I notice the OP has not replied to anything said in the posts so far. He just threw the video into the MMORPG.com den and like a pack of rabid wolves we descended on it.
B-but he said, "Nuff said". What are we going to do now, guys?
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
Its hard to see how any argument can be made to suggest that the MMO genre is dying, you pretty much have to ignore all the successful games and how the overall player numbers appear to be growing, sure some games fail, they needed to fail because they didn't evolve. As for those players that are left without an MMO to play, i don't really think there are very many of them honestly, i think of them more as being Dinosaurs in that they are the players that time forgot.
I think I'm sort of a Stegosaurus myself, all prickly backed with a spiky tail.
Haven't played a MMO since last June, no longer any that interest me.
Fortunately I have a 15 year backlog of single player games to work through, so I'm keeping busy.
I do have to ask, how do you know the overall player numbers are growing as few companies publish any sort of hard figures.
Also, are you property discerning between MMOs and MinMOs? (Minimally Multiplayer)
I see a lot of growth in the latter category, not so much in the first and if we get specific to MMORPGs a clear decline.
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
Its hard to see how any argument can be made to suggest that the MMO genre is dying, you pretty much have to ignore all the successful games and how the overall player numbers appear to be growing, sure some games fail, they needed to fail because they didn't evolve. As for those players that are left without an MMO to play, i don't really think there are very many of them honestly, i think of them more as being Dinosaurs in that they are the players that time forgot.
I think I'm sort of a Stegosaurus myself, all prickly backed with a spiky tail.
Haven't played a MMO since last June, no longer any that interest me.
Fortunately I have a 15 year backlog of single player games to work through, so I'm keeping busy.
I do have to ask, how do you know the overall player numbers are growing as few companies publish any sort of hard figures.
Also, are you property discerning between MMOs and MinMOs? (Minimally Multiplayer)
I see a lot of growth in the latter category, not so much in the first and if we get specific to MMORPGs a clear decline.
How do i know they are growing? i kind of take the 'devs' word for it when they say they have x millions of players in their game, of course, they could be lying
Its hard to see how any argument can be made to suggest that the MMO genre is dying, you pretty much have to ignore all the successful games and how the overall player numbers appear to be growing, sure some games fail, they needed to fail because they didn't evolve. As for those players that are left without an MMO to play, i don't really think there are very many of them honestly, i think of them more as being Dinosaurs in that they are the players that time forgot.
I think I'm sort of a Stegosaurus myself, all prickly backed with a spiky tail.
Haven't played a MMO since last June, no longer any that interest me.
Fortunately I have a 15 year backlog of single player games to work through, so I'm keeping busy.
I do have to ask, how do you know the overall player numbers are growing as few companies publish any sort of hard figures.
Also, are you property discerning between MMOs and MinMOs? (Minimally Multiplayer)
I see a lot of growth in the latter category, not so much in the first and if we get specific to MMORPGs a clear decline.
How do i know they are growing? i kind of take the 'devs' word for it when they say they have x millions of players in their game, of course, they could be lying
Most devs don't say anything though. I know FFXIV recently announced that their playerbase has increased slightly which is great news. But, as far as I'm aware, everything else is shrinking.
That's usually not a problem because those leaving an old game end up joining a new game, so the overall MMO population grows even though individual MMO populations shrink. However, now that AAA devs have stopped making new games, people are simply leaving the old games and then leaving the genre all together.
So, at the moment, all evidence points to the genre being in decline. Population appears to be shrinking, retention is reducing. AAA devs have determined the market isn't worth investing in, so they're leaving. The signs are not good.
That said, this decline was originally caused by stagnation, but the indie MMOs in development are all experimenting with new features and ideas, so it's possible the stagnation will end soon. Whether that leads to growth of the genre remains to be seen.
Its hard to see how any argument can be made to suggest that the MMO genre is dying, you pretty much have to ignore all the successful games and how the overall player numbers appear to be growing, sure some games fail, they needed to fail because they didn't evolve. As for those players that are left without an MMO to play, i don't really think there are very many of them honestly, i think of them more as being Dinosaurs in that they are the players that time forgot.
