I don't care if it takes 3 years to hit max level. If the game is fun at early levels, and the things you accomplish matter (like items and abilities that have lasting value), rushing to the end should be undesirable and highly problematic.
I don't care if it takes 3 years to hit max level. If the game is fun at early levels, and the things you accomplish matter (like items and abilities that have lasting value), rushing to the end should be undesirable and highly problematic.
Exactly. The idea that slowing down leveling will suddenly fix the problem is just wrong. No matter how long/short it takes to level up, if it's a boring process then why bother...
I know I commented on it before but, because of the option of the progeny system, leveling will definitely take awhile if you choose to gain those benefits.
I would say around 200-240 hrs to get to cap level feels about right. not a helish 6month grind but long enough to make it feel worth it.
3months of playing ~20hrs a week. Less if you hardcore grind it, more if you are a really casual player. This should be the min. in my opinion. Personally I liked FFXI, as you were leveling you had to take breaks to get required abilities, spells, armor, and so on. It was not handed to you instantly as you leveled. Would not mind the leveling taking even longer if stuff pre-endgame actually mattered in the grand scheme and was not all thrown away when you hit cap. Aka a good spell/ability quest say at level 30 that took some work to do that was important for the rest of the game forever.
Need to keep away from the current model where you get to cap level and starting endgame gear in <40hrs of gameplay. Cough... FFxiv/WoW...... We have more then enough mmos following this model already.
I would say around 200-240 hrs to get to cap level feels about right. not a helish 6month grind but long enough to make it feel worth it.
That seems like not even close to long enough...even when we are going to replay through the levels multiple times with the same character. I think you are greatly underestimating even the regular active gamer.
While I know some people on the forums have already said they are taking 2 weeks off work when the game is released, lets put a more reasonable play time on it. Lets say 4-6 hours per day during the week and 6-8 hrs on the weekends. So to simplify 5 hrs per week day and 7 hrs per week end day. (I think that is a very reasonable average to go by)
By your estimate of 200 -240 hrs to reach the cap, it would take the average gamer between 1-2 months to hit the lvl cap. That is WAAAAY to fast. I'm hoping no one on any server reaches the cap in 1-2 months (that includes people who play 18-20 hrs a day).
If the average gamer hits the cap in a month or two something is wrong.
That would mean the fastest players would hit cap in less than 2 weeks. There is no way the VR dev team can keep up with content at that rate.
I'm thinking it should be 4 or 5X that long to level at least...(and I am planning on releveling using the progeny system multiple times).
A hard game doesn't equal a good game. If I enjoy an easy game I stick with it and will level all kinds of alts. If the game isn't good I may level a little but will leave sooner.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
To keep players interest is a big one, because no matter what devs do, the reality is an average gamer gets bored and will jump ship in 2-6 weeks.
If the leveling is even a tad slow, an average player will bounce in a hearbeat.
And you figured this how ?......O-Ya...You have a special calculator no one else has.
Small short games, that's why
Both of these posts seem like nothing more than biased conjecture. Why design anything MMO for people who play two weeks and jump ship? The average gamer doesn't go out and power grind, hitting max in two weeks....
How is any MMORPG a small short game? Compared to what exactly?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Developers make fast leveling for only two reasons:
1) Small short games 2) To get you to pay for their expansion's
Umm no.
To keep players interest is a big one, because no matter what devs do, the reality is an average gamer gets bored and will jump ship in 2-6 weeks.
If the leveling is even a tad slow, an average player will bounce in a hearbeat.
Niche. Not for everyone. It's fine that they "bounce in a heartbeat".
I have been concerned ever since the whole "game you are most looking forward to in 2017" poll. This game was never meant to cater to such a large target audience that would make it the #1 game in that poll.
A lot of people will be disappointed if VR ends up sticking to their guns and making the game they have promised. A lot of us will be disappointed if they don't. It is a no win... but I guess if you have to choose, the older, 1st gen mmorpg gamers are less likely to jump ship and be enticed by the next shiny game on the market. They are the ones who are more likely to be playing the same game years down the line.
