activities, and went with it.
Just like I mentioned before, they had a map for success(EQ). The problem is there isn't any map for financial success for the sandbox game type. CCP is unique in that aspect, but compared to Themepark games, still has a relatively small subscrption count.
The better question for you to answer for me is, Why would any development house limit their potential customer base to such a small niche? It's financial suicide.
I'm not seeing any evidence of this, if anything what I see is MMO's going a more action arcadey route in the future. Less emphasis on virtual worlds and community building, more emphasis on action and twitch combat.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Well, I see what you're saying, but, when it comes to building an MMO, its not usually as simple as going to the art store and picking up a canvas, a few acrylics and some paintbrushes, usually it takes a lot of funding and collaboration.
I like to think some games are created as art... but who would be considered the artist? The development company? The lead designer or developer?
Films are a different story in that respect too, as the director portrays a vision, but you don't every really question whether what a director is doing is "functional" or "fun" in a movie. You don't have to worry about anything other than portraying a particular emotion. MMOs and games in general suffer from being the most interactive of... "art" forms.
I do agree with you though, just because the market isn't as big, it doesn't mean developers shouldn't create what they want.
Would be nice. Still...
I'll look forward with great interest to trolling the next sandbox coming down the pipe, and explaining why it's ultimately doomed to failure well in advance of its release.
It seems to be the purpose of the mmorpg.com forums. Find a game that you have no interest in, spend all of your time and energy telling other players why they should hate it, and issuing frequent proclamations of precognitive prediction.
Cassandra didn't get half the kicking around she deserved.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I stopped right there -- only clowns make silly statements like "x game is going to kill y game" or "x is a WoW killer". Do we take clowns seriously? I'll answer for you: No.