I think I'm sort of a Stegosaurus myself, all prickly backed with a spiky tail.
Haven't played a MMO since last June, no longer any that interest me.
Fortunately I have a 15 year backlog of single player games to work through, so I'm keeping busy.
I do have to ask, how do you know the overall player numbers are growing as few companies publish any sort of hard figures.
Also, are you property discerning between MMOs and MinMOs? (Minimally Multiplayer)
I see a lot of growth in the latter category, not so much in the first and if we get specific to MMORPGs a clear decline.
How do i know they are growing? i kind of take the 'devs' word for it when they say they have x millions of players in their game, of course, they could be lying
Most devs don't say anything though. I know FFXIV recently announced that their playerbase has increased slightly which is great news. But, as far as I'm aware, everything else is shrinking.
That's usually not a problem because those leaving an old game end up joining a new game, so the overall MMO population grows even though individual MMO populations shrink. However, now that AAA devs have stopped making new games, people are simply leaving the old games and then leaving the genre all together.
So, at the moment, all evidence points to the genre being in decline. Population appears to be shrinking, retention is reducing. AAA devs have determined the market isn't worth investing in, so they're leaving. The signs are not good.
That said, this decline was originally caused by stagnation, but the indie MMOs in development are all experimenting with new features and ideas, so it's possible the stagnation will end soon. Whether that leads to growth of the genre remains to be seen.
Those are interesting assertions and I'd be interested to see any data that backs it up. Specifically the part about the MMO player population shrinking and AAA devs leaving.
I know this isn't original, but a massive revival or uptrend won't happen until we have MMORPG Sword Art Online VR style. Until then everything will be old hat for a lot of people.
I envision the first one to require massive investment, so it would have to be a large corporation. It's new enough so they have to think out of the box (which will hopefully keep min/max accountants like me out of it for a while), and then everyone is going to want to play it, until it turns into old hat in about 10 years.
How do i know they are growing? i kind of take the 'devs' word for it when they say they have x millions of players in their game, of course, they could be lying
Most of them are rather silent about actual numbers though, at least for active players.
Yes, the number of accounts of F2P games grow but since anyone ever made an account counts there that doesn't tell us much.
We do get some hints when an expansion hits a game, they usually don't tell us how many they sold but many of them at least show us revenues and when a game goes up a lot in revenue when an expansion hits that either means it had many players all the time not paying much or that people moved back or started playing it.
Still, all the top western MMOs are down in income now compared to 5 years ago. Wow has lost at least 7 million players the last 10 years and I am far from convinced they are still playingh another MMORPG.
The KMMORPGs have done great though but most of their players still live in South Korea and the rest of Asia. A few are certainly doing rather good in the west, like BDO but not amazing and those games are few.
Also, if MMORPGs are growing, why have all western publishers lost interest in them? Why does financial reports that points out a MMORPG go down?
I think you eiither count none MMORPGs like Destiny 2, Diablo 3, Lol and similar, or it is wishful thinking. Almost every single western MMORPG in development today is either crowdfunded or indie, if the genre were growing the big publishers would still make them.
Its hard to see how any argument can be made to suggest that the MMO genre is dying, you pretty much have to ignore all the successful games and how the overall player numbers appear to be growing, sure some games fail, they needed to fail because they didn't evolve. As for those players that are left without an MMO to play, i don't really think there are very many of them honestly, i think of them more as being Dinosaurs in that they are the players that time forgot.
I think I'm sort of a Stegosaurus myself, all prickly backed with a spiky tail.
Haven't played a MMO since last June, no longer any that interest me.
Fortunately I have a 15 year backlog of single player games to work through, so I'm keeping busy.
I do have to ask, how do you know the overall player numbers are growing as few companies publish any sort of hard figures.
Also, are you property discerning between MMOs and MinMOs? (Minimally Multiplayer)
I see a lot of growth in the latter category, not so much in the first and if we get specific to MMORPGs a clear decline.
How do i know they are growing? i kind of take the 'devs' word for it when they say they have x millions of players in their game, of course, they could be lying
Most devs don't say anything though. I know FFXIV recently announced that their playerbase has increased slightly which is great news. But, as far as I'm aware, everything else is shrinking.