The thing to considering here is where you want your players to spend most of their gaming time. The last 10+ years people spend the first few weeks leveling in the open world followed be the rest of the time in the so called "endgame". The endgame usually consists of a few max level zones (usually 3 or so at launch, a few more later), some dungeons and a few raids.
The problem with that is that it just is a small part of the games content, you complete almost all of the game in those first weeks and that hurts the games longevity. It is not the fast leveling as such that is the problem, more the design of the content. With fast leveling you should only have about 25% of the game for leveling and save the rest for the endgame.
MMOs are however usually designed like EQ with 75-90% of the content for leveling and that only works if leveling is slow, preferably EQs speed and at least nowhere over twice that.
So no matter what leveling speed you make for a game you need to sync that with your content so there always are enough things to explore and you don't skip past half the game. Content is expensive and it is very important that you place the content so it will give your game longevity or you get another of those fast games people spend a month in before tire of it.
As for casual players they will have to live with that it will take them long time to max out in a game that has it content placed like most MMOs, otherwise you need a game like Guildwars where most the content was for lvl 20 (max level).
If you do things right you can get any leveling speed fun and work long term, but devs tend to miss here and players then get stuck in a rather small endgame until next expansion hits.
I am also personally against raising the levelcap with each expansion, it just unbalance the game, makes old content useless and get you continues stuck in a small endgame. It is fine to increase at some point but nowhere near so often as most MMOs does. It is far better to buff systems like EQ 1 & 2s AAs, GW2s masteries and similar and only raise the levelcap every third or so expansion (or every second if you make expansion larger but with longer periods between).
Developers make fast leveling for only two reasons:
1) Small short games 2) To get you to pay for their expansion's
Umm no.
To keep players interest is a big one, because no matter what devs do, the reality is an average gamer gets bored and will jump ship in 2-6 weeks.
If the leveling is even a tad slow, an average player will bounce in a hearbeat.
And you figured this how ?......O-Ya...You have a special calculator no one else has.
Small short games, that's why
I figured it out by talking to actual people who make MMOs.
Looking at the genre right now those people have no clue what's an MMO and how to make it fun and engaging. The problem is not the pace of leveling but the gameplay mechanics that are mostly targeted to non-MMO players to widen up the potential customer base.
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
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 sort of agree that the trends show that the "average gamers" or "the masses" prefer games where they can achieve ingame goals by playing in shorter sessions. Games offering short session gameplay are clearly the most popular (think MOBA, FPS, some ARPGs, etc.). It does seem that these average players do not want to stick with one game for a very long time.
What I do not understand is why so many people on this forum always have a mindset where purely business perspective comes first.
Yes, general purpose of the business is to maximize profit. In order to achieve this objective, the developers should avoid making decisions which may discourage potential customers from buying their product (e.g. implementing a long progression curve which may require players to stick with the game for long time or to play the game in longer sessions).
However, do you think that the only reason for developing this particular MMORPG is to generate as much profit as possible? While it could be, I do not think it is inevitably the case. To me, it seems that the developers have some sort of vision and the primary purpose of making Pantheon is to bring this vision to life.
Am I just being naive here? Maybe.
Nevertheless, why else would they be making a game that would nowadays be referred to as "oldschool MMORPG"? Streams, videos, and interviews I have seen indicate that they want to make a difficult game requiring players to cooperate in order to achieve ingame goals. A game that is not all about convenience and easy access to all the content. A game where your average gamers are likely to face some frustration and are unlikely to last very long, in my opinion.
I think such game is focusing on a niche market. I doubt the developers have an ambition that the game will be played by millions or even hundreds of thousands of players. I would bet that the game will have a very long levelling / progression process. Hopefully, it will be made in a way that progressing will not be forced on you as something that you need to do in order to unlock content and that it would require performing tasks players do not enjoy at all.
All I am saying is, forget about the masses and the average gamers for a while.
I am reluctant to believe that all MMOs / MMORPGs are just products made to generate as much profit as possible. In case of corporations, it clearly is the case, but there are still indie developers making games to bring a particular vision into life. I think Pantheon is one example of such game. Saga of Lucimia would be another one, in my opinion.
