I don't know,maybe a few talented people working out of their basement, with out any management and no marketing before they start. That comes wayyy later IF THEY HAVE A GOOD GAME.
None of the bull crap like Pantheon, where they take peoples money and if they have enough they may start working or maybe not !
I think for it to work, it needs first and foremost a... NEW IDEA. Minecraft was/is a low budget successful idea. It is not an mmorpg though.
It implies that somebody has to come with a concept that mutates mmorpg in a new breed that will still satisfy the original players.
I think it is entirely possible since the WOW-model already generated enough clones, and has so many flaws. Improving on those should be enough to bring something new and interesting.
You usually don't start a business with international footprints buying buildings in many varied countries. Usually, you start in one building and grow from there
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse. - FARGIN_WAR
Requires a person to be good at too many different things. And exceptional at a specific thing.
Would be nice, though.
I would defiantly agree. There are way to many hats to wear in making a MMO as compared to a SP or MP due to networking, database and server coding. A MMO is a whole different beast. BUT, A small group of skilled people can do it at a small scale to get the concept to working model and then expand it if the project generates any interest.
edit: I also would say that most of the smaller MMO's seem to be ignored because of 'crappy' graphics or content, lack of advertisement or just a copy of existing design.
You usually don't start a business with international footprints buying buildings in many varied countries. Usually, you start in one building and grow from there
Problem is that to many developers put the cart before the horse and do not design and build their testbed first.
Seriously this is a good history lesson on how things work.
BUT still I'm mainly focusing on a miracle programmer that is a genius type with a passion to develop an mmorpg. Someone who doesn't care about marketing his project yet.... I'm sure their out their.
Infact I worked on US Army satellites and know many software people that surpass major engineers and make fools out of them. Using my older wisdom of being electronics/mechanics all my life I'm seen this MANY TIMES.
I've come to the solid conclusion, that just because a person decides to seek out a degree their automatically a genius... It's more self proclaimed !
MY point being: - I gave up on AAA - I gave up on mid-tier - I gave up on indie
THEIR ALL FAILING US because their driven on money. Many start by building an infrastructure of overhead management this "includes indie".
I say screw management, that could come later.
Build an mmorpg worth playing first !!!...... back up and look objectively and ask yourself is my game good. Have friends come over and see how they feel, if all is well call Steam. Then make some money.
Yes I'm looking for a miracle, screw indie too, their sellouts only smaller.
Some day this will happen.... Why?.....because their is an open market waiting to be filled and that's mmorpg's
I was a software engineer and have also met some seriously talented people too, guys that were able to do by themselves over the weekend what would take a huge team months to achieve.
That said, building an MMORPG - especially the type of mmorpg that you usually ask for - is simply too big for one person, or a couple of people, even if they are genuises.
I am willing to believe that a single talented programmer would be capable of writing the main gameplay. combat systems, quest systems, crafting systems and all the other stuff that you want in your game.
BUT
At some point, you have to get down to the artwork. No matter how talented you are, creating all of the artwork and the 3D models takes an extraordinary amount of time for the type of game you want. We know from most studios that the majority of dev money goes on graphics, because it is such a labour intensive process. Also, graphics sell, thats a hard-proven fact, so if your genius isn't willing to put in the time, his game will never sell well, never get the numbers required to make it more than a little experiment.....which is where is enters the lifecycle i described before, with those ideas being taken up by the mid-tier studios and eventually the large studios.
Seriously this is a good history lesson on how things work.
BUT still I'm mainly focusing on a miracle programmer that is a genius type with a passion to develop an mmorpg. Someone who doesn't care about marketing his project yet.... I'm sure their out their.
Infact I worked on US Army satellites and know many software people that surpass major engineers and make fools out of them. Using my older wisdom of being electronics/mechanics all my life I'm seen this MANY TIMES.
I've come to the solid conclusion, that just because a person decides to seek out a degree their automatically a genius... It's more self proclaimed !
MY point being: - I gave up on AAA - I gave up on mid-tier - I gave up on indie
THEIR ALL FAILING US because their driven on money. Many start by building an infrastructure of overhead management this "includes indie".
I say screw management, that could come later.
Build an mmorpg worth playing first !!!...... back up and look objectively and ask yourself is my game good. Have friends come over and see how they feel, if all is well call Steam. Then make some money.
Yes I'm looking for a miracle, screw indie too, their sellouts only smaller.
Some day this will happen.... Why?.....because their is an open market waiting to be filled and that's mmorpg's
I was a software engineer and have also met some seriously talented people too, guys that were able to do by themselves over the weekend what would take a huge team months to achieve.
That said, building an MMORPG - especially the type of mmorpg that you usually ask for - is simply too big for one person, or a couple of people, even if they are genuises.