That's usually not a problem because those leaving an old game end up joining a new game, so the overall MMO population grows even though individual MMO populations shrink. However, now that AAA devs have stopped making new games, people are simply leaving the old games and then leaving the genre all together.
So, at the moment, all evidence points to the genre being in decline. Population appears to be shrinking, retention is reducing. AAA devs have determined the market isn't worth investing in, so they're leaving. The signs are not good.
That said, this decline was originally caused by stagnation, but the indie MMOs in development are all experimenting with new features and ideas, so it's possible the stagnation will end soon. Whether that leads to growth of the genre remains to be seen.
Those are interesting assertions and I'd be interested to see any data that backs it up. Specifically the part about the MMO player population shrinking and AAA devs leaving.
Sadly its the same non existent data which supports the assertion that MMO populations are growing.
If you have strong evidence of western Developers building some new MMOs please share.
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
Sadly its the same non existent data which supports the assertion that MMO populations are growing.
If you have strong evidence of western Developers building some new MMOs please share.
That more then a few old top MMO devs have moved over to other genres is well established though.
2 of the really good ones is Kaplan (Wow) and Strain (GW, GW2).
Then again, some golden age devs are back with kickstarter games, like Brad, Lord British and Marc Jacobs. All of them seems to have a rather limited budget though.
I think the "evidence" for if MMORPGs are growing or shrinking comes down to money: Earnings & investment. And those 2 are dropping exept in South Korea, China and Japan.
I can of course be wrong there, but everything I see points to less players, not more. It is possible that people just are paying far less and play F2P games which would explain while MMORPGs are earning less and fewer investors are interested in them but that is still a bad thing for us.
Until a developer spends the sort of money and time like blizzard did on original wow i cant see a awesome mmo being released anytime in the future they all seem to be built around a quick cash grab wit little or no pve content as this takes effort to produce. developers seem to think people will keep playing these crappy low content team vers team games which are cheap to make and not realistically a mmo at all. The last few decent mmos were asian ports which really do not suit the western market even with the changes they make to make them western friendly to much pay to win and gambling involved around upgrading gear i mean look at the joke of lvling at the higher lvls of black desert for example or the pay to win of archage which are the two high end mmos of the past few years, most others are just garbage which isn't even as good as those mmos that already existed. crowdfunding is a way of people to make money and i am yet to see a decent game come from this.
I think a couple of videos explain what happened to MMOs the best:
Next up, Matrix killed everything xD All while AI does the menial day to day tasks that humans used to do so we can live our lives out in such a place.
The channels behind this video - has an entire series of "Death of a ....." it's how he makes money on YouTube, that's what he is known for.
Its how they make money on Youtube - so take everything there with a grain of salt as they are driven by "views" not "facts".
MMO genre is not dead, it's changing rapidly as the new social/tech trends sway the playerbase - the video games are trying to keep up with the pace.
I have to disagree with you on this.
MMO genre is not changing rapidly at all. MMO's continue to pump out the routine cash shop style game with most stuff behind a cash wall and no emphasis on actual good gameplay. It's been this way for years. It's all about the almighty $ now and less about making a good, solid, game. Not that it wasnt about money before because it is a business but previous titles put more heart and passion into their products than they do now.
HOPEFULLY, what ever is coming down the pipeline moves away from that model but chances are it wont. On top of that, developers put more on instant gratification than depth hence why people leave MMO's so quickly. No depth, nothing to suck you in, nothing to keep you there. Leveling in current mmo's can be done in a day or two, gearing can be done practically in a week or less. There's absolutely nothing mmo developers are doing to elongate a players experience in MMO's right now. It's all about the dollar and its all about the instant gratification.
I notice the OP has not replied to anything said in the posts so far. He just threw the video into the MMORPG.com den and like a pack of rabid wolves we descended on it.
That is what this forum is good for right? Without a nice rabid wolves (using your words) drawing dead horse, there is really little to do here.
We are overloaded with bad F2P games but that is as much a function of society's general lack of an attention span as anything else.
