FFXIV being a great example you spend $15 a month just like everyone else I think it is, and you can't obtain player housing you want, while someone else who pays the same fee can...
In regards to FFXIV, I thought you're paying $ for access to the game itself, not a guarantee to all of the amenities obtainable within the game. The game's still supposed to be an online "world", so within that world, it's a given that those players who obtain more, have more. Whether by putting in more effort, or getting something through first come first serve, sounds perfectly typical to me.
Who knows, maybe you could persuade someone to donate their home for the charitable good of the homeless.
Look, I just secured my post's placement in this thread. Can't take this particular spot now. Future posts will come after mine.
OP, you are right but many factors, so rather than go into that, what chance have we of MMOs becoming resurgent? Very little, the market aimed for was hardcore, then console, now its your mum and your dog. So don't expect anything AAA to conform to traditional gameplay values any time soon.
But this leads me to conclude we have to treasure what we have left, the games you mentioned, plus FFIV and Secret World are the only decent MMOs that spring to mind. Show your support for those games but don't expect the genre to change because we do so.
Why not have optional structured content? Why not have stories (a little different than RL again)? Why not put something into a game other than basically creating a giant open world PvP zone. No safe zones are not the answer. Though, PvP vs PvE tags has been mentioned before (good idea) easy to change. Do people know how many people are either going to get immediately turned off by this unlimited PvP stuff or will get bored and move on because they're not doing anything with anybody. Oh and ganking! You're just a weird person if that gets you off. Stay away from little animals.
Then there are the guilds. Guilds designed only to destroy the other. That's not community! Just giant cliques!
The there is the cash grab. Anything the maker can do to force a player to either grind for months to get on achievement or spend a ridiculous amount of money to buy something that is very limited in it's application.
Someone did make a comment about the endless cycle of the same buttons. Yes see this in some games too. Why just do a tree like many giving the player the option to pick...an extensive tree over time.
Who wants to worry about growing old and dying? Really!? Get old enough and YOU WILL in RL. Haha
This is my problem in a nutshell with mmos. Some games offer pieces of this, but rarely do one offer all. Oh wait there was one, but I've beat that drum untils it's broken. I would say rpg, but you're not even allowed to make a toon you actually like looking at...well unless you spend more$$$ and still it's meh.
That's my rant. It was asked...I answered. Of course, there are variations on all of the above, but some aspect exists in games I'm encountering today. I could go back to playing content similar to some of the MOBAs that have been around for AWHILE (like 30+ years ago...yeah I'm old) and get alot of this stuff except the open world aspect.
ENDING ON A POSITIVE NOTE: There are some genres out there that are different and creative to me. Not anything I personally want to play, but I applaud their vision. AND there might be some really cool stuff coming down the line. Unfortunately not until next year more than likely, but I have high hopes for those games
Jesus, this thread just wont die. And if/when it does, the next thread trending on the front page a few hours later... ''Do you think MMORPG's are dead''.
I think the premise is that if you say something often enough, it becomes true. Narrative vs Reality = need more popcorn
I guess that's how Trump got elected
That's the narrative FAKE NEWS has brainwashed some people into thinking why he got elected...reality is completely different.
Incomparable said: MMOs should build their games moer like single (co-op) player games in terms of the quality of the journey, but make the single player much shorter, and make the end game that much bigger.
That is much easier said than done.
MMOs like swtor tried to do that, and Star citizen seems more like what I am talking about.
However the problem with swtor is that VO takes a lot of development and they did not stream line the process so every time they make a new race they have to do all the cutscenes all over again.
They have not had a new class sa well. They could add a new AC to swtor.
They could also add a custom that becomes a skin for a race.
However, the problem with swtor it had filler quests which took a lot of resources for other other wise a nice single player game for 8 classes or 8 single player games. As a result the filler quests took away from the end game.
Swtor lacked at launch (they had a huge budget); - an acheivement system from launch, which is easy to add. -Open world pvp , or an engine designed for that. (keeping in mind their budget was enourmous) - day night cycles - more quest mechanics - mini games (pazaak, racing) - player housing - over all more end game with more ops - more maps for pvp - bounty hunting - scaling content so people can go where ever they want if they wanted to - and make content more like public quests / dynamic content -more races for character creation - have a plan for more classes - as in a lot more classes
Then by having a lot more classes and more end game, they can make the grind shorter, and people would play the game for a high quality story and play end game for the different classes. (also once released with this model it allows them to be more effeicent in their development and focus more on story, ops, new races, and classes - at this point if pvp is taken care of, it takes little effort to add a map)
When the game feels moer like a MOBA with a lot of classes and races with less grind making it accessible it would also allow for swtor to be more like an e-sport. IF the pvp and even OPs was like an e-sport it would attract more customers and the diea of having more classes keeps players interested more than more of the same while making ti accessible to play those classes at end game. Which is why I personally find mobas more enjoyable.