I am willing to believe that a single talented programmer would be capable of writing the main gameplay. combat systems, quest systems, crafting systems and all the other stuff that you want in your game.
BUT
At some point, you have to get down to the artwork. No matter how talented you are, creating all of the artwork and the 3D models takes an extraordinary amount of time for the type of game you want. We know from most studios that the majority of dev money goes on graphics, because it is such a labour intensive process. Also, graphics sell, thats a hard-proven fact, so if your genius isn't willing to put in the time, his game will never sell well, never get the numbers required to make it more than a little experiment.....which is where is enters the lifecycle i described before, with those ideas being taken up by the mid-tier studios and eventually the large studios.
With things like the Unity Asset store even the art isn't all that time consuming any more. Program the game play systems, optimize when and where needed, buy the assets you NEED from the asset store, get the game playable and launchable. Launch the game and get people playing, then monetize. As you get the money coming in start adding custom 3d assets to the game and replace existing store bought assets with custom ones.
Problem is people are under the false impression that just simply using ANYTHING at all from the Unity Asset store or other asset stores makes it an asset flip regardless of how much work you put into it else where. If people would get over that and just enjoy it for what it is then far more games would have a shot.
Seriously this is a good history lesson on how things work.
BUT still I'm mainly focusing on a miracle programmer that is a genius type with a passion to develop an mmorpg. Someone who doesn't care about marketing his project yet.... I'm sure their out their.
Infact I worked on US Army satellites and know many software people that surpass major engineers and make fools out of them. Using my older wisdom of being electronics/mechanics all my life I'm seen this MANY TIMES.
I've come to the solid conclusion, that just because a person decides to seek out a degree their automatically a genius... It's more self proclaimed !
MY point being: - I gave up on AAA - I gave up on mid-tier - I gave up on indie
THEIR ALL FAILING US because their driven on money. Many start by building an infrastructure of overhead management this "includes indie".
I say screw management, that could come later.
Build an mmorpg worth playing first !!!...... back up and look objectively and ask yourself is my game good. Have friends come over and see how they feel, if all is well call Steam. Then make some money.
Yes I'm looking for a miracle, screw indie too, their sellouts only smaller.
Some day this will happen.... Why?.....because their is an open market waiting to be filled and that's mmorpg's
I was a software engineer and have also met some seriously talented people too, guys that were able to do by themselves over the weekend what would take a huge team months to achieve.
That said, building an MMORPG - especially the type of mmorpg that you usually ask for - is simply too big for one person, or a couple of people, even if they are genuises.
I am willing to believe that a single talented programmer would be capable of writing the main gameplay. combat systems, quest systems, crafting systems and all the other stuff that you want in your game.
BUT
At some point, you have to get down to the artwork. No matter how talented you are, creating all of the artwork and the 3D models takes an extraordinary amount of time for the type of game you want. We know from most studios that the majority of dev money goes on graphics, because it is such a labour intensive process. Also, graphics sell, thats a hard-proven fact, so if your genius isn't willing to put in the time, his game will never sell well, never get the numbers required to make it more than a little experiment.....which is where is enters the lifecycle i described before, with those ideas being taken up by the mid-tier studios and eventually the large studios.
With things like the Unity Asset store even the art isn't all that time consuming any more. Program the game play systems, optimize when and where needed, buy the assets you NEED from the asset store, get the game playable and launchable. Launch the game and get people playing, then monetize. As you get the money coming in start adding custom 3d assets to the game and replace existing store bought assets with custom ones.
Problem is people are under the false impression that just simply using ANYTHING at all from the Unity Asset store or other asset stores makes it an asset flip regardless of how much work you put into it else where. If people would get over that and just enjoy it for what it is then far more games would have a shot.
I'm not knocking Unity as an engine James but the MMO concept of it is going to be a major stumbling block as you'll be stuck with many obstacles to get more than a couple hundred players in a server without source code. If you got the source code great!
I do agree that unity store assets opens the doors to non-artist. I just don't see these engines being MMO capable without a major overhaul in the source.
Seriously this is a good history lesson on how things work.
BUT still I'm mainly focusing on a miracle programmer that is a genius type with a passion to develop an mmorpg. Someone who doesn't care about marketing his project yet.... I'm sure their out their.
Infact I worked on US Army satellites and know many software people that surpass major engineers and make fools out of them. Using my older wisdom of being electronics/mechanics all my life I'm seen this MANY TIMES.
I've come to the solid conclusion, that just because a person decides to seek out a degree their automatically a genius... It's more self proclaimed !
MY point being: - I gave up on AAA - I gave up on mid-tier - I gave up on indie
THEIR ALL FAILING US because their driven on money. Many start by building an infrastructure of overhead management this "includes indie".
