right now on steam i have a messenger, voice chat, all my games automatically update as needed and i can easily connect to games with other people on steam or even watch their games.
its only a matter of time before they add server space to this platform. All you'll have to do is "start/restart" if you have the game and space rented. Its just a way to make smaller games persistent without all the hassles for the player.
There is big money in this so it will be done.
So you use the word "rental" as in a person or individual is paying for it.
You would expect Steam or other major company to be a go-between for this RENTAL PERSON and other players, and expect steam to coordinate all these efforts and manage every anomaly involved with it.
Add that every individual game would have it's own non-standard way of providing servers, and steam will tailor their services to cater to each game ?
Again, Who will pay steam for this service ? Will they sign a contract so they don't back out of this service.
Their are a million holes in this idea.... AND FOR WHAT ?.... How does this benefit anyone ?
It literally benefits everyone.
steam gets more money players can access streamlined services developers can focus on their games and content rather than hardware issues More small developers will be able to access mmo space. Maybe not 1000's of players but maybe 100's. players get more worlds on offer rather than a game every 10 years. Smaller worlds dont have to suffer scalability of feature problems.
Like others have said, its happening now, so its only a matter of time before its integrated to one of these platforms.
How much would the person be able to mod the games?
I'm not sure where the topic is heading. I presume it can go from a click of a few button to set server rule to full game editor which let people to change everything.
Rungar has been coming up with various interesting ideas, so he did not get this of Koster. I did smile when I saw Delete say that, as his own thread fire from the hip, but I more or less agree with Delete on this, downside of rental is too heavy regardless of any benefits.
Hard to remember now but nearly 20 years ago I was playing multiplayer on a hardly legal GTA server before GTA had multiplayer. Those guys could get over 50 people playing together, I am not sure things need to be that small these days.
Taking a look at the played time on my steam games over the last 7+ years shows that I've already made the switch to private server games. Rust, Ark, Atlas, 7 Days 2 Die, Valheim, Conan Exiles in order of most to least hours played.. with Rust up near 3k hrs. I prefer the freedom of choosing between tons of different types of servers as opposed to 1 static ruleset.
And the smaller player base on each server is a huge bonus to me, frankly most gamers these days quickly out themselves as absolutely useless scumbags in game so I prefer to not associate with many of them.
There will of course always be an audience for the larger scale games like WoW, ESO etc.., but the days of new games like that being developed are just about over.
Rungar has been coming up with various interesting ideas, so he did not get this of Koster. I did smile when I saw Delete say that, as his own thread fire from the hip, but I more or less agree with Delete on this, downside of rental is too heavy regardless of any benefits.
Hard to remember now but nearly 20 years ago I was playing multiplayer on a hardly legal GTA server before GTA had multiplayer. Those guys could get over 50 people playing together, I am not sure things need to be that small these days.
What are these heavy downsides and why? I haven't seen a good argument yet or a list of reasons why this isn't realistic.
First, we already have a mature ecosystem of hosting providers and self-run servers for medium concurrency games like ARK, Conan, 7 Days, and many other MMOs (medium multiplayer online) games. We have both hosts and users experienced with running server side technology.
Next, we have a long history of "pirate" servers running massive concurrency games like Vanilla WoW, EQ, SWG, Lineage, and many others. With hosting providers and large publishers providing infrastructure this should be even more approachable to those already comfortable running survival types.
Microsoft already provides easy out of the box Minecraft multiplayer servers in addition to generic hosting providers. Guilds like The Old Timers and other large clubs we see advertise here periodically could easily afford and run one of these.
My short answer would be: liability. A server service could be entangled in legal actions if a 'pirate' server were to appear on their service and the legal owner decided to take action.
Could do is one thing; should do is another.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Rungar has been coming up with various interesting ideas, so he did not get this of Koster. I did smile when I saw Delete say that, as his own thread fire from the hip, but I more or less agree with Delete on this, downside of rental is too heavy regardless of any benefits.
Hard to remember now but nearly 20 years ago I was playing multiplayer on a hardly legal GTA server before GTA had multiplayer. Those guys could get over 50 people playing together, I am not sure things need to be that small these days.
What are these heavy downsides and why? I haven't seen a good argument yet or a list of reasons why this isn't realistic.
First, we already have a mature ecosystem of hosting providers and self-run servers for medium concurrency games like ARK, Conan, 7 Days, and many other MMOs (medium multiplayer online) games. We have both hosts and users experienced with running server side technology.
