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Many titles compete for the throne of the most populated/profitable mmorpg at this time, and some are doing better than the others.
GW2, Wildstar, FF, ESO, Tera and many others are pushing the limits.
All
of those are fun on its own way, but its notable that there is no
generalised mmo, players have their own preferences and therefore choose
what they can connect to, becouse mostly, they must choose, since one mmo complements other one in almost all cases.
I myself was searching for sheer
balance.Ever felt oppressed by higher lvl or p2w players in pvp, and no
matter your skill ,you couldnt make an impact?
Yes i enjoy pve and raiding,
but thats not all i want to do in one game, would be dull for me to not
try pvp or exploring and many other aspects which one game can
potentially offer like housing, secrets, underwater or floating cities, puzzes, climbing, gliding, flying, building, crafting, racing, area&world events, and maybe a hundred more options that are viable virtually.
Give players an option and they will use the hell out of it untill they get bored and want more options, give them freedom and you get limitless replay value.
>Example:
For me it is not hard to imagine the thrill of
being connected with other players in mmorpg's outside of raiding.I
once cought myself enjoying the time on a ship while moving expensive
trade goods and chatting with friends about strategy and we will do
next, while i had area of effect invisibility spell cloaking entire
guild so it seemed like the ship was empty on the outside. We than ,each
of us earned gold and accomplishment of sneaking past great amount of
enemies and afterwards when the goods were safe went back to deal with
those enemies in pvp. When we secured the area, we got back to our
mainland, crafting ,farming ,housing ,building, and enjoying the
beautifull sceenery, or simply doing numerous dailies.
Meanwhile
other people were doing dungeons and raids on our continent, and that
wasnt even enough for them, they went to the enemy continent to do their
dungeons as well, solely becouse it was possible and fun.(it was infamous Archeage,
and i quit becouse the publisher got too greedy and forced cash shop p2w pvp
gear model.)
Thats Sandbox for you, never underrate sandbox. Its a
concept above themepark and opens possibilities you yourself never knew
existed.
On the end of the day, its hard to balance out sence of
accomplishment and balance for every player type, since if one player
gets much stronger than the other, balance is lost, but if you make it
equalised, accomplishment is lost.
This in my view can only be archieved with much effort and overthinking becouse it involves many factors.
If
you want to sell a universal vehicle to entire online gaming community,
better make it one hell of a customisable piece, since people are
entirely different in their desires, and if you fail to predict it, you
fail as a creator.
And whatever you create, it must not be a lie.
Artificially extending gameplay value by making enchantment or crafting
near-impossible, to create a sink for time and funds, is one of the ways
how one can fail(Tera) , and there are many dozens.
I have seen titans
rise and fall, played them at peak, quit on crumble, and i am yet to see
one game ,which in its genre, sci-fi, fantasy, or other, would fully
unleash the potential of virtual fun and a way of life that could last
and evolve for at least a decade.
Thank you for reading
Comments
Ok man, here's the thing. You would get bored either way. If they balanced it out so that you didn't have to get pounded on by a bigger guy you would get bored, trust me, I know, because you would never get the chance to feel like a real winner. If they didn't make it pay to win you would get mad because you would never be able to catch up to your friend that started playing a year before you. There is no way to make it pay to win without the guy with the most money winning, and so the things that you want are diametrically opposed to one another. There is no way to offer freedom at the same time as balance. Freedom is not balanced.
So you figure out how to put just those few puzzle pieces together in a fashion that makes just you happy, and then maybe they will be able to put them together in a fashion that makes everyone happy.
That is the reason most MMOs instance the PvP nowadays to battlegrounds and arenas.
You certainly need some kind of progression but what you are describing have been done many times and it have always failed (meaning that 90% or so of the population will usually prefer PvE). SWG, DaoC and Eve are the only exception I can think off, otherwise any game with a moderate population will have very few PvP players.
PvP games with little or no progression (FPS games, GW1, RTS games) always been far more successful to get plenty of PvP fans. And anything with PvP and P2win always fail miserably.
Find the right powerbalance (I think it is when a great playing noob barely can beat a lousy playing vet), thgere is where your PvP golden spot is.
But nobody is smart enough to learn those lessons, it seems.
Well said, and I agree with the sandbox mmo being the best the genre has too offer. The cash grab has polluted and ruined our genre unfortunately and it will spread to the rest off the gaming industry as facebook games and mobile games continue to generate large amounts of money for little effort.
We only have one power or vote, if you will, as gamers: Our wallets!
Without great games people to focus their attention on they will be focusing more toward the real life "MMO". Just like in MMO's real life also offers loot and PvP. Humanity needs great games and without them...well you can see what's happening in those regions as well as through the history in the past.
The size of the planet also remains same, but population has not. There are people almost on every inch on the planet today. This is exactly why humanity needs video games today more than ever. Without them we are doomed.
If an online game can make you more relaxed, content, on daily basis, but without the chains of high time consumption, which leads to social and health problems, than by all means choose wisely, and enjoy your free time while it lasts. Of course, most games nowadays are built to click you so that you never feel rewarding and keep playing and grinding, and raging ,which is a cause for concern, and maybe a point that you need a change.
For the real life aspect, our WoW are the military industries in mostly US&EU that fuel constant conflicts only for profit sake, manipulating the people,promoting reasons, and endulging "justice".
If there arent any villains ,by all means we must create them
Divide&Conquer i say, after thousands of years, humanity is almost the same in that aspect.
Cheers
Its well thought idea tho, and i bet many players would love that.
Personally i think it is "meh". I would much rather play a game with good game modes and content.
The reason I'm pointing out low budget is the problem with mmorpg is it need "a lot of players" to sustain it. Unless the mmorpg itself is low budget.
"This may hurt a little, but it's something you'll get used to. Relax....."
Firstly, there isn't any established correlation between good game availablity and war. What a silly thing to say! You can't honestly think that if the taliban had access to a load of xbox's that they wouldn't have started murdering people? The only vaguely similar correlation is between investment in the arts and economic growth and stability.
Second, humanity doesn't cover nearly every inch of the planet. Only approximately 3% of land surface is classified as "urban" and it is in this 3% that 90%+ of humanity lives. Of the rest of the land surface of the planet, estimates put it between 20 and 40% use for human needs, i.e. farms. That leaves over 50% of the earths land unoccupied by humanity.
Just because it's sandbox that doesn't mean I don't want superb quests and story. It's the main thing really, and all sandbox games are doing a very poor job with it. As long as they think that players just want to be thrown into a world where they can do whatever the hell they want, sandbox games will remain a niche.