I say screw management, that could come later.
Build an mmorpg worth playing first !!!...... back up and look objectively and ask yourself is my game good. Have friends come over and see how they feel, if all is well call Steam. Then make some money.
Yes I'm looking for a miracle, screw indie too, their sellouts only smaller.
Some day this will happen.... Why?.....because their is an open market waiting to be filled and that's mmorpg's
I was a software engineer and have also met some seriously talented people too, guys that were able to do by themselves over the weekend what would take a huge team months to achieve.
That said, building an MMORPG - especially the type of mmorpg that you usually ask for - is simply too big for one person, or a couple of people, even if they are genuises.
I am willing to believe that a single talented programmer would be capable of writing the main gameplay. combat systems, quest systems, crafting systems and all the other stuff that you want in your game.
BUT
At some point, you have to get down to the artwork. No matter how talented you are, creating all of the artwork and the 3D models takes an extraordinary amount of time for the type of game you want. We know from most studios that the majority of dev money goes on graphics, because it is such a labour intensive process. Also, graphics sell, thats a hard-proven fact, so if your genius isn't willing to put in the time, his game will never sell well, never get the numbers required to make it more than a little experiment.....which is where is enters the lifecycle i described before, with those ideas being taken up by the mid-tier studios and eventually the large studios.
You understand programming and game development more so than I.
But seems they all start with a huge management budget before they think about building a game. Too many fingers in the cookie jar.
With things like the Unity Asset store even the art isn't all that time consuming any more. Program the game play systems, optimize when and where needed, buy the assets you NEED from the asset store, get the game playable and launchable. Launch the game and get people playing, then monetize. As you get the money coming in start adding custom 3d assets to the game and replace existing store bought assets with custom ones.
Problem is people are under the false impression that just simply using ANYTHING at all from the Unity Asset store or other asset stores makes it an asset flip regardless of how much work you put into it else where. If people would get over that and just enjoy it for what it is then far more games would have a shot.
I'm not knocking Unity as an engine James but the MMO concept of it is going to be a major stumbling block as you'll be stuck with many obstacles to get more than a couple hundred players in a server without source code. If you got the source code great!
I do agree that unity store assets opens the doors to non-artist. I just don't see these engines being MMO capable without a major overhaul in the source.
You might not want to knock Unity as a game engine, but I will. Every single Unity engine game I've ever played had a rather nasty case of Badly Coded Syndrome. A lot of what was broken seemed like things that should have been and probably were handled by the engine directly rather than custom programming. I haven't tried to use the engine myself, but at this point, if a game is being made using Unity, I assume that playing it will constantly feel like the game was created by people who are terrible at programming.
Seriously this is a good history lesson on how things work.
BUT still I'm mainly focusing on a miracle programmer that is a genius type with a passion to develop an mmorpg. Someone who doesn't care about marketing his project yet.... I'm sure their out their.
Infact I worked on US Army satellites and know many software people that surpass major engineers and make fools out of them. Using my older wisdom of being electronics/mechanics all my life I'm seen this MANY TIMES.
I've come to the solid conclusion, that just because a person decides to seek out a degree their automatically a genius... It's more self proclaimed !
MY point being: - I gave up on AAA - I gave up on mid-tier - I gave up on indie
THEIR ALL FAILING US because their driven on money. Many start by building an infrastructure of overhead management this "includes indie".
I say screw management, that could come later.
Build an mmorpg worth playing first !!!...... back up and look objectively and ask yourself is my game good. Have friends come over and see how they feel, if all is well call Steam. Then make some money.
Yes I'm looking for a miracle, screw indie too, their sellouts only smaller.
Some day this will happen.... Why?.....because their is an open market waiting to be filled and that's mmorpg's
I was a software engineer and have also met some seriously talented people too, guys that were able to do by themselves over the weekend what would take a huge team months to achieve.
That said, building an MMORPG - especially the type of mmorpg that you usually ask for - is simply too big for one person, or a couple of people, even if they are genuises.
I am willing to believe that a single talented programmer would be capable of writing the main gameplay. combat systems, quest systems, crafting systems and all the other stuff that you want in your game.
BUT
At some point, you have to get down to the artwork. No matter how talented you are, creating all of the artwork and the 3D models takes an extraordinary amount of time for the type of game you want. We know from most studios that the majority of dev money goes on graphics, because it is such a labour intensive process. Also, graphics sell, thats a hard-proven fact, so if your genius isn't willing to put in the time, his game will never sell well, never get the numbers required to make it more than a little experiment.....which is where is enters the lifecycle i described before, with those ideas being taken up by the mid-tier studios and eventually the large studios.