Next, we have a long history of "pirate" servers running massive concurrency games like Vanilla WoW, EQ, SWG, Lineage, and many others. With hosting providers and large publishers providing infrastructure this should be even more approachable to those already comfortable running survival types.
Microsoft already provides easy out of the box Minecraft multiplayer servers in addition to generic hosting providers. Guilds like The Old Timers and other large clubs we see advertise here periodically could easily afford and run one of these.
My short answer would be: liability. A server service could be entangled in legal actions if a 'pirate' server were to appear on their service and the legal owner decided to take action.
Could do is one thing; should do is another.
It actually prevents what you say because you have to have the game on that platform to play. How can you rent a server from steam but not own the game or have a steam account?
What I think we'll see is in five years is the "big six" or so MMORPGS will still be the dominant players in their space.
There really isn't many promising games on the near horizon unless one of the many asian games in development becomes a surprise hit.
Possible sure, but unlikely to appeal to me regardless.
I also see myself playing smaller MMO alikes such as FO76 and such but not on private or rental servers, I prefer more stable management and service.
I tend to agree with you, that it will be just a few major players in the MMO landscape, especially given how hard Crowfunded MMO's have tanked.
I don't think it will be the same "Big" Six however. I think there will be some change over, and while I doubt WoW will cease to be a contender, the population of MMO players as a we know them, is not growing, and no doubt, within the next 6 years, given the recent jumps in VR, I wager MMO's will become more more aligned to Virtual Worlds, to attract the net gen of players, no doubt with integrated to phones or other mobile devices, so that players can just, at a glance, check on their in-game situations or progress, as it where.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Rungar has been coming up with various interesting ideas, so he did not get this of Koster. I did smile when I saw Delete say that, as his own thread fire from the hip, but I more or less agree with Delete on this, downside of rental is too heavy regardless of any benefits.
Hard to remember now but nearly 20 years ago I was playing multiplayer on a hardly legal GTA server before GTA had multiplayer. Those guys could get over 50 people playing together, I am not sure things need to be that small these days.
What are these heavy downsides and why? I haven't seen a good argument yet or a list of reasons why this isn't realistic.
First, we already have a mature ecosystem of hosting providers and self-run servers for medium concurrency games like ARK, Conan, 7 Days, and many other MMOs (medium multiplayer online) games. We have both hosts and users experienced with running server side technology.
Next, we have a long history of "pirate" servers running massive concurrency games like Vanilla WoW, EQ, SWG, Lineage, and many others. With hosting providers and large publishers providing infrastructure this should be even more approachable to those already comfortable running survival types.
Microsoft already provides easy out of the box Minecraft multiplayer servers in addition to generic hosting providers. Guilds like The Old Timers and other large clubs we see advertise here periodically could easily afford and run one of these.
My short answer would be: liability. A server service could be entangled in legal actions if a 'pirate' server were to appear on their service and the legal owner decided to take action.
Could do is one thing; should do is another.
How is this any different from current server rentals with survival types? Users don't upload the server side components. They rent access to use the server or cloud service (e.g. G-Portal) provided by the hosting provider. Often there are limited slots for specific games as well.
Generally speaking you can only install what the provider allows to be installed. This is why most legit game services don't allow you to just rent a Linux/Windows server and install anything you want.
Most rentals currently are game specific. The publisher 'sells' the ability to create a 'private' server. Conan Exiles is an example. You can't really operate CE from any server except one that Funcom provides.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Rungar has been coming up with various interesting ideas, so he did not get this of Koster. I did smile when I saw Delete say that, as his own thread fire from the hip, but I more or less agree with Delete on this, downside of rental is too heavy regardless of any benefits.
Hard to remember now but nearly 20 years ago I was playing multiplayer on a hardly legal GTA server before GTA had multiplayer. Those guys could get over 50 people playing together, I am not sure things need to be that small these days.
What are these heavy downsides and why? I haven't seen a good argument yet or a list of reasons why this isn't realistic.
First, we already have a mature ecosystem of hosting providers and self-run servers for medium concurrency games like ARK, Conan, 7 Days, and many other MMOs (medium multiplayer online) games. We have both hosts and users experienced with running server side technology.
Next, we have a long history of "pirate" servers running massive concurrency games like Vanilla WoW, EQ, SWG, Lineage, and many others. With hosting providers and large publishers providing infrastructure this should be even more approachable to those already comfortable running survival types.