Thats just an example of what swtor could have been without them trying to copy WoW.
And you are right, easier said than done, since big money would not fund something that breaks from the mold too much.
Having VO was breaking from the mold but in the worst way possible since it does not allow for more races or more classes in a way that would make swtor so much more popular.
I don't think people look at SWTOR enough as a reason for the MMORPG "crash". It had a huge dev on the rise (Bioware), possibly the biggest IP for gamers (Star Wars), and one of the biggest budgets in MMORPG history, and yet it was forced to go f2p. I think Execs look at that and think "Well shit, if Bioware and Star Wars can't make a MMORPG easily successful, the genre is in the tank" and they stopped funding big projects.
The biggest problem with SWTOR imo is they spent so many resources and millions of dollars on voice overs. They didn't realize that MMORPG players skip the dialogue for quests- the appeal of quests isn't the half-assed story or rationale, it's doing stuff online.
But I disagree that the story was "high quality". It was certainly expensive, but the writing and voice acting was some of the worst I've encountered in over 20 years of gaming.
Compounding the confusion is SWTOR maintains a decent amount of players as a f2p game. I believe that's almost entirely because it's Star Wars. Hell, Rogue One has made a billion dollars in like 1 month, and I don't think it's a particularly amazing movie.
When the game feels moer like a MOBA with a lot of classes and races with less grind making it accessible it would also allow for swtor to be more like an e-sport.
If MMORPG is supposed to be "more like MMOBA" one could just play a MOBA instead.
MOBA and MMORPG are two entirely different, rather repugnant concepts.
But that is what I mean when I say "Easier said than done" - wishlist assembled of random features without any deeper thought.
This thread is already enough cancer without bringing politics into it.
Politics, Religion, and Football. Causes too many arguments if you support the 'wrong' team.
aka Drumpf.
yup, the way some people use 'narrative' to overcome reality is hillaryous, and sadly has some rather predictable results
when narrative meets reality there is never enough popcorn. O.o
Agreed. We have the greatest amount of compiled information than at any time in history and have we become more logical? Nope, more emotional. It's the most beautiful expression of irony the world will probably ever know.
I don't care about your facts... unless they match what I want to feel.
The best MMOs came our in the PS2 era, where making MMOs that felt AAA was relatively cheap. However post 360 AAA gaming costs increased massively and that meant the cost of making a AAA MMO was even more expensive and so no one could do it.
WoW gave the genre a life line in a way just before the 360, where developers made all these stylized art MMOs. However they all failed because they sucked and all the money left the genre and so it died. Now all we have is indie MMOs which suck because they have no budget and Asian MMOs which are also crap.
MMOs back in the day were on the cutting edge, it's why I loved them... but now they all feel so old.
We obviously have seen successes in the likes of WOW, SWTOR and ESO (probably the biggest 3), but we have seen no development of triple A mmos in recent years.
Rather we have seen a trickle of funds to indie or crowd-sourced projects, which have no accountability or oversight so are more likely to fail.
We have seen a rise of MOBAs and limited multiplayer RPGs.
Is it just that the sun has set on MMORPGs? Is the genre over?
MMOs are build on long term stay. There are too many, and of those, there are too many servers on that one game.
So the smaller MMOs have their population spread thin, which gives the illusion that population is low, and this makes players leave. Players want to feel like they are playing in a populated game world. this is why developers hide their population numbers.
Lots of people that play MMOs are very conservative. Dont like change. So we seek out things that did things like the old days. Problem is, the old days are old for a reason. Things like FFA Full Loot worked back when there wasnt options, so you had to just deal with it. Now we have options, and developers refuse to do new things. Same with the traditional Raid system for endgame. nobody ever said it was law that raids had to be hard content. But thats what all developers that make raids do. The conservative mindset holds the genre back. There is no law that say MMORPG has to have levels as a progression gate.
Quality is another problem. MMOs and all games have bugs yes. Some developers are not transparent about their game improvement. Look at Guild Wars 2 for example. For years the developers were building an expansion and moving resources to that, while leaving the crying community back then to just cry and beg for some quality of life changes. The developers were so secretive about things, the community pretty much make datamining a popular thing every other week for the hope of finding out new things. Developers need to be more open and transparent. Set aside people to handle QOL additions. Dont leave people in the hanging, not knowing if fixes will come or if developers are using resources for the next expansion. GW2 is doing the same thing right now again. ignoring its userbase while building the next expansion.