You make it sounds like a bad thing. I don't see why the public needs to keep attention on games for the long term. We are talking about entertainment here. My attention span on a movie is 2-3 hours. My attention span on a novel is like 4-5 hours. My attention spend on a season of tv shows is like 20 hours (or 10-13 if we are talking about netflix stuff).
Is there any reason why games are superior and should command more of my time?
We are overloaded with bad F2P games but that is as much a function of society's general lack of an attention span as anything else.
You make it sounds like a bad thing. I don't see why the public needs to keep attention on games for the long term. We are talking about entertainment here. My attention span on a movie is 2-3 hours. My attention span on a novel is like 4-5 hours. My attention spend on a season of tv shows is like 20 hours (or 10-13 if we are talking about netflix stuff).
Is there any reason why games are superior and should command more of my time?
You're missing the obvious... they're desperate to find something to do with their lives when they aren't at work, sleeping, or eating. It's not some filler fun thing to do, it's a desperate need to fill a void. As in, without it, they'd be staring at the wall waiting for the paint to dry... and they didn't even paint the wall.
Which would you rather do of the following if you're a developer or investor?
Spend 30 to 50 million making a MMO which requires a overhead cost for hardware, customer service, Maintenance fees, continual development of content where you may get 400,000 to 500,000 sales and may make back initial investment or possibly lose it.
or
Spend 10 to 20 million on a MP or SP game where you make it, maybe do some bug fixes (fewer developer required), have low overhead and probably sell 20 to 30 million copies if it is good or possibly lose it.
Until a developer spends the sort of money and time like blizzard did on original wow i cant see a awesome mmo being released anytime in the future they all seem to be built around a quick cash grab wit little or no pve content as this takes effort to produce. developers seem to think people will keep playing these crappy low content team vers team games which are cheap to make and not realistically a mmo at all. The last few decent mmos were asian ports which really do not suit the western market even with the changes they make to make them western friendly to much pay to win and gambling involved around upgrading gear i mean look at the joke of lvling at the higher lvls of black desert for example or the pay to win of archage which are the two high end mmos of the past few years, most others are just garbage which isn't even as good as those mmos that already existed. crowdfunding is a way of people to make money and i am yet to see a decent game come from this.
Many devs spent as much money as Blizz did and more then a few more. The old republic for instance did have a gigantic budget and both ESO and GW2 did have fine as well.
While you do need a rather large budget if you want a mega success you need far more then that to pull it off. A fun low budget game can certainly beat a bad expensive game. Compare Guildwars (1) with AoC and WAR if you don't believe me.
The reason western MMORPG games have become low budget games from the beginning is that so many publishers burnt so much money and got so little out of it.
You're missing the obvious... they're desperate to find something to do with their lives when they aren't at work, sleeping, or eating. It's not some filler fun thing to do, it's a desperate need to fill a void. As in, without it, they'd be staring at the wall waiting for the paint to dry... and they didn't even paint the wall.
"desperate to find something to do with their lives" .. lol .. those are what careers and family are for.
Repeating bashing a virtual monster head in .. is not anything meaningful to do with one's life .. in my opinion, of course.
In fact, doing projects like painting walls (for themselves or others) would be a MUCH better use of time.
You're missing the obvious... they're desperate to find something to do with their lives when they aren't at work, sleeping, or eating. It's not some filler fun thing to do, it's a desperate need to fill a void. As in, without it, they'd be staring at the wall waiting for the paint to dry... and they didn't even paint the wall.
"desperate to find something to do with their lives" .. lol .. those are what careers and family are for.
Repeating bashing a virtual monster head in .. is not anything meaningful to do with one's life .. in my opinion, of course.
In fact, doing projects like painting walls (for themselves or others) would be a MUCH better use of time.
I will remember to get the gamers in next time I need my place redecorated.
Video is ok. In short, high time of mmo rpgs is over, big budget game companies are investing in other generes, crowdfunded mmo rpgs might or might not be successfull. Nothing new to anyone who follows this genre really. I liked the little side kick at mmorpg.com saying games like pubg/fortnite are MMOs.
We are overloaded with bad F2P games but that is as much a function of society's general lack of an attention span as anything else.