Microsoft already provides easy out of the box Minecraft multiplayer servers in addition to generic hosting providers. Guilds like The Old Timers and other large clubs we see advertise here periodically could easily afford and run one of these.
My short answer would be: liability. A server service could be entangled in legal actions if a 'pirate' server were to appear on their service and the legal owner decided to take action.
Could do is one thing; should do is another.
How is this any different from current server rentals with survival types? Users don't upload the server side components. They rent access to use the server or cloud service (e.g. G-Portal) provided by the hosting provider. Often there are limited slots for specific games as well.
Generally speaking you can only install what the provider allows to be installed. This is why most legit game services don't allow you to just rent a Linux/Windows server and install anything you want.
The thing about gportal and other providers is that it is a step too far for many players. Steam or microsoft offering the exact same thing for games in their platform will yield different results especially if its seamless integration.
Ok, I have been reading this, and to be honest, the idea of playing on someone elese modded server, as far as an MMO goes, does not appeal to me directly. In fact, for games that did have hosted servers, I always looked to play on the official servers only.
There are several reasons for this, the main one being that if I am playing a Modded Game, as far as an MMO goes, I don't feel like I am playing a fair game with the other people playing the same game as I am, where everyone has the same rules by which they follow, this means that if the server I am on shuts down, I may or may not be able to move to another server, and all my work and progress gets lost.
I mean this could work for some games, but ideally as far as MMO's go, where the carrot of the game, is progress, the idea of just losing all your time investment if the hosts shuts down the server, is not a gamble I, personally, would take.
Which again, is why I seek to only play on official servers.
I suppose if I was looking to just screw around with some friends, and do some modded stuff, I would get involved, but really, I don't think I could ever get seriously into something that is that unstable.
But that is me, not to say this idea won't happen, just, I have my issues with it.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
Rungar has been coming up with various interesting ideas, so he did not get this of Koster. I did smile when I saw Delete say that, as his own thread fire from the hip, but I more or less agree with Delete on this, downside of rental is too heavy regardless of any benefits.
Hard to remember now but nearly 20 years ago I was playing multiplayer on a hardly legal GTA server before GTA had multiplayer. Those guys could get over 50 people playing together, I am not sure things need to be that small these days.
What are these heavy downsides and why? I haven't seen a good argument yet or a list of reasons why this isn't realistic.
Many people just rather play on an official professional maintained server which runs forever.
It probably more psychology than anything. You see people who say they spend thousands of hours playing survival game. But the difference is they jump server to server and drift between various games. And there are mmorpg players who play a single game on a single server for thousands of hours.
No servers last forever. Can't login to Everfrost on EQ2. Can't login to Nimrodel on LotRO. Can't login to Lands of Aden in Western Lineage. Can't login to anything on Marvel Heroes, Wildstar, and several other MMOs. I agree official MMO servers are usually run a lot better than pirate servers, but I think officially supported private servers could be a quality offering too. Survival type games have shown that.
While I do like to mod rulesets to my groups liking, it's more about playing with my friends and maybe friends of friends. I would love to play on my own private EQ2, Rift, or LotRO server with just my friends and some acquaintances.
I'm much less interested in playing with massive amounts of strangers than I am playing with those friends and acquaintances.
I can see a platform hosting a number of public 'official" servers as well as private ones and you can pretty much choose how you want to play. The only requirement to keep a game going then is your willingness to pay for it.
The public ones have certain advantages and the private version has other advantages. Both can exist at the same time.
Like yourself i think there are many that just want to play with friends and need tools to keep the asshats, cheaters and retards at bay.
Rungar has been coming up with various interesting ideas, so he did not get this of Koster. I did smile when I saw Delete say that, as his own thread fire from the hip, but I more or less agree with Delete on this, downside of rental is too heavy regardless of any benefits.
Hard to remember now but nearly 20 years ago I was playing multiplayer on a hardly legal GTA server before GTA had multiplayer. Those guys could get over 50 people playing together, I am not sure things need to be that small these days.
What are these heavy downsides and why? I haven't seen a good argument yet or a list of reasons why this isn't realistic.
First, we already have a mature ecosystem of hosting providers and self-run servers for medium concurrency games like ARK, Conan, 7 Days, and many other MMOs (medium multiplayer online) games. We have both hosts and users experienced with running server side technology.