Does it make sense or am I just full of **** .
Actually, I think the reality is for the most part devs do create games with profit right at the top of the list, and the more the better.
Sure, some may take the high ground and say "no lock boxes" or something, but they will have mechanics in place to promote solid financial success.
Honestly, I work to make the most money possible while maintaining an acceptable quality of life.
I can't begrudge game developers for doing the same.
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
How do you build memories in a short 3 week game ?
Why would you build your own community of friends in a 3 week mmo ?
How do you REALLY define and fine tune your character in a 3 week mmo ?
Why even call it an mmo in a 3 week game and not just a video game ?
How fun is making an alt that may be needed by your Guild if you play the exact same content over ?
Why craft in a 3 week game >
Well, by reading all the replies it seems the majority don't like short 3 week games anyway. This topic is really not needed.........However, I guess it needs to be mentioned to show developers to make mmos for us instead of their quick cash hit and run games !!!!
One reason I like Pantheon is that I have total faith in this development team
I sort of agree that the trends show that the "average gamers" or "the masses" prefer games where they can achieve ingame goals by playing in shorter sessions. Games offering short session gameplay are clearly the most popular (think MOBA, FPS, some ARPGs, etc.). It does seem that these average players do not want to stick with one game for a very long time.
What I do not understand is why so many people on this forum always have a mindset where purely business perspective comes first.
Yes, general purpose of the business is to maximize profit. In order to achieve this objective, the developers should avoid making decisions which may discourage potential customers from buying their product (e.g. implementing a long progression curve which may require players to stick with the game for long time or to play the game in longer sessions).
However, do you think that the only reason for developing this particular MMORPG is to generate as much profit as possible? While it could be, I do not think it is inevitably the case. To me, it seems that the developers have some sort of vision and the primary purpose of making Pantheon is to bring this vision to life.
Am I just being naive here? Maybe.
Nevertheless, why else would they be making a game that would nowadays be referred to as "oldschool MMORPG"? Streams, videos, and interviews I have seen indicate that they want to make a difficult game requiring players to cooperate in order to achieve ingame goals. A game that is not all about convenience and easy access to all the content. A game where your average gamers are likely to face some frustration and are unlikely to last very long, in my opinion.
I think such game is focusing on a niche market. I doubt the developers have an ambition that the game will be played by millions or even hundreds of thousands of players. I would bet that the game will have a very long levelling / progression process. Hopefully, it will be made in a way that progressing will not be forced on you as something that you need to do in order to unlock content and that it would require performing tasks players do not enjoy at all.
All I am saying is, forget about the masses and the average gamers for a while.
I am reluctant to believe that all MMOs / MMORPGs are just products made to generate as much profit as possible. In case of corporations, it clearly is the case, but there are still indie developers making games to bring a particular vision into life. I think Pantheon is one example of such game. Saga of Lucimia would be another one, in my opinion.
Does it make sense or am I just full of **** .
Actually, I think the reality is for the most part devs do create games with profit right at the top of the list, and the more the better.
Sure, some may take the high ground and say "no lock boxes" or something, but they will have mechanics in place to promote solid financial success.
Honestly, I work to make the most money possible while maintaining an acceptable quality of life.
I can't begrudge game developers for doing the same.
Yeah everyone wants to make a profit but in the MMORPG world all this has gotten us is a bunch of WoW clones that never do that well. Until developers start making games with a certain vision or play style in mind that is not just a copy of what everyone thinks is needed to be the next WoW, we see little improvement or diversity in the MMORPG area. If they did this in the book writing area then all new books would be Romance/erotica ( estimated 1.44 billion) and no Science Fiction (estimated 590.2 million). Note: this are estimates from the industry for I think 2012.
I really hope that VR has a vision for the game and sticks to it and does not try and make a game to please everyone.
I sort of agree that the trends show that the "average gamers" or "the masses" prefer games where they can achieve ingame goals by playing in shorter sessions. Games offering short session gameplay are clearly the most popular (think MOBA, FPS, some ARPGs, etc.). It does seem that these average players do not want to stick with one game for a very long time.