You make it sounds like a bad thing. I don't see why the public needs to keep attention on games for the long term. We are talking about entertainment here. My attention span on a movie is 2-3 hours. My attention span on a novel is like 4-5 hours. My attention spent on a season of tv shows is like 20 hours (or 10-13 if we are talking about netflix stuff).
Is there any reason why games are superior and should command more of my time?
You are unnecessarily mixing up "time invested into entertainment" and "time required to finish a content". But I don't see why they would have to have anything to do with each other. If there was a 500-hour novel that would fascinate me without end, I would read it. In fact, I have been listening to the Aubrey&Maturin series for several years.
I would not do that without also expanding my literature canon knowledge in other genres, but I would stick with that book for my fantasy-reading until I am through with it. In the same way, you can play an MMO for 3 years, and still be able to spend some of your weekly gaming time on singleplayer titles or lobby-based games, etc.
I agree with what you said to btdt, though, his comment was a bit scary.
Well, devs of subscription based games do tend to add more timesinks since they get payed by the month, just like F2P games try to sell you as much stuff as they can as fast as possible.
Some subscription based developer teams do that. Those that follow WoWs business model definitely do. Which is why I never understood why that game could be appealing to anyone. It's the pinnacle of pointless PvE. Your reward is gear for more PvE.
Other games have better premises, and therefore the gameplay itself is designed not to get old, because the player interaction and shifting powers itself creates the dynamic that keeps the game alive. Here, the developers neither push out timesink content so people keep wanting to remain active in the game, nor do they force-shove consumable shop content down players' throats.
Instead, they let the game play itself out, but they just focus on adjusting balancing, and the rest is really mainly the end-game just playing itself out. I have witnessed it happen in Regnum Online, and I am sure some players of more appreciated PvP-focused territory-control-involving MMOs have felt the same (DAoC, Darkfall, possibly Elder Scrolls, maybe people who reach ArcheAge's endgame?). There are definitely MMO-designs that allow for longevity without void grind-updates, or CashgrabAndDump-strategies.
For me, I just don't fully understand why box fees and/or sub fees are so reviled now. My experience has been that those games are generally - generally - better and have longer life spans. But nowadays, the first thing people want to discuss about an upcoming game is its monetization format. You'd think folks would be tired of being screwed over or disappointed by now. Some of the "new" money models, especially the supposedly-F2P ones, certainly aren't improvements over just paying for a game and having what you need in-game. Just my 2c.
I agree, and this has been discussed for many years. Lots of companies have heeded the community's advice. Guild Wars 2 committing to the BuyToPay-plan was the first result of the debate I remember and had its model copied quite a few times. Many of the sandbox titles developed in the same era did the same thing.
I think the reason that some of them are struggling to be accepted is that they are not very inviting to newcomers (to their payment model/genre/subgenre), because they do not offer sufficient Trial access or short-term-subscriptions. Darkfall 2 is one that does it faily well, but beyond that I have rarely seen any inviting methods to try out MMOs, both for AAA games and for smaller companies' titles.
For example, just recently I saw that Final Fantasy now offers a very open Trial client, but when I looked for it 2 years ago or so, they had nothing of the sort. If a game does not let me test how it feels to connect with the community ingame, I won't pay for it, period. Publishers who do not understand that deserve to struggle until they learn their error.
Some subscription based developer teams do that. Those that follow WoWs business model definitely do. Which is why I never understood why that game could be appealing to anyone. It's the pinnacle of pointless PvE. Your reward is gear for more PvE.
Other games have better premises, and therefore the gameplay itself is designed not to get old, because the player interaction and shifting powers itself creates the dynamic that keeps the game alive. Here, the developers neither push out timesink content so people keep wanting to remain active in the game, nor do they force-shove consumable shop content down players' throats.
Instead, they let the game play itself out, but they just focus on adjusting balancing, and the rest is really mainly the end-game just playing itself out. I have witnessed it happen in Regnum Online, and I am sure some players of more appreciated PvP-focused territory-control-involving MMOs have felt the same (DAoC, Darkfall, possibly Elder Scrolls, maybe people who reach ArcheAge's endgame?). There are definitely MMO-designs that allow for longevity without void grind-updates, or CashgrabAndDump-strategies.