I said this before... But players want to have fun. most of us played a MMO or single player RPG before. We know most of the basic stuff. We dont need 80, 100, 1000 levels of grind from day one just to have some fun at the end of some level gate. Even big successful MMOs like World of Warcraft have not figured this out. People get bored when they are FORCED to grind levels to do something that they want to do. If I want to play AV in WoW, I shouldnt have to wait a 51 level grind or any level grind to play it.(I dont know what the current level requirement is but just using this as an example). I want to jump in and have fun. Rift was a cool concept, but the Vanilla level grind at release was just terrible. I did all that so I can play in the 20v20 PvP mode. Forgot what its called now. But that was terrible. I hated that experience, because It made me want to rush through most of the world leaving most of the game world meaningless and useless, just so I can have fun with some of the content I wanted originally. And when the new Expansion released and increase the level grind, restricting that 3 faction PvP mode they had added in Vanilla, I quit. I said no. We are not stupid. We dont need level grind to learn how to play the game. We can do that at our own pace.
MMO games need more PUBLIC aspects as well. Over the years, the genre is too private group base. This always leads to some kind of group dominance in these games. in most cases, its some kind of Guild Requirement. I hate that. Guilds are fun sometimes yes. But now its like some kind of dictatorial job. They even have applications. I say move away from this. Make content more accessible to non-guild players. This goes back to something I said earlier about FFA Full Loot MMOs. These games are always Guild focus. All Open World Group PvP turn into private Guild Group events, because their pretty much isnt any PUBLIC anything, do to the FFA Full Loot troll environment. Public Events are a great element for improving here. Same as for when World of Warcraft introduced the LFR(Looking For Raid) feature. Gives more players access to features and content without Guild Requirements.
Wishful thinking. Most postes aren't here for discussion neither they care whether they make any sense at all, just look at Kyleran above...they will just keep going regardless.
MMOs are build on long term stay. There are too many, and of those, there are too many servers on that one game.
So the smaller MMOs have their population spread thin, which gives the illusion that population is low, and this makes players leave. Players want to feel like they are playing in a populated game world. this is why developers hide their population numbers.
Lots of people that play MMOs are very conservative. Dont like change. So we seek out things that did things like the old days. Problem is, the old days are old for a reason. Things like FFA Full Loot worked back when there wasnt options, so you had to just deal with it. Now we have options, and developers refuse to do new things. Same with the traditional Raid system for endgame. nobody ever said it was law that raids had to be hard content. But thats what all developers that make raids do. The conservative mindset holds the genre back. There is no law that say MMORPG has to have levels as a progression gate.
Quality is another problem. MMOs and all games have bugs yes. Some developers are not transparent about their game improvement. Look at Guild Wars 2 for example. For years the developers were building an expansion and moving resources to that, while leaving the crying community back then to just cry and beg for some quality of life changes. The developers were so secretive about things, the community pretty much make datamining a popular thing every other week for the hope of finding out new things. Developers need to be more open and transparent. Set aside people to handle QOL additions. Dont leave people in the hanging, not knowing if fixes will come or if developers are using resources for the next expansion. GW2 is doing the same thing right now again. ignoring its userbase while building the next expansion.
I said this before... But players want to have fun. most of us played a MMO or single player RPG before. We know most of the basic stuff. We dont need 80, 100, 1000 levels of grind from day one just to have some fun at the end of some level gate. Even big successful MMOs like World of Warcraft have not figured this out. People get bored when they are FORCED to grind levels to do something that they want to do. If I want to play AV in WoW, I shouldnt have to wait a 51 level grind or any level grind to play it.(I dont know what the current level requirement is but just using this as an example). I want to jump in and have fun. Rift was a cool concept, but the Vanilla level grind at release was just terrible. I did all that so I can play in the 20v20 PvP mode. Forgot what its called now. But that was terrible. I hated that experience, because It made me want to rush through most of the world leaving most of the game world meaningless and useless, just so I can have fun with some of the content I wanted originally. And when the new Expansion released and increase the level grind, restricting that 3 faction PvP mode they had added in Vanilla, I quit. I said no. We are not stupid. We dont need level grind to learn how to play the game. We can do that at our own pace.
MMO games need more PUBLIC aspects as well. Over the years, the genre is too private group base. This always leads to some kind of group dominance in these games. in most cases, its some kind of Guild Requirement. I hate that. Guilds are fun sometimes yes. But now its like some kind of dictatorial job. They even have applications. I say move away from this. Make content more accessible to non-guild players. This goes back to something I said earlier about FFA Full Loot MMOs. These games are always Guild focus. All Open World Group PvP turn into private Guild Group events, because their pretty much isnt any PUBLIC anything, do to the FFA Full Loot troll environment. Public Events are a great element for improving here. Same as for when World of Warcraft introduced the LFR(Looking For Raid) feature. Gives more players access to features and content without Guild Requirements.