What I do not understand is why so many people on this forum always have a mindset where purely business perspective comes first.
Yes, general purpose of the business is to maximize profit. In order to achieve this objective, the developers should avoid making decisions which may discourage potential customers from buying their product (e.g. implementing a long progression curve which may require players to stick with the game for long time or to play the game in longer sessions).
However, do you think that the only reason for developing this particular MMORPG is to generate as much profit as possible? While it could be, I do not think it is inevitably the case. To me, it seems that the developers have some sort of vision and the primary purpose of making Pantheon is to bring this vision to life.
Am I just being naive here? Maybe.
Nevertheless, why else would they be making a game that would nowadays be referred to as "oldschool MMORPG"? Streams, videos, and interviews I have seen indicate that they want to make a difficult game requiring players to cooperate in order to achieve ingame goals. A game that is not all about convenience and easy access to all the content. A game where your average gamers are likely to face some frustration and are unlikely to last very long, in my opinion.
I think such game is focusing on a niche market. I doubt the developers have an ambition that the game will be played by millions or even hundreds of thousands of players. I would bet that the game will have a very long levelling / progression process. Hopefully, it will be made in a way that progressing will not be forced on you as something that you need to do in order to unlock content and that it would require performing tasks players do not enjoy at all.
All I am saying is, forget about the masses and the average gamers for a while.
I am reluctant to believe that all MMOs / MMORPGs are just products made to generate as much profit as possible. In case of corporations, it clearly is the case, but there are still indie developers making games to bring a particular vision into life. I think Pantheon is one example of such game. Saga of Lucimia would be another one, in my opinion.
Does it make sense or am I just full of **** .
The problem generally is that "average" players tend to move towards other genres, like you said Mobas and FPS games. Also, most MMOs the last 15 years have been focused on that exact group of players, there certainly are more of them but there are also many times the games to compete with about the same players.
So as a dev you have to consider if you should make a game that competes with few games for a smaller group of people or many games for a larger. Both those still have the potential for pretty good profits.
But the difference between the average player and, lets call the other group MMO fans is that the first group tends to stay shorter time and invest less in a single game while the latter tend to run through content pretty fast but they are rather faithful and can play the same game for years.
I think it is actually likelier to earn money on the smaller group here, less competition and more loyal customers that don't mind spending money to play. Of course if you make a big hit for the casuals the payback will be far larger but very few MMOs have succeeded with that, most do average and counting that you will create the next Wow is a rather risky strategy.
As for games with long leveling time that do well BTW is Lineage still the top with over 3 million people that pays a subscription (Source: NC soft but it was about 9 months ago, might have changed since) and that game have been earning top money for 17 years now, only being beaten by Wow so it is possible to make huge bucks (or wons or whatever) on games focused on the MMO fan category.
Now, I don't think Pantheon really is focused on earning huge sums of cash, more about a team of people who want to make a living creating a game of a style they miss today and I don't see it becoming the new Lineage or anything but if it is a good game I think it will do pretty well. There is very few games competing with it and more then a few people that wanted something like it for a long time.
I honestly dont care about the people that race to the finish. Im not them and it doesnt impact me. If you design leveling speed based on that then the average leveling speed will be way too slow. Thats bad not good.
I think leveling speed should be such that the average player is able to almost finish content by the time the next expansion comes along.
I think level cap should take roughly 3 months when playing 4 to 5 hours a day.
That's not slow. It should take 6 Months for hardcore Players and 1 year for Casuals. If only takes 3 months, after 2 extra months of End Game, the Servers will be empty after 6 months. When players run out of content they don't stick around, that is a lesson Developers should have learned by now.
I think level cap should take roughly 3 months when playing 4 to 5 hours a day.
That's not slow. It should take 6 Months for hardcore Players and 1 year for Casuals. If only takes 3 months, after 2 extra months of End Game, the Servers will be empty after 6 months. When players run out of content they don't stick around, that is a lesson Developers should have learned by now.