With things like the Unity Asset store even the art isn't all that time consuming any more. Program the game play systems, optimize when and where needed, buy the assets you NEED from the asset store, get the game playable and launchable. Launch the game and get people playing, then monetize. As you get the money coming in start adding custom 3d assets to the game and replace existing store bought assets with custom ones.
Problem is people are under the false impression that just simply using ANYTHING at all from the Unity Asset store or other asset stores makes it an asset flip regardless of how much work you put into it else where. If people would get over that and just enjoy it for what it is then far more games would have a shot.
I'm not knocking Unity as an engine James but the MMO concept of it is going to be a major stumbling block as you'll be stuck with many obstacles to get more than a couple hundred players in a server without source code. If you got the source code great!
I do agree that unity store assets opens the doors to non-artist. I just don't see these engines being MMO capable without a major overhaul in the source.
With the new way of doing things in Unity there have been projects that have gotten 1 player and 10,000 simulated monsters all running at over a steady 100 FPS. With Mirror and the old way of doing things in Unity you can easily get 500 players all with in close enough proximity to each other so you are sending update information for every player to every other player. So having 500 players in a zone spread out over a large zone should be no issue at all. 4+ zones would give you the capacity of any other MMO on the market. Albion Online is a commercially released MMORPG with thousands of players made in Unity with the Photon Server engine...
With things like the Unity Asset store even the art isn't all that time consuming any more. Program the game play systems, optimize when and where needed, buy the assets you NEED from the asset store, get the game playable and launchable. Launch the game and get people playing, then monetize. As you get the money coming in start adding custom 3d assets to the game and replace existing store bought assets with custom ones.
Problem is people are under the false impression that just simply using ANYTHING at all from the Unity Asset store or other asset stores makes it an asset flip regardless of how much work you put into it else where. If people would get over that and just enjoy it for what it is then far more games would have a shot.
I'm not knocking Unity as an engine James but the MMO concept of it is going to be a major stumbling block as you'll be stuck with many obstacles to get more than a couple hundred players in a server without source code. If you got the source code great!
I do agree that unity store assets opens the doors to non-artist. I just don't see these engines being MMO capable without a major overhaul in the source.
You might not want to knock Unity as a game engine, but I will. Every single Unity engine game I've ever played had a rather nasty case of Badly Coded Syndrome. A lot of what was broken seemed like things that should have been and probably were handled by the engine directly rather than custom programming. I haven't tried to use the engine myself, but at this point, if a game is being made using Unity, I assume that playing it will constantly feel like the game was created by people who are terrible at programming.
I don't like to knock it but yeah, it has some issues.
The biggest issue with any of these engines is they are not developed for MMO capabilities as a primary design to begin with. Then you throw in a add on for MMO they still will need to use MP features on the server side which has limits (usually 64 to 100 CCU) and security flaws (code running on the client that should only exist on the server). Cry, Unreal, Unity and even Lumberyard are over bloated with code to make it easy for unskilled people to drag and drop assets, write minimal code with connect the dots. Not knocking them because a lot of really decent SP games get made that way.
With things like the Unity Asset store even the art isn't all that time consuming any more. Program the game play systems, optimize when and where needed, buy the assets you NEED from the asset store, get the game playable and launchable. Launch the game and get people playing, then monetize. As you get the money coming in start adding custom 3d assets to the game and replace existing store bought assets with custom ones.
Problem is people are under the false impression that just simply using ANYTHING at all from the Unity Asset store or other asset stores makes it an asset flip regardless of how much work you put into it else where. If people would get over that and just enjoy it for what it is then far more games would have a shot.
I'm not knocking Unity as an engine James but the MMO concept of it is going to be a major stumbling block as you'll be stuck with many obstacles to get more than a couple hundred players in a server without source code. If you got the source code great!
I do agree that unity store assets opens the doors to non-artist. I just don't see these engines being MMO capable without a major overhaul in the source.
You might not want to knock Unity as a game engine, but I will. Every single Unity engine game I've ever played had a rather nasty case of Badly Coded Syndrome. A lot of what was broken seemed like things that should have been and probably were handled by the engine directly rather than custom programming. I haven't tried to use the engine myself, but at this point, if a game is being made using Unity, I assume that playing it will constantly feel like the game was created by people who are terrible at programming.
I don't like to knock it but yeah, it has some issues.
The biggest issue with any of these engines is they are not developed for MMO capabilities as a primary design to begin with. Then you throw in a add on for MMO they still will need to use MP features on the server side which has limits (usually 64 to 100 CCU) and security flaws (code running on the client that should only exist on the server). Cry, Unreal, Unity and even Lumberyard are over bloated with code to make it easy for unskilled people to drag and drop assets, write minimal code with connect the dots. Not knocking them because a lot of really decent SP games get made that way.