No, everyone does not try to add as much timesinks as they can and I do agree that DaoC had a great endgame.
The thing most endgame centered PvP games falls on though is not the endgame but the path there. Far too many of the sandboxy PvP games suck before the endgame just as many PvE themeparks suck so much after it.
That is why Archeage tried PvE gameplay until you reach it and PvP after, that didn't work out as great as they hoped but A for trying, at least they gave it some thought.
I don't think it is the right way of solving the problem but just identifying it is more then many devs ever do.
How can you make both PvE and PvP fun both in the early game and in the endgame? A really good solution to that question is worth a lot of money.
Comments
"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
Haven't played a MMO since last June, no longer any that interest me.
Fortunately I have a 15 year backlog of single player games to work through, so I'm keeping busy.
I do have to ask, how do you know the overall player numbers are growing as few companies publish any sort of hard figures.
Also, are you property discerning between MMOs and MinMOs? (Minimally Multiplayer)
I see a lot of growth in the latter category, not so much in the first and if we get specific to MMORPGs a clear decline.
"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
That's usually not a problem because those leaving an old game end up joining a new game, so the overall MMO population grows even though individual MMO populations shrink. However, now that AAA devs have stopped making new games, people are simply leaving the old games and then leaving the genre all together.
So, at the moment, all evidence points to the genre being in decline. Population appears to be shrinking, retention is reducing. AAA devs have determined the market isn't worth investing in, so they're leaving. The signs are not good.
That said, this decline was originally caused by stagnation, but the indie MMOs in development are all experimenting with new features and ideas, so it's possible the stagnation will end soon. Whether that leads to growth of the genre remains to be seen.
I envision the first one to require massive investment, so it would have to be a large corporation. It's new enough so they have to think out of the box (which will hopefully keep min/max accountants like me out of it for a while), and then everyone is going to want to play it, until it turns into old hat in about 10 years.
Yes, the number of accounts of F2P games grow but since anyone ever made an account counts there that doesn't tell us much.
We do get some hints when an expansion hits a game, they usually don't tell us how many they sold but many of them at least show us revenues and when a game goes up a lot in revenue when an expansion hits that either means it had many players all the time not paying much or that people moved back or started playing it.
Still, all the top western MMOs are down in income now compared to 5 years ago. Wow has lost at least 7 million players the last 10 years and I am far from convinced they are still playingh another MMORPG.
The KMMORPGs have done great though but most of their players still live in South Korea and the rest of Asia. A few are certainly doing rather good in the west, like BDO but not amazing and those games are few.
Also, if MMORPGs are growing, why have all western publishers lost interest in them? Why does financial reports that points out a MMORPG go down?
I think you eiither count none MMORPGs like Destiny 2, Diablo 3, Lol and similar, or it is wishful thinking. Almost every single western MMORPG in development today is either crowdfunded or indie, if the genre were growing the big publishers would still make them.
If you have strong evidence of western Developers building some new MMOs please share.
"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
2 of the really good ones is Kaplan (Wow) and Strain (GW, GW2).
Then again, some golden age devs are back with kickstarter games, like Brad, Lord British and Marc Jacobs. All of them seems to have a rather limited budget though.
I think the "evidence" for if MMORPGs are growing or shrinking comes down to money: Earnings & investment. And those 2 are dropping exept in South Korea, China and Japan.
I can of course be wrong there, but everything I see points to less players, not more. It is possible that people just are paying far less and play F2P games which would explain while MMORPGs are earning less and fewer investors are interested in them but that is still a bad thing for us.
MMO genre is not changing rapidly at all. MMO's continue to pump out the routine cash shop style game with most stuff behind a cash wall and no emphasis on actual good gameplay. It's been this way for years. It's all about the almighty $ now and less about making a good, solid, game. Not that it wasnt about money before because it is a business but previous titles put more heart and passion into their products than they do now.