Yea. 3 months to level cap for a casual seems kinda... average to me, too, not slow. Of course, that's based on the first trip through. It becomes easier to level and faster in any MMO once you figure out the optimal methods (among other possible things, such as a nest egg of items to pass down from your main to your alt).
I think level cap should take roughly 3 months when playing 4 to 5 hours a day.
That's not slow. It should take 6 Months for hardcore Players and 1 year for Casuals. If only takes 3 months, after 2 extra months of End Game, the Servers will be empty after 6 months. When players run out of content they don't stick around, that is a lesson Developers should have learned by now.
My original idea from 2002 was to provide a fixed number of levels (around 15), with different art models for the opponents at every level (minimal reuse of models in-game) and plan to try an incrementally progressive leveling scheme, roughly equating to 50 hours for to reach level 2, 75 more hours to reach level 3, etc. That would be a lot of content at each individual level. That's approximately 500 hours to reach level 5, and 3375 hours to reach max level (which is still only 141 days of 24x7). At a more reasonable 4 hours per day, max level would be around 845 days away.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I think level cap should take roughly 3 months when playing 4 to 5 hours a day.
That's not slow. It should take 6 Months for hardcore Players and 1 year for Casuals. If only takes 3 months, after 2 extra months of End Game, the Servers will be empty after 6 months. When players run out of content they don't stick around, that is a lesson Developers should have learned by now.
My original idea from 2002 was to provide a fixed number of levels (around 15), with different art models for the opponents at every level (minimal reuse of models in-game) and plan to try an incrementally progressive leveling scheme, roughly equating to 50 hours for to reach level 2, 75 more hours to reach level 3, etc. That would be a lot of content at each individual level. That's approximately 500 hours to reach level 5, and 3375 hours to reach max level (which is still only 141 days of 24x7). At a more reasonable 4 hours per day, max level would be around 845 days away.
That's the easy part. The hard part comes when players figure out tricks and strategies that end up making them level much faster than you thought was possible in your game.
Goodness knows it happened in EQ pretty often if I recall correctly from various developer snippets...
Comments
1) Small short games
2) To get you to pay for their expansion's
3months of playing ~20hrs a week. Less if you hardcore grind it, more if you are a really casual player. This should be the min. in my opinion. Personally I liked FFXI, as you were leveling you had to take breaks to get required abilities, spells, armor, and so on. It was not handed to you instantly as you leveled. Would not mind the leveling taking even longer if stuff pre-endgame actually mattered in the grand scheme and was not all thrown away when you hit cap. Aka a good spell/ability quest say at level 30 that took some work to do that was important for the rest of the game forever.
Need to keep away from the current model where you get to cap level and starting endgame gear in <40hrs of gameplay. Cough... FFxiv/WoW...... We have more then enough mmos following this model already.
While I know some people on the forums have already said they are taking 2 weeks off work when the game is released, lets put a more reasonable play time on it. Lets say 4-6 hours per day during the week and 6-8 hrs on the weekends. So to simplify 5 hrs per week day and 7 hrs per week end day. (I think that is a very reasonable average to go by)
By your estimate of 200 -240 hrs to reach the cap, it would take the average gamer between 1-2 months to hit the lvl cap. That is WAAAAY to fast. I'm hoping no one on any server reaches the cap in 1-2 months (that includes people who play 18-20 hrs a day).
If the average gamer hits the cap in a month or two something is wrong.
That would mean the fastest players would hit cap in less than 2 weeks. There is no way the VR dev team can keep up with content at that rate.
I'm thinking it should be 4 or 5X that long to level at least...(and I am planning on releveling using the progeny system multiple times).
I guess we will see.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
And you figured this how ?......O-Ya...You have a special calculator no one else has.
Small short games, that's why
How is any MMORPG a small short game? Compared to what exactly?
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I have been concerned ever since the whole "game you are most looking forward to in 2017" poll. This game was never meant to cater to such a large target audience that would make it the #1 game in that poll.
A lot of people will be disappointed if VR ends up sticking to their guns and making the game they have promised. A lot of us will be disappointed if they don't. It is a no win... but I guess if you have to choose, the older, 1st gen mmorpg gamers are less likely to jump ship and be enticed by the next shiny game on the market. They are the ones who are more likely to be playing the same game years down the line.