I think you are generally right but I am not so sure that MMO fans are so conservative in reality. When you ask them what they want, sure but I am certain that something different and fun would change peoples mind really fast.
It is pretty logical, you don't know that something new is fun until you actually tried it and to be honest have there not been many games that are so different from the others that are fun. ESO, GW2 and FF XIV are the furthest western games (yeah, I count FF as western because Japan really is closer to us then China and South Korea MMO wise but ignore it if you don't agree) that actually been good and they all done pretty well.
I just don't think most players know what they want until they get it, it is way harder to guess how fun something untried is then most people think. Some things sounds really great but are rather boring when you try it (which is why Blizz killed Titan) while others doesn't sound so fun on paper but once you try you are hooked (while Heartstone ain't a MMO it is a good example, it is way more fun then it sounds when someone describes it).
The biggest problem with SWTOR imo is they spent so many resources and millions of dollars on voice overs.
Did they? Can you please share the number and source?
I love it when people like that get shut down
The game won the Guinness world record for voice acting, so I think we can say it was a significant part of the games budget. Was it a waste? That's far harder to say.
The biggest problem with SWTOR imo is they spent so many resources and millions of dollars on voice overs.
Did they? Can you please share the number and source?
That is rather impossible unless you worked on it as a dev, EA been rather secretive on the matter. But they do have a lot of VOs and some from rather famous people so it certainly wasn't free.
Still, TOR do have earned in it's development and running cost several times over even if it did cost as outrageous as some rumors say. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't have skipped some of the VOs and added more physical content instead, while VOs are nice I don't feel I need it for everything and you can't have too much content.
Then again, the current players opinion is what really matters and I don't belong to them and if you guys love your VOs it was probably worth it.
When the game feels moer like a MOBA with a lot of classes and races with less grind making it accessible it would also allow for swtor to be more like an e-sport.
If MMORPG is supposed to be "more like MMOBA" one could just play a MOBA instead.
MOBA and MMORPG are two entirely different, rather repugnant concepts.
But that is what I mean when I say "Easier said than done" - wishlist assembled of random features without any deeper thought.
Thats with your taste, but a moba is very much like a themepark that the combat siuation whether it be pve or pvp is intanced.
The difference in mobas is that it gives player a large selection of heroes with no (little) progression, where as an mmo is all about progression but as a result pigeon holes players to level one class and struggles to reward alting considering the huge down time to get to end game and end game gear.
If a person enjoys end game mostly, then they can see the appeal of what a moba concept offers. Its a model on something sucessful with a large consumer base that has e-sports. Sure its not for everyone.
Many games try to be niche in some way, with swtor it was 'story' by making the single player part better for an mmo. While in other games that are sand box they offer end game content with the grind really just about making currency to go sieging.
What about a hybrid where you get a bit of story and right into the action? So the end result you do not feel pigeon holed into playing 1 hero/class and try as many heroes as you like with a greater a reward than the traditional mmo would offer for alting.
The reason why people would play instead of a moba is becuase it would be more of the perspecitve of an mmo 3d and first person, and have an action style combat system of an mmo compared to a moba. Also i am using moba in terms of how it is successful and not really turning a moba into an mmo, but may be more of how to make an mmo more like a moba. Crowfall to be similar to that concept.
MMO is kind of a blank statement in terms of concept, the only real defintion is that it has a lot of players in one place.
And if you follow other games, or may be tried to understand what i was saying, then you would not be more focused on poking holes in 1's argument than seeing in how it makes sense.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
It's rather interesting people keep mentioning swtor when referring to this FAKE NEWS about MMORPGS failing. These are the same people for the last 5 years who have been saying swtor is a failure and will close in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and now in 2017.
In reality (where most people live) the game is still one of the top revenue generating western mmos month after month. We are stuck with these same people predicted swtor death for the next 5-10 years, we are stuck with these same people blaming swtor for the failure of mmos and we are stuck with these same people hijacking every swtor thread or thread that isn't even about swtor.
It's rather interesting people keep mentioning swtor when referring to this FAKE NEWS about MMORPGS failing. These are the same people for the last 5 years who have been saying swtor is a failure and will close in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and now in 2017.
In reality (where most people live) the game is still one of the top revenue generating western mmos month after month. We are stuck with these same people predicted swtor death for the next 5-10 years, we are stuck with these same people blaming swtor for the failure of mmos and we are stuck with these same people hijacking every swtor thread or thread that isn't even about swtor.
How do you know SW:TOR is one of the top revenue generating MMOs in the west?