I'm not talking specifically about MMOs.
For example, why is it that Unity engine games only give you two choices for the game window size: fullscreen or a window that is the same size as full screen? Some will let you click and drag to resize the window later, but many won't. At least one that did accidentally removed that option in a subsequent patch.
Is it because most game developers are idiots who think that they should offer to make the game windowed, but don't realize that the reason why someone might want that is because they don't want it to completely cover all available monitor space? Or is it the sort of junk that a garbage engine imposes on them unless they go far out of their way to fix it? The former seems awfully unlikely, since games made with other engines rarely have the same problem.
I don't like to knock it but yeah, it has some issues.
The biggest issue with any of these engines is they are not developed for MMO capabilities as a primary design to begin with. Then you throw in a add on for MMO they still will need to use MP features on the server side which has limits (usually 64 to 100 CCU) and security flaws (code running on the client that should only exist on the server). Cry, Unreal, Unity and even Lumberyard are over bloated with code to make it easy for unskilled people to drag and drop assets, write minimal code with connect the dots. Not knocking them because a lot of really decent SP games get made that way.
I'm not talking specifically about MMOs.
For example, why is it that Unity engine games only give you two choices for the game window size: fullscreen or a window that is the same size as full screen? Some will let you click and drag to resize the window later, but many won't. At least one that did accidentally removed that option in a subsequent patch.
Is it because most game developers are idiots who think that they should offer to make the game windowed, but don't realize that the reason why someone might want that is because they don't want it to completely cover all available monitor space? Or is it the sort of junk that a garbage engine imposes on them unless they go far out of their way to fix it? The former seems awfully unlikely, since games made with other engines rarely have the same problem.
Maybe they expect the developer to write some configuration code? Somethings are left to the user.
You are correct. Saying MMORPGs are too big for a low budget nobody to create is just as nonsensical as saying they can't produce any games.
Do these people compare super meat boy to cyberpunk 2077 when saying "Nobodies can't make great single player games" ?
Yes, the technical challenges between single and multiplayer makes it harder to create, but not impossible especially with the tools available today. The biggest problem indies, and more specifically the "nobodies" you're referring to have is no different than AAA studios... scope. If you set out to build Cyberpunk 2077 without a budget or a team you're never going to release it. Same if you set out to create World of Warcraft.
I, personally, have more experience than most in developing and publishing online games. I can not say that there are not others here with similar/better experience... but I can say that my experience is better than the average bear.
The problem with MMORPG's specifically is Hype. I know that this sounds a bit odd, but let me explain.
These are long term projects that take time an money. In the past (for Indy's) this was primarily done with a small team using their own resources. They would put together a proof of concept, and then hope for the best. In the early days this was not hugely expensive, and if it flopped, the developer went looking for another job (i.e. they didn't lose their house, etc) usually doing gruntwork for another company.
Since the first early hits the competition has driven up the expected quality of the beginning product. This made it harder for people to have the time/resources to do this on their own. In came the corporate CEO. As anyone who has worked with CEO's and capitol investors knows... CEO's are just fancy used car salesmen. They sell dreams and promises.... by generating Hype. This is where things changed. Marketing the product become the company's primary focus, rather than making it. Chris Roberts is a great example of a Modern Gaming CEO. The only thing really different about him is that he has sold to the gamers rather to the stockholders/investors.
Once the focus of gaming companies became about the Hype rather than the product, both the design of, and methods used to build the product had to change. It is now in the interest of the companies to make the process expensive (i.e. they get paid to make it) as well as difficult (they are the experts). Developing and/or Publishing these games is how these companies make money. They lock out competition by making it too expensive/difficult to compete, and push an industry standard that is basically all about marketing/hype rather than actual product.
The reality is that good games dont really need to be that interesting, good looking, or innovative. The best example of a 'good' game I can give is Flappy Bird. By all standards it was a terrible game... but due to freak coincidence it was able to get in front of the masses, and was actually a huge hit. I know that this isnt a MMORPG, so let me give a more complicated example:
Path of Exile. This game was originally built by one developer, with several additional contractors who helped on and off. I remember when they were finally able to bring on more full time staff. It was a really big thing. They were also able to use crowdfunding (~200k in a week?) to move them forward. After this they were able to raise some funds (and they took some big risks) to get the game out and continue to raise funds via crowdsourcing. They happened to hit a good time for being able to crowdsource, and in doing so were able to avoid having to take in investors who would have changed the company focus from making games, to bringing in money.
This brings me back to the problem: Hype. Gaming companies are now salesmen. They sell both to consumers, as well as to investors. They are only as good as their Hype, and the products dont really matter. A good salesman can sell anything.
I, personally, have more experience than most in developing and publishing online games. I can not say that there are not others here with similar/better experience... but I can say that my experience is better than the average bear.