Next, we have a long history of "pirate" servers running massive concurrency games like Vanilla WoW, EQ, SWG, Lineage, and many others. With hosting providers and large publishers providing infrastructure this should be even more approachable to those already comfortable running survival types.
Microsoft already provides easy out of the box Minecraft multiplayer servers in addition to generic hosting providers. Guilds like The Old Timers and other large clubs we see advertise here periodically could easily afford and run one of these.
It splits the play base and often leads to a small player base by default. We could do similar to this twenty years ago so I can't see how it is the future. It may come to be, but if so I would regard it as a defeat of anyone who wants a really large player base in a fully fledged MMORPG world.
What is the end game with rental servers? We all game in a bubble of people like us? I do that in my guild, but out of necessity not choice. The largest possible population built with PvE/PvP zones,factions and every bell and whistle is what we should be aiming for.
As a possibility, a MMORPG that has a zone which is No Country For Old Timers and a zone that is The Old Timers is what we want if going down this line. With the ability to take our avatar to areas of different styles of play. But that would be tricky to do and this still may create bubbles of play so I am not sure it is counterproductive to the creation of a in game world community.
The public ones have certain advantages and the private version has other advantages. Both can exist at the same time.
Some really interesting ideas. From a publisher's perspective, it might make a lot of sense, especially if players on private servers still need to pay a subscription. You'd be charging for all the subscriptions + server rent costs (essentially double charging people really). A bit like Fallout 76 does it.
I do wonder:
What would this do to micro-transactions? Would players be less likely to buy one if the private server can mod the ruleset and add customization in other ways?
What would this do to player retention? From one point of view it could improve retention, I am guessing playing with a tight knit group of people makes you less likely to quit. At the same time, if your private server dies (and a huge % of them do), what are the chances of the player leaving the game entirely? This is in contrast to your group leaving on a public server, where presumably the chance of you still staying and meeting others is higher than the whole server dying.
Most importantly, what would this do to the sense of pride and accomplishment (EA please don't sue me). Seriously though, I think the major difference between a MMO and a survival game (e.g. ARK / Minecraft) is the fact that you earn stuff within a larger ecosystem of players. You are trying to "show off" in a sense, which makes it fun and keeps people progressing / playing. What would happen if there are thousands of servers with no centralised pool of progression? It might kill the whole spirit of an MMO. One solution would be to have joint progression across the private servers, but this would likely limit the amount of flexibility/customisation offered.
The elephant in the room is that the games cannot offer what a large number of people want.
This is why survival/building games are popular and mmos diminish. They failed to deliver the content.
The elephant in the room is that the games cannot offer what a large number of people want.
This is why survival/building games are popular and mmos diminish. They failed to deliver the content.
I don't think either survival games or mmorpg are popular base on the steam chart.
But that probably show survival/building game is the way to go. No point trying to make and keep updating a mmorpg if it going to die in a short period.
MMO's cannot compete with the instanced housing im allowed to "buy" and decorate or slightly modify.
So somewhere in the middle of the Massive online and multiplayer is the medium massive online that someone mentioned.
Thus the future is smaller population per world but bigger and better featured games where you can play with a large number of friends or on public servers if you prefer.
MMO's cannot compete with the instanced housing im allowed to "buy" and decorate or slightly modify.
So somewhere in the middle of the Massive online and multiplayer is the medium massive online that someone mentioned.
Thus the future is smaller population per world but bigger and better featured games where you can play with a large number of friends or on public servers if you prefer.
Why Can't MMO's compete with this?
I guess that is the real elephant in the room.
Egotism is the anesthetic that dullens the pain of stupidity, this is why when I try to beat my head against the stupidity of other people, I only hurt myself.
MMO's cannot compete with the instanced housing im allowed to "buy" and decorate or slightly modify.
So somewhere in the middle of the Massive online and multiplayer is the medium massive online that someone mentioned.
Thus the future is smaller population per world but bigger and better featured games where you can play with a large number of friends or on public servers if you prefer.
Why Can't MMO's compete with this?
I guess that is the real elephant in the room.
If a MMO and modders could be brought together outside of the likes of Minecraft we could have that.
MMO's cannot compete with the instanced housing im allowed to "buy" and decorate or slightly modify.
So somewhere in the middle of the Massive online and multiplayer is the medium massive online that someone mentioned.
Thus the future is smaller population per world but bigger and better featured games where you can play with a large number of friends or on public servers if you prefer.
Why Can't MMO's compete with this?