The only data we have that is publicly available is from Superdata, but Superdata only collect data from a fraction of the market (they state on their website they only collect data from approx 500 games in total. Not MMOs, but across all platforms and genres, including mobile). Plus, Superdata usually don't have the facts - they take scraps of information and estimate.
Anyway, if you can ever be bothered, you can go back and read the quarterly earnings reports from EA for the time period when SW:TOR launched. It did fail, financially. They sold 1.7m - 2m boxes in the first month, which is great. In month 2, they had 1.3m subscribers. Somewhere between month 3 and month 6 they dipped below 500k subscribers. EA's finance dude stated that the break even point was 500k subscribers.
That is why they switched to F2P - the game was failing.
Then look at the reports after the F2P switch. They had an initial increase in subscribers, bringing it over the 500k mark, but then it dropped off again and they stopped reporting numbers.
This is why SW:TOR has received so few updates and so little content - the game failed financially and EA needed to get back their money.
I don't know why anyone was surprised that SWTOR failed though. The main devs were bioware (single player, story-focused rpgs), backed up by Mythic (the remnants of mythic anyway, the guys who screwed WAR) and published by EA (famous for destroying creativity and aiming for a quick buck). SWTOR never stood a chance of being successful, let alone a valid competitor for WoW, because it was built and managed by completely the wrong people.
I still look at one event in the genre that changed everything: for better and for worse...That was WoW....It dumbed down the genre and brought in a whole new generation of gamer, but it was a totally different kind of gamer than what we saw before WoW......From this point on games started to cater to this kind of gamer and the uniqueness of MMOs pretty much died........The questfest, storymode, solo driven MMO replaced the explorable worlds that were around before WoW....The MMOs tried too hard to entertain us instead of building us a world where we entertained ourselves.
It's rather interesting people keep mentioning swtor when referring to this FAKE NEWS about MMORPGS failing. These are the same people for the last 5 years who have been saying swtor is a failure and will close in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and now in 2017.
In reality (where most people live) the game is still one of the top revenue generating western mmos month after month. We are stuck with these same people predicted swtor death for the next 5-10 years, we are stuck with these same people blaming swtor for the failure of mmos and we are stuck with these same people hijacking every swtor thread or thread that isn't even about swtor.
How do you know SW:TOR is one of the top revenue generating MMOs in the west?
The only data we have that is publicly available is from Superdata, but Superdata only collect data from a fraction of the market (they state on their website they only collect data from approx 500 games in total. Not MMOs, but across all platforms and genres, including mobile). Plus, Superdata usually don't have the facts - they take scraps of information and estimate.
Anyway, if you can ever be bothered, you can go back and read the quarterly earnings reports from EA for the time period when SW:TOR launched. It did fail, financially. They sold 1.7m - 2m boxes in the first month, which is great. In month 2, they had 1.3m subscribers. Somewhere between month 3 and month 6 they dipped below 500k subscribers. EA's finance dude stated that the break even point was 500k subscribers.
That is why they switched to F2P - the game was failing.
Then look at the reports after the F2P switch. They had an initial increase in subscribers, bringing it over the 500k mark, but then it dropped off again and they stopped reporting numbers.
This is why SW:TOR has received so few updates and so little content - the game failed financially and EA needed to get back their money.
I don't know why anyone was surprised that SWTOR failed though. The main devs were bioware (single player, story-focused rpgs), backed up by Mythic (the remnants of mythic anyway, the guys who screwed WAR) and published by EA (famous for destroying creativity and aiming for a quick buck). SWTOR never stood a chance of being successful, let alone a valid competitor for WoW, because it was built and managed by completely the wrong people.
You realize this is like a 5 year-old game, right? Going F2P doesn't mean failure, it means that there needs to be an adjustment in the monetization of the game. This is the REALITY that is faced by the vast majority (like 90%+) of games these days. People don't pay for subscriptions anymore, that's the reality.
Now if we were to use Superdata research as a guide, they said that the top 5 P2P MMOs by revenue for February 2016 was: 1 World of Warcraft 2 Lineage I 3 TERA: Online 4 Star Wars: The Old Republic 5 Blade & Soul
From NC Softs financials, which break down their games by revenues (thank you NC Soft), Lineage I did $68 million USD in Q1 2016 while Blade & Soul did $46.6 million USD in Q1 2016. So it would stand to reason that SWTOR is somewhere in the region of $50-$70 million quarterly. In 2014 it was stated that they were making $160 million annually. So even if this Q1 number is inflated, I'd find it difficult to believe that they aren't far off that $160 million number quoted a couple years back.
I'd say that it certainly hasn't failed, especially since it's probably still hanging in there as one of the top earners, probably top 3 as far, as North American markets.