The problem with MMORPG's specifically is Hype. I know that this sounds a bit odd, but let me explain.
These are long term projects that take time an money. In the past (for Indy's) this was primarily done with a small team using their own resources. They would put together a proof of concept, and then hope for the best. In the early days this was not hugely expensive, and if it flopped, the developer went looking for another job (i.e. they didn't lose their house, etc) usually doing gruntwork for another company.
Since the first early hits the competition has driven up the expected quality of the beginning product. This made it harder for people to have the time/resources to do this on their own. In came the corporate CEO. As anyone who has worked with CEO's and capitol investors knows... CEO's are just fancy used car salesmen. They sell dreams and promises.... by generating Hype. This is where things changed. Marketing the product become the company's primary focus, rather than making it. Chris Roberts is a great example of a Modern Gaming CEO. The only thing really different about him is that he has sold to the gamers rather to the stockholders/investors.
Once the focus of gaming companies became about the Hype rather than the product, both the design of, and methods used to build the product had to change. It is now in the interest of the companies to make the process expensive (i.e. they get paid to make it) as well as difficult (they are the experts). Developing and/or Publishing these games is how these companies make money. They lock out competition by making it too expensive/difficult to compete, and push an industry standard that is basically all about marketing/hype rather than actual product.
The reality is that good games dont really need to be that interesting, good looking, or innovative. The best example of a 'good' game I can give is Flappy Bird. By all standards it was a terrible game... but due to freak coincidence it was able to get in front of the masses, and was actually a huge hit. I know that this isnt a MMORPG, so let me give a more complicated example:
Path of Exile. This game was originally built by one developer, with several additional contractors who helped on and off. I remember when they were finally able to bring on more full time staff. It was a really big thing. They were also able to use crowdfunding (~200k in a week?) to move them forward. After this they were able to raise some funds (and they took some big risks) to get the game out and continue to raise funds via crowdsourcing. They happened to hit a good time for being able to crowdsource, and in doing so were able to avoid having to take in investors who would have changed the company focus from making games, to bringing in money.
This brings me back to the problem: Hype. Gaming companies are now salesmen. They sell both to consumers, as well as to investors. They are only as good as their Hype, and the products dont really matter. A good salesman can sell anything.
Your opening premise claiming authority by your personal experience as an industry insider borders on the fringe of a false logic fallacy.
Perhaps if you were a C - level exec of a major game studio you could rightfully claim to know what motivates the actions of those at the top, but I'm guessing you aren't in the rarified air.
I've worked for a major financial institution at a VP level for over 17 years but I couldn't begin to say I have any real idea on how and why certain decisions are made since I'm no where near the top.
So in my many years as a MMORPG gamer my observation is such games are often challengeing to make and require copious amounts of funding to really be innovative and have a decent chance of success.
In order to recover their larger costs marketing them properly to a large target market is of major importance and rightfully at the forefront of executive concerns.
So yes, there will be hype with any major game project and I believe a necessary evil really for most larger projects.
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, personally, have more experience than most in developing and publishing online games. I can not say that there are not others here with similar/better experience... but I can say that my experience is better than the average bear.
The problem with MMORPG's specifically is Hype. I know that this sounds a bit odd, but let me explain.
These are long term projects that take time an money. In the past (for Indy's) this was primarily done with a small team using their own resources. They would put together a proof of concept, and then hope for the best. In the early days this was not hugely expensive, and if it flopped, the developer went looking for another job (i.e. they didn't lose their house, etc) usually doing gruntwork for another company.
Since the first early hits the competition has driven up the expected quality of the beginning product. This made it harder for people to have the time/resources to do this on their own. In came the corporate CEO. As anyone who has worked with CEO's and capitol investors knows... CEO's are just fancy used car salesmen. They sell dreams and promises.... by generating Hype. This is where things changed. Marketing the product become the company's primary focus, rather than making it. Chris Roberts is a great example of a Modern Gaming CEO. The only thing really different about him is that he has sold to the gamers rather to the stockholders/investors.
Once the focus of gaming companies became about the Hype rather than the product, both the design of, and methods used to build the product had to change. It is now in the interest of the companies to make the process expensive (i.e. they get paid to make it) as well as difficult (they are the experts). Developing and/or Publishing these games is how these companies make money. They lock out competition by making it too expensive/difficult to compete, and push an industry standard that is basically all about marketing/hype rather than actual product.