HOPEFULLY, what ever is coming down the pipeline moves away from that model but chances are it wont. On top of that, developers put more on instant gratification than depth hence why people leave MMO's so quickly. No depth, nothing to suck you in, nothing to keep you there. Leveling in current mmo's can be done in a day or two, gearing can be done practically in a week or less. There's absolutely nothing mmo developers are doing to elongate a players experience in MMO's right now. It's all about the dollar and its all about the instant gratification.
That is what this forum is good for right? Without a nice rabid wolves (using your words) drawing dead horse, there is really little to do here.
Which would you rather do of the following if you're a developer or investor?
Spend 30 to 50 million making a MMO which requires a overhead cost for hardware, customer service, Maintenance fees, continual development of content where you may get 400,000 to 500,000 sales and may make back initial investment or possibly lose it.
or
Spend 10 to 20 million on a MP or SP game where you make it, maybe do some bug fixes (fewer developer required), have low overhead and probably sell 20 to 30 million copies if it is good or possibly lose it.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
While you do need a rather large budget if you want a mega success you need far more then that to pull it off. A fun low budget game can certainly beat a bad expensive game. Compare Guildwars (1) with AoC and WAR if you don't believe me.
The reason western MMORPG games have become low budget games from the beginning is that so many publishers burnt so much money and got so little out of it.
Repeating bashing a virtual monster head in .. is not anything meaningful to do with one's life .. in my opinion, of course.
In fact, doing projects like painting walls (for themselves or others) would be a MUCH better use of time.
I will remember to get the gamers in next time I need my place redecorated.
Nothing new to anyone who follows this genre really.
I liked the little side kick at mmorpg.com saying games like pubg/fortnite are MMOs.
I would not do that without also expanding my literature canon knowledge in other genres, but I would stick with that book for my fantasy-reading until I am through with it. In the same way, you can play an MMO for 3 years, and still be able to spend some of your weekly gaming time on singleplayer titles or lobby-based games, etc.
I agree with what you said to btdt, though, his comment was a bit scary.
Some subscription based developer teams do that. Those that follow WoWs business model definitely do. Which is why I never understood why that game could be appealing to anyone. It's the pinnacle of pointless PvE. Your reward is gear for more PvE.
Other games have better premises, and therefore the gameplay itself is designed not to get old, because the player interaction and shifting powers itself creates the dynamic that keeps the game alive. Here, the developers neither push out timesink content so people keep wanting to remain active in the game, nor do they force-shove consumable shop content down players' throats.
Instead, they let the game play itself out, but they just focus on adjusting balancing, and the rest is really mainly the end-game just playing itself out. I have witnessed it happen in Regnum Online, and I am sure some players of more appreciated PvP-focused territory-control-involving MMOs have felt the same (DAoC, Darkfall, possibly Elder Scrolls, maybe people who reach ArcheAge's endgame?). There are definitely MMO-designs that allow for longevity without void grind-updates, or CashgrabAndDump-strategies.
I agree, and this has been discussed for many years. Lots of companies have heeded the community's advice. Guild Wars 2 committing to the BuyToPay-plan was the first result of the debate I remember and had its model copied quite a few times. Many of the sandbox titles developed in the same era did the same thing.
I think the reason that some of them are struggling to be accepted is that they are not very inviting to newcomers (to their payment model/genre/subgenre), because they do not offer sufficient Trial access or short-term-subscriptions. Darkfall 2 is one that does it faily well, but beyond that I have rarely seen any inviting methods to try out MMOs, both for AAA games and for smaller companies' titles. For example, just recently I saw that Final Fantasy now offers a very open Trial client, but when I looked for it 2 years ago or so, they had nothing of the sort.
If a game does not let me test how it feels to connect with the community ingame, I won't pay for it, period. Publishers who do not understand that deserve to struggle until they learn their error.
The thing most endgame centered PvP games falls on though is not the endgame but the path there. Far too many of the sandboxy PvP games suck before the endgame just as many PvE themeparks suck so much after it.
That is why Archeage tried PvE gameplay until you reach it and PvP after, that didn't work out as great as they hoped but A for trying, at least they gave it some thought.
I don't think it is the right way of solving the problem but just identifying it is more then many devs ever do.
How can you make both PvE and PvP fun both in the early game and in the endgame? A really good solution to that question is worth a lot of money.