It's rather interesting people keep mentioning swtor when referring to this FAKE NEWS about MMORPGS failing. These are the same people for the last 5 years who have been saying swtor is a failure and will close in 2012, 2013, 2014, 2015, 2016 and now in 2017.
In reality (where most people live) the game is still one of the top revenue generating western mmos month after month. We are stuck with these same people predicted swtor death for the next 5-10 years, we are stuck with these same people blaming swtor for the failure of mmos and we are stuck with these same people hijacking every swtor thread or thread that isn't even about swtor.
How do you know SW:TOR is one of the top revenue generating MMOs in the west?
The only data we have that is publicly available is from Superdata, but Superdata only collect data from a fraction of the market (they state on their website they only collect data from approx 500 games in total. Not MMOs, but across all platforms and genres, including mobile). Plus, Superdata usually don't have the facts - they take scraps of information and estimate.
Anyway, if you can ever be bothered, you can go back and read the quarterly earnings reports from EA for the time period when SW:TOR launched. It did fail, financially. They sold 1.7m - 2m boxes in the first month, which is great. In month 2, they had 1.3m subscribers. Somewhere between month 3 and month 6 they dipped below 500k subscribers. EA's finance dude stated that the break even point was 500k subscribers.
That is why they switched to F2P - the game was failing.
Then look at the reports after the F2P switch. They had an initial increase in subscribers, bringing it over the 500k mark, but then it dropped off again and they stopped reporting numbers.
This is why SW:TOR has received so few updates and so little content - the game failed financially and EA needed to get back their money.
I don't know why anyone was surprised that SWTOR failed though. The main devs were bioware (single player, story-focused rpgs), backed up by Mythic (the remnants of mythic anyway, the guys who screwed WAR) and published by EA (famous for destroying creativity and aiming for a quick buck). SWTOR never stood a chance of being successful, let alone a valid competitor for WoW, because it was built and managed by completely the wrong people.
Haha WOW buddy 2011 called and wants their talking points back. Since 2012 swtor has released just as much content as any other mmorpg (excluding WoW). Thank you for proving my point about you guys who are so emotionally involved in being so wrong you can't get over the fact swtor is still here and doing good. Have some self respect and move on already it's 2017 you've been embarrassing yourself for over 5 years now.
Comments
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
when narrative meets reality there is never enough popcorn. O.o
Who knows, maybe you could persuade someone to donate their home for the charitable good of the homeless.
Look, I just secured my post's placement in this thread. Can't take this particular spot now. Future posts will come after mine.
But this leads me to conclude we have to treasure what we have left, the games you mentioned, plus FFIV and Secret World are the only decent MMOs that spring to mind. Show your support for those games but don't expect the genre to change because we do so.
Why not have optional structured content? Why not have stories (a little different than RL again)? Why not put something into a game other than basically creating a giant open world PvP zone. No safe zones are not the answer. Though, PvP vs PvE tags has been mentioned before (good idea) easy to change. Do people know how many people are either going to get immediately turned off by this unlimited PvP stuff or will get bored and move on because they're not doing anything with anybody. Oh and ganking! You're just a weird person if that gets you off. Stay away from little animals.
Then there are the guilds. Guilds designed only to destroy the other. That's not community! Just giant cliques!
The there is the cash grab. Anything the maker can do to force a player to either grind for months to get on achievement or spend a ridiculous amount of money to buy something that is very limited in it's application.
Someone did make a comment about the endless cycle of the same buttons. Yes see this in some games too. Why just do a tree like many giving the player the option to pick...an extensive tree over time.
Who wants to worry about growing old and dying? Really!? Get old enough and YOU WILL in RL. Haha
This is my problem in a nutshell with mmos. Some games offer pieces of this, but rarely do one offer all. Oh wait there was one, but I've beat that drum untils it's broken. I would say rpg, but you're not even allowed to make a toon you actually like looking at...well unless you spend more$$$ and still it's meh.
That's my rant. It was asked...I answered. Of course, there are variations on all of the above, but some aspect exists in games I'm encountering today. I could go back to playing content similar to some of the MOBAs that have been around for AWHILE (like 30+ years ago...yeah I'm old) and get alot of this stuff except the open world aspect.
ENDING ON A POSITIVE NOTE: There are some genres out there that are different and creative to me. Not anything I personally want to play, but I applaud their vision.
Interesting read
I don't think people look at SWTOR enough as a reason for the MMORPG "crash". It had a huge dev on the rise (Bioware), possibly the biggest IP for gamers (Star Wars), and one of the biggest budgets in MMORPG history, and yet it was forced to go f2p. I think Execs look at that and think "Well shit, if Bioware and Star Wars can't make a MMORPG easily successful, the genre is in the tank" and they stopped funding big projects.