The reality is that good games dont really need to be that interesting, good looking, or innovative. The best example of a 'good' game I can give is Flappy Bird. By all standards it was a terrible game... but due to freak coincidence it was able to get in front of the masses, and was actually a huge hit. I know that this isnt a MMORPG, so let me give a more complicated example:
Path of Exile. This game was originally built by one developer, with several additional contractors who helped on and off. I remember when they were finally able to bring on more full time staff. It was a really big thing. They were also able to use crowdfunding (~200k in a week?) to move them forward. After this they were able to raise some funds (and they took some big risks) to get the game out and continue to raise funds via crowdsourcing. They happened to hit a good time for being able to crowdsource, and in doing so were able to avoid having to take in investors who would have changed the company focus from making games, to bringing in money.
This brings me back to the problem: Hype. Gaming companies are now salesmen. They sell both to consumers, as well as to investors. They are only as good as their Hype, and the products dont really matter. A good salesman can sell anything.
Your opening premise claiming authority by your personal experience as an industry insider borders on the fringe of a false logic fallacy.
Perhaps if you were a C - level exec of a major game studio you could rightfully claim to know what motivates the actions of those at the top, but I'm guessing you aren't in the rarified air.
I've worked for a major financial institution at a VP level for over 17 years but I couldn't begin to say I have any real idea on how and why certain decisions are made since I'm no where near the top.
So in my many years as a MMORPG gamer my observation is such games are often challengeing to make and require copious amounts of funding to really be innovative and have a decent chance of success.
In order to recover their larger costs marketing them properly to a large target market is of major importance and rightfully at the forefront of executive concerns.
So yes, there will be hype with any major game project and I believe a necessary evil really for most larger projects.
I'm not a high level manager, But I will say 1,2,or 5 friends get together and begin building a game for fun because their nards with a passion. Outcast that get chased home from school because they have Walmart brand button down shirts and coke bottle glasses. Strang personalities that crack jokes that no one gets, because their really focused on programming and nothing else matters to them.
They have meetings now and then, but they don't even call it a meeting to talk about how they can swindle money and 3rd generation software for free because their against the establishment.
At one point one of them called Blizzard Entertainment and couldn't talk to anyone other than costumer service and were LOCKED OUT FROM TALKING TO ANYONE IMPORTANT..... The others got mad at him for even trying.
A few years go by....... They have a fun little mmorpg that's close to being done that's surprisingly fun and immersive.
WITH A GAME BEING DONE (notice I used all caps) they say "we need to make some money man". So they call Steam because their the only ones that will take them seriously.
Key points: - They have a GAME FIRST. - They don't care about a management that want 80% or more in return. - Management are Ass Holes !!!! - They are nobody's
Refer to: Elton John movie Rocketman. He was a nobody, but he held all the cards because he was good !!!!
Enough time on the computer.... Time to feed the chickens, the sun will be coming up.
Comments
None of the bull crap like Pantheon, where they take peoples money and if they have enough they may start working or maybe not !
Like I say no managers, their ass holes.
Requires a person to be good at too many different things. And exceptional at a specific thing.
Would be nice, though.
If you are holding out for the perfect game, the only game you play will be the waiting one.
You usually don't start a business with international footprints buying buildings in many varied countries. Usually, you start in one building and grow from there
- Al
Personally the only modern MMORPG trend that annoys me is the idea that MMOs need to be designed in a way to attract people who don't actually like MMOs. Which to me makes about as much sense as someone trying to figure out a way to get vegetarians to eat at their steakhouse.- FARGIN_WAR
edit: I also would say that most of the smaller MMO's seem to be ignored because of 'crappy' graphics or content, lack of advertisement or just a copy of existing design.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Problem is people are under the false impression that just simply using ANYTHING at all from the Unity Asset store or other asset stores makes it an asset flip regardless of how much work you put into it else where. If people would get over that and just enjoy it for what it is then far more games would have a shot.
Company Owner
MMO Interactive
I do agree that unity store assets opens the doors to non-artist. I just don't see these engines being MMO capable without a major overhaul in the source.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
But seems they all start with a huge management budget before they think about building a game. Too many fingers in the cookie jar.
Build the game first, at least start.
It can be done and has been done.
Company Owner
MMO Interactive
The biggest issue with any of these engines is they are not developed for MMO capabilities as a primary design to begin with. Then you throw in a add on for MMO they still will need to use MP features on the server side which has limits (usually 64 to 100 CCU) and security flaws (code running on the client that should only exist on the server). Cry, Unreal, Unity and even Lumberyard are over bloated with code to make it easy for unskilled people to drag and drop assets, write minimal code with connect the dots. Not knocking them because a lot of really decent SP games get made that way.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
For example, why is it that Unity engine games only give you two choices for the game window size: fullscreen or a window that is the same size as full screen? Some will let you click and drag to resize the window later, but many won't. At least one that did accidentally removed that option in a subsequent patch.