The problem with that is that it just is a small part of the games content, you complete almost all of the game in those first weeks and that hurts the games longevity. It is not the fast leveling as such that is the problem, more the design of the content. With fast leveling you should only have about 25% of the game for leveling and save the rest for the endgame.
MMOs are however usually designed like EQ with 75-90% of the content for leveling and that only works if leveling is slow, preferably EQs speed and at least nowhere over twice that.
So no matter what leveling speed you make for a game you need to sync that with your content so there always are enough things to explore and you don't skip past half the game. Content is expensive and it is very important that you place the content so it will give your game longevity or you get another of those fast games people spend a month in before tire of it.
As for casual players they will have to live with that it will take them long time to max out in a game that has it content placed like most MMOs, otherwise you need a game like Guildwars where most the content was for lvl 20 (max level).
If you do things right you can get any leveling speed fun and work long term, but devs tend to miss here and players then get stuck in a rather small endgame until next expansion hits.
I am also personally against raising the levelcap with each expansion, it just unbalance the game, makes old content useless and get you continues stuck in a small endgame. It is fine to increase at some point but nowhere near so often as most MMOs does. It is far better to buff systems like EQ 1 & 2s AAs, GW2s masteries and similar and only raise the levelcap every third or so expansion (or every second if you make expansion larger but with longer periods between).
"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
"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
Sure, some may take the high ground and say "no lock boxes" or something, but they will have mechanics in place to promote solid financial success.
Honestly, I work to make the most money possible while maintaining an acceptable quality of life.
I can't begrudge game developers for doing the same.
"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
Why would you build your own community of friends in a 3 week mmo ?
How do you REALLY define and fine tune your character in a 3 week mmo ?
Why even call it an mmo in a 3 week game and not just a video game ?
How fun is making an alt that may be needed by your Guild if you play the exact same content over ?
Why craft in a 3 week game >
Well, by reading all the replies it seems the majority don't like short 3 week games anyway. This topic is really not needed.........However, I guess it needs to be mentioned to show developers to make mmos for us instead of their quick cash hit and run games !!!!
One reason I like Pantheon is that I have total faith in this development team
If they did this in the book writing area then all new books would be Romance/erotica ( estimated 1.44 billion) and no Science Fiction (estimated 590.2 million). Note: this are estimates from the industry for I think 2012.
I really hope that VR has a vision for the game and sticks to it and does not try and make a game to please everyone.
So as a dev you have to consider if you should make a game that competes with few games for a smaller group of people or many games for a larger. Both those still have the potential for pretty good profits.
But the difference between the average player and, lets call the other group MMO fans is that the first group tends to stay shorter time and invest less in a single game while the latter tend to run through content pretty fast but they are rather faithful and can play the same game for years.
I think it is actually likelier to earn money on the smaller group here, less competition and more loyal customers that don't mind spending money to play. Of course if you make a big hit for the casuals the payback will be far larger but very few MMOs have succeeded with that, most do average and counting that you will create the next Wow is a rather risky strategy.
As for games with long leveling time that do well BTW is Lineage still the top with over 3 million people that pays a subscription (Source: NC soft but it was about 9 months ago, might have changed since) and that game have been earning top money for 17 years now, only being beaten by Wow so it is possible to make huge bucks (or wons or whatever) on games focused on the MMO fan category.
Now, I don't think Pantheon really is focused on earning huge sums of cash, more about a team of people who want to make a living creating a game of a style they miss today and I don't see it becoming the new Lineage or anything but if it is a good game I think it will do pretty well. There is very few games competing with it and more then a few people that wanted something like it for a long time.
I think leveling speed should be such that the average player is able to almost finish content by the time the next expansion comes along.
It should take 6 Months for hardcore Players and 1 year for Casuals.
If only takes 3 months, after 2 extra months of End Game, the Servers will be empty after 6 months.
When players run out of content they don't stick around, that is a lesson Developers should have learned by now.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Goodness knows it happened in EQ pretty often if I recall correctly from various developer snippets...