The biggest problem with SWTOR imo is they spent so many resources and millions of dollars on voice overs. They didn't realize that MMORPG players skip the dialogue for quests- the appeal of quests isn't the half-assed story or rationale, it's doing stuff online.
But I disagree that the story was "high quality". It was certainly expensive, but the writing and voice acting was some of the worst I've encountered in over 20 years of gaming.
Compounding the confusion is SWTOR maintains a decent amount of players as a f2p game. I believe that's almost entirely because it's Star Wars. Hell, Rogue One has made a billion dollars in like 1 month, and I don't think it's a particularly amazing movie.
MOBA and MMORPG are two entirely different, rather repugnant concepts.
But that is what I mean when I say "Easier said than done" - wishlist assembled of random features without any deeper thought.
I don't care about your facts... unless they match what I want to feel.
The best MMOs came our in the PS2 era, where making MMOs that felt AAA was relatively cheap. However post 360 AAA gaming costs increased massively and that meant the cost of making a AAA MMO was even more expensive and so no one could do it.
WoW gave the genre a life line in a way just before the 360, where developers made all these stylized art MMOs. However they all failed because they sucked and all the money left the genre and so it died. Now all we have is indie MMOs which suck because they have no budget and Asian MMOs which are also crap.
MMOs back in the day were on the cutting edge, it's why I loved them... but now they all feel so old.
So the smaller MMOs have their population spread thin, which gives the illusion that population is low, and this makes players leave. Players want to feel like they are playing in a populated game world. this is why developers hide their population numbers.
Lots of people that play MMOs are very conservative. Dont like change. So we seek out things that did things like the old days. Problem is, the old days are old for a reason. Things like FFA Full Loot worked back when there wasnt options, so you had to just deal with it. Now we have options, and developers refuse to do new things. Same with the traditional Raid system for endgame. nobody ever said it was law that raids had to be hard content. But thats what all developers that make raids do. The conservative mindset holds the genre back. There is no law that say MMORPG has to have levels as a progression gate.
Quality is another problem. MMOs and all games have bugs yes. Some developers are not transparent about their game improvement. Look at Guild Wars 2 for example. For years the developers were building an expansion and moving resources to that, while leaving the crying community back then to just cry and beg for some quality of life changes. The developers were so secretive about things, the community pretty much make datamining a popular thing every other week for the hope of finding out new things. Developers need to be more open and transparent. Set aside people to handle QOL additions. Dont leave people in the hanging, not knowing if fixes will come or if developers are using resources for the next expansion. GW2 is doing the same thing right now again. ignoring its userbase while building the next expansion.
I said this before... But players want to have fun. most of us played a MMO or single player RPG before. We know most of the basic stuff. We dont need 80, 100, 1000 levels of grind from day one just to have some fun at the end of some level gate. Even big successful MMOs like World of Warcraft have not figured this out. People get bored when they are FORCED to grind levels to do something that they want to do. If I want to play AV in WoW, I shouldnt have to wait a 51 level grind or any level grind to play it.(I dont know what the current level requirement is but just using this as an example). I want to jump in and have fun. Rift was a cool concept, but the Vanilla level grind at release was just terrible. I did all that so I can play in the 20v20 PvP mode. Forgot what its called now. But that was terrible. I hated that experience, because It made me want to rush through most of the world leaving most of the game world meaningless and useless, just so I can have fun with some of the content I wanted originally. And when the new Expansion released and increase the level grind, restricting that 3 faction PvP mode they had added in Vanilla, I quit. I said no. We are not stupid. We dont need level grind to learn how to play the game. We can do that at our own pace.
MMO games need more PUBLIC aspects as well. Over the years, the genre is too private group base. This always leads to some kind of group dominance in these games. in most cases, its some kind of Guild Requirement. I hate that. Guilds are fun sometimes yes. But now its like some kind of dictatorial job. They even have applications. I say move away from this. Make content more accessible to non-guild players. This goes back to something I said earlier about FFA Full Loot MMOs. These games are always Guild focus. All Open World Group PvP turn into private Guild Group events, because their pretty much isnt any PUBLIC anything, do to the FFA Full Loot troll environment. Public Events are a great element for improving here. Same as for when World of Warcraft introduced the LFR(Looking For Raid) feature. Gives more players access to features and content without Guild Requirements.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
It is pretty logical, you don't know that something new is fun until you actually tried it and to be honest have there not been many games that are so different from the others that are fun. ESO, GW2 and FF XIV are the furthest western games (yeah, I count FF as western because Japan really is closer to us then China and South Korea MMO wise but ignore it if you don't agree) that actually been good and they all done pretty well.