Is it because most game developers are idiots who think that they should offer to make the game windowed, but don't realize that the reason why someone might want that is because they don't want it to completely cover all available monitor space? Or is it the sort of junk that a garbage engine imposes on them unless they go far out of their way to fix it? The former seems awfully unlikely, since games made with other engines rarely have the same problem.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
Do these people compare super meat boy to cyberpunk 2077 when saying "Nobodies can't make great single player games" ?
Yes, the technical challenges between single and multiplayer makes it harder to create, but not impossible especially with the tools available today. The biggest problem indies, and more specifically the "nobodies" you're referring to have is no different than AAA studios... scope. If you set out to build Cyberpunk 2077 without a budget or a team you're never going to release it. Same if you set out to create World of Warcraft.
The problem with MMORPG's specifically is Hype. I know that this sounds a bit odd, but let me explain.
These are long term projects that take time an money. In the past (for Indy's) this was primarily done with a small team using their own resources. They would put together a proof of concept, and then hope for the best. In the early days this was not hugely expensive, and if it flopped, the developer went looking for another job (i.e. they didn't lose their house, etc) usually doing gruntwork for another company.
Since the first early hits the competition has driven up the expected quality of the beginning product. This made it harder for people to have the time/resources to do this on their own. In came the corporate CEO. As anyone who has worked with CEO's and capitol investors knows... CEO's are just fancy used car salesmen. They sell dreams and promises.... by generating Hype. This is where things changed. Marketing the product become the company's primary focus, rather than making it. Chris Roberts is a great example of a Modern Gaming CEO. The only thing really different about him is that he has sold to the gamers rather to the stockholders/investors.
Once the focus of gaming companies became about the Hype rather than the product, both the design of, and methods used to build the product had to change. It is now in the interest of the companies to make the process expensive (i.e. they get paid to make it) as well as difficult (they are the experts). Developing and/or Publishing these games is how these companies make money. They lock out competition by making it too expensive/difficult to compete, and push an industry standard that is basically all about marketing/hype rather than actual product.
The reality is that good games dont really need to be that interesting, good looking, or innovative. The best example of a 'good' game I can give is Flappy Bird. By all standards it was a terrible game... but due to freak coincidence it was able to get in front of the masses, and was actually a huge hit. I know that this isnt a MMORPG, so let me give a more complicated example:
Path of Exile. This game was originally built by one developer, with several additional contractors who helped on and off. I remember when they were finally able to bring on more full time staff. It was a really big thing. They were also able to use crowdfunding (~200k in a week?) to move them forward. After this they were able to raise some funds (and they took some big risks) to get the game out and continue to raise funds via crowdsourcing. They happened to hit a good time for being able to crowdsource, and in doing so were able to avoid having to take in investors who would have changed the company focus from making games, to bringing in money.
This brings me back to the problem: Hype. Gaming companies are now salesmen. They sell both to consumers, as well as to investors. They are only as good as their Hype, and the products dont really matter. A good salesman can sell anything.
Perhaps if you were a C - level exec of a major game studio you could rightfully claim to know what motivates the actions of those at the top, but I'm guessing you aren't in the rarified air.
I've worked for a major financial institution at a VP level for over 17 years but I couldn't begin to say I have any real idea on how and why certain decisions are made since I'm no where near the top.
So in my many years as a MMORPG gamer my observation is such games are often challengeing to make and require copious amounts of funding to really be innovative and have a decent chance of success.
In order to recover their larger costs marketing them properly to a large target market is of major importance and rightfully at the forefront of executive concerns.
So yes, there will be hype with any major game project and I believe a necessary evil really for most larger projects.
"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
But I will say 1,2,or 5 friends get together and begin building a game for fun because their nards with a passion. Outcast that get chased home from school because they have Walmart brand button down shirts and coke bottle glasses. Strang personalities that crack jokes that no one gets, because their really focused on programming and nothing else matters to them.
They have meetings now and then, but they don't even call it a meeting to talk about how they can swindle money and 3rd generation software for free because their against the establishment.
At one point one of them called Blizzard Entertainment and couldn't talk to anyone other than costumer service and were LOCKED OUT FROM TALKING TO ANYONE IMPORTANT..... The others got mad at him for even trying.
A few years go by....... They have a fun little mmorpg that's close to being done that's surprisingly fun and immersive.
WITH A GAME BEING DONE (notice I used all caps) they say "we need to make some money man". So they call Steam because their the only ones that will take them seriously.
Key points:
- They have a GAME FIRST.
- They don't care about a management that want 80% or more in return.
- Management are Ass Holes !!!!
- They are nobody's
Refer to:
Elton John movie Rocketman. He was a nobody, but he held all the cards because he was good !!!!
Enough time on the computer.... Time to feed the chickens, the sun will be coming up.