I guess that is the real elephant in the room.
I'm betting one will come along that will.
However saying the future of MMO's is rental servers is like saying the future of MMO's is less than 100 players.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
MMO's cannot compete with the instanced housing im allowed to "buy" and decorate or slightly modify.
So somewhere in the middle of the Massive online and multiplayer is the medium massive online that someone mentioned.
Thus the future is smaller population per world but bigger and better featured games where you can play with a large number of friends or on public servers if you prefer.
Why Can't MMO's compete with this?
I guess that is the real elephant in the room.
I'm betting one will come along that will.
However saying the future of MMO's is rental servers is like saying the future of MMO's is less than 100 players.
At which point it ceases to have anything to do with 'Massively'. So, we're talking about a different category of game.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Comments
steam gets more money
players can access streamlined services
developers can focus on their games and content rather than hardware issues
More small developers will be able to access mmo space. Maybe not 1000's of players but maybe 100's.
players get more worlds on offer rather than a game every 10 years.
Smaller worlds dont have to suffer scalability of feature problems.
Like others have said, its happening now, so its only a matter of time before its integrated to one of these platforms.
I'm not sure where the topic is heading. I presume it can go from a click of a few button to set server rule to full game editor which let people to change everything.
Hard to remember now but nearly 20 years ago I was playing multiplayer on a hardly legal GTA server before GTA had multiplayer. Those guys could get over 50 people playing together, I am not sure things need to be that small these days.
And the smaller player base on each server is a huge bonus to me, frankly most gamers these days quickly out themselves as absolutely useless scumbags in game so I prefer to not associate with many of them.
There will of course always be an audience for the larger scale games like WoW, ESO etc.., but the days of new games like that being developed are just about over.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
I don't think it will be the same "Big" Six however. I think there will be some change over, and while I doubt WoW will cease to be a contender, the population of MMO players as a we know them, is not growing, and no doubt, within the next 6 years, given the recent jumps in VR, I wager MMO's will become more more aligned to Virtual Worlds, to attract the net gen of players, no doubt with integrated to phones or other mobile devices, so that players can just, at a glance, check on their in-game situations or progress, as it where.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
There are several reasons for this, the main one being that if I am playing a Modded Game, as far as an MMO goes, I don't feel like I am playing a fair game with the other people playing the same game as I am, where everyone has the same rules by which they follow, this means that if the server I am on shuts down, I may or may not be able to move to another server, and all my work and progress gets lost.
I mean this could work for some games, but ideally as far as MMO's go, where the carrot of the game, is progress, the idea of just losing all your time investment if the hosts shuts down the server, is not a gamble I, personally, would take.
Which again, is why I seek to only play on official servers.
I suppose if I was looking to just screw around with some friends, and do some modded stuff, I would get involved, but really, I don't think I could ever get seriously into something that is that unstable.
But that is me, not to say this idea won't happen, just, I have my issues with it.
Many people just rather play on an official professional maintained server which runs forever.
It probably more psychology than anything. You see people who say they spend thousands of hours playing survival game. But the difference is they jump server to server and drift between various games. And there are mmorpg players who play a single game on a single server for thousands of hours.
The public ones have certain advantages and the private version has other advantages. Both can exist at the same time.
Like yourself i think there are many that just want to play with friends and need tools to keep the asshats, cheaters and retards at bay.
What is the end game with rental servers? We all game in a bubble of people like us? I do that in my guild, but out of necessity not choice. The largest possible population built with PvE/PvP zones,factions and every bell and whistle is what we should be aiming for.
As a possibility, a MMORPG that has a zone which is No Country For Old Timers and a zone that is The Old Timers is what we want if going down this line. With the ability to take our avatar to areas of different styles of play. But that would be tricky to do and this still may create bubbles of play so I am not sure it is counterproductive to the creation of a in game world community.
I do wonder:
I don't think either survival games or mmorpg are popular base on the steam chart.
But that probably show survival/building game is the way to go. No point trying to make and keep updating a mmorpg if it going to die in a short period.
MMO's cannot compete with the instanced housing im allowed to "buy" and decorate or slightly modify. So somewhere in the middle of the Massive online and multiplayer is the medium massive online that someone mentioned. Thus the future is smaller population per world but bigger and better featured games where you can play with a large number of friends or on public servers if you prefer.
I guess that is the real elephant in the room.
However saying the future of MMO's is rental servers is like saying the future of MMO's is less than 100 players.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.