I just don't think most players know what they want until they get it, it is way harder to guess how fun something untried is then most people think. Some things sounds really great but are rather boring when you try it (which is why Blizz killed Titan) while others doesn't sound so fun on paper but once you try you are hooked (while Heartstone ain't a MMO it is a good example, it is way more fun then it sounds when someone describes it).
Still, TOR do have earned in it's development and running cost several times over even if it did cost as outrageous as some rumors say. That doesn't mean that they shouldn't have skipped some of the VOs and added more physical content instead, while VOs are nice I don't feel I need it for everything and you can't have too much content.
Then again, the current players opinion is what really matters and I don't belong to them and if you guys love your VOs it was probably worth it.
The difference in mobas is that it gives player a large selection of heroes with no (little) progression, where as an mmo is all about progression but as a result pigeon holes players to level one class and struggles to reward alting considering the huge down time to get to end game and end game gear.
If a person enjoys end game mostly, then they can see the appeal of what a moba concept offers. Its a model on something sucessful with a large consumer base that has e-sports. Sure its not for everyone.
Many games try to be niche in some way, with swtor it was 'story' by making the single player part better for an mmo. While in other games that are sand box they offer end game content with the grind really just about making currency to go sieging.
What about a hybrid where you get a bit of story and right into the action? So the end result you do not feel pigeon holed into playing 1 hero/class and try as many heroes as you like with a greater a reward than the traditional mmo would offer for alting.
The reason why people would play instead of a moba is becuase it would be more of the perspecitve of an mmo 3d and first person, and have an action style combat system of an mmo compared to a moba. Also i am using moba in terms of how it is successful and not really turning a moba into an mmo, but may be more of how to make an mmo more like a moba. Crowfall to be similar to that concept.
MMO is kind of a blank statement in terms of concept, the only real defintion is that it has a lot of players in one place.
And if you follow other games, or may be tried to understand what i was saying, then you would not be more focused on poking holes in 1's argument than seeing in how it makes sense.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
In reality (where most people live) the game is still one of the top revenue generating western mmos month after month. We are stuck with these same people predicted swtor death for the next 5-10 years, we are stuck with these same people blaming swtor for the failure of mmos and we are stuck with these same people hijacking every swtor thread or thread that isn't even about swtor.
The only data we have that is publicly available is from Superdata, but Superdata only collect data from a fraction of the market (they state on their website they only collect data from approx 500 games in total. Not MMOs, but across all platforms and genres, including mobile). Plus, Superdata usually don't have the facts - they take scraps of information and estimate.
Anyway, if you can ever be bothered, you can go back and read the quarterly earnings reports from EA for the time period when SW:TOR launched. It did fail, financially. They sold 1.7m - 2m boxes in the first month, which is great. In month 2, they had 1.3m subscribers. Somewhere between month 3 and month 6 they dipped below 500k subscribers. EA's finance dude stated that the break even point was 500k subscribers.
That is why they switched to F2P - the game was failing.
Then look at the reports after the F2P switch. They had an initial increase in subscribers, bringing it over the 500k mark, but then it dropped off again and they stopped reporting numbers.
This is why SW:TOR has received so few updates and so little content - the game failed financially and EA needed to get back their money.
I don't know why anyone was surprised that SWTOR failed though. The main devs were bioware (single player, story-focused rpgs), backed up by Mythic (the remnants of mythic anyway, the guys who screwed WAR) and published by EA (famous for destroying creativity and aiming for a quick buck). SWTOR never stood a chance of being successful, let alone a valid competitor for WoW, because it was built and managed by completely the wrong people.
You realize this is like a 5 year-old game, right? Going F2P doesn't mean failure, it means that there needs to be an adjustment in the monetization of the game. This is the REALITY that is faced by the vast majority (like 90%+) of games these days. People don't pay for subscriptions anymore, that's the reality.
Now if we were to use Superdata research as a guide, they said that the top 5 P2P MMOs by revenue for February 2016 was:
1 World of Warcraft
2 Lineage I
3 TERA: Online
4 Star Wars: The Old Republic
5 Blade & Soul
From NC Softs financials, which break down their games by revenues (thank you NC Soft), Lineage I did $68 million USD in Q1 2016 while Blade & Soul did $46.6 million USD in Q1 2016. So it would stand to reason that SWTOR is somewhere in the region of $50-$70 million quarterly. In 2014 it was stated that they were making $160 million annually. So even if this Q1 number is inflated, I'd find it difficult to believe that they aren't far off that $160 million number quoted a couple years back.
I'd say that it certainly hasn't failed, especially since it's probably still hanging in there as one of the top earners, probably top 3 as far, as North American markets.
Crazkanuk
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