Are Players Killing Indie MMORPGs with Unrealistic Expectations? | MMORPG.com

System · January 29

Are Players Killing Indie MMORPGs with Unrealistic Expectations? | MMORPG.com

Indie MMORPGs can't compete with AAA MMORPGs, but this isn't a secret. Are we being too harsh on indie MMORPGs?

ZenJelly · January 29

The only communities I've ever seen that act more entitled than gamers are sports fans.

syntax42 · January 29

Early Access is the problem here. When you collect money from customers, they have every right to expect a product to deliver something worth what they spent. The promise of "we'll finish it later" isn't good enough when far too many Early Access titles never reach completion, or if they do, it isn't what was promised.

Edit: The situation is similar to games like Dragon Age: Veilguard, Concord, and Suicide Squad.

Gamers: "We don't like this."
Game Companies: <Produces it anyways>
Gamers: <review-bomb game>
Game Companies: <Surprised Pikachu Face.jpg>

You can't force people to like a product or to lower their expectations just because it has "Early Access" in the title. Companies need to adapt to the market. The market isn't going to change just for you.

Cogohi · January 29

It’s no secret that The Quinfall is riddled with issues, from buggy gameplay to server instability. But should anyone have realistically expected a small indie studio to deliver the polished experience of a modern AAA MMO?

Flawed premise. "Buggy gameplay" and "server instability" don't even approach "the polished experience of a modern AAA MMO". The complaints don't seem to be missing features X, Y, and Z but more along the lines of "can't play at all" or some other showstopper issues.

Early access is not an excuse. Paid early access is a launch for all intents and purposes. Once money changes hands for access then the gloves are fully off.

Wargfoot · January 29

The developers should take care to set player expectations.

mitech616 · January 29

What exactly do you expect on week 1 of a $20 MMO beta?

And it's not "unplayable" or any such nonsense people have been lying about on these forums. All 3 days I tried to play, I could. And today, I got RIGHT IN with no errors or even a queue.

Stop throwing money at games before you even know what they are, then demanding they give you everything you think you're entitled to. Early access on Steam specifically says you should NOT purchase if you're not okay with a game that isn't ready, may not function fully, and may NEVER be completed. Literally at the top of the page!

Early Access isn't the problem; Entitled clueless gamers are.

hsb320 · January 29

Companies overpromise and under deliver

Sovrath · January 29

I’ll agree with mitech, stop giving money to early access unless you fully understand what you’re giving money to. These are unfinished works. Anything and everything might be an issue. And no guarantee they’re even going to launch. It’s just another type of crowdfunding. Don’t like crowdfunding? Awesome! No reason you should. And if that’s the case don’t give money.

Aeander · January 29

Unfortunately, every new MMO is competing with ones that have built up years of content, often paid for by subscriptions. It's not fair and it's not reasonable, but it's reality.

Ridrith · January 29

I'd say many gamers are entitled, I think plenty of developers are too. They'll announce a game, make all sorts of claims, and then when people get in the game and find that it's not nearly as impressive as it was made out to be, they riot.

Quinfall, despite looking like a terrible asset flip MMO with gameplay to match, I really can't fault them for at least getting something out there, and it does in fact, seem to function. Albeit, like crap. Looks awful. Plays awful. But for 20 dollars, I don't disagree. I've played plenty of awful games that I ended up enjoying, basically anything from Piranha Bytes (RIP).

Early Access by the way, doesn't mean anything to anyone anymore. You've got games that sit in Early Access for 5+ years, or longer, that are basically a released game. So it's taken with a grain of salt. You might end up a diamond that works and is fun to play (Valheima and Enshrouded both come to mind) or a turd, like this game. It really just depends.

The only thing I'll give to developers is that for players who don't actually understand what Early Access means, because I find more and more that players are willfully ignorant and refuse to fucking read anything, as I've personally experienced on sites like Roll20 where I play TTRPGs. I can make posts repeating 30 different times that the game I'm running IS NOT 5TH EDITION, and it never fails, multiple players will jump in the game to play, tell they've already got a character. I'll look at it. It's a 5e character. People are just stupid.

Neoyoshi · January 29

Uuuuh, no.

It's the other way around.

Indie devs who have little to no experience in the industry are the ones setting expectations. Please do not dump that shit in the lap of the players, because that's asinine thinking.

If these indie devs would stop trying to reach for these impossible heights they have no business thinking they can reach and try to create smaller 'manageable' game experiences, we wouldn't be seeing or reading articles like this to begin with.

Nephistos · January 30

"But should anyone have realistically expected a small indie studio to deliver the polished experience of a modern AAA MMO?"

No, at least I don't think so. But if you can't do better, you should at least try to do something different.

If your game doesn't add anything, even in the tiniest aspect of the genre, then what's the point of playing it?

The Quinfall set out to create a map on an unprecedented scale. To date, the map in question is indeed probably on an unprecedented scale, a scale of emptiness.

Early Access or not, the promise of your title should be there from the start. Players generally understand perfectly well that OTHER aspects of the game are not at the level of a 1.0 (e.g. overall Steam reviews of Pantheon and Brighter Shores).

xanthouscrown · January 30

mitech616 said:

Early access on Steam specifically says you should NOT purchase if you're not okay with a game that isn't ready, may not function fully, and may NEVER be completed. Literally at the top of the page!

No, it doesn't say the game "may not function fully." This is what Steam's disclaimer actually says:

"Note: Games in Early Access are not complete and may or may not change further. If you are not excited to play this game in its current state, then you should wait to see if the game progresses further in development."

So, player's should expect to able to play, to at least have some basic functionality. But here is the first negative review I see for Quinfall.

"Great concept and good ideas however the login screen boss is almost impossible. 57 hours in game and 30 of them have been trying to beat the login screen.

Has great potential but servers can't handle the current player count.

Cannot recommend this game in current state."

There's nothing wrong or entitled about leaving such a review. Actually, it's a great that they left this review because potential customers want to know about the CURRENT STATE and whether they should buy in yet.

Maybe if the developers were more honest about how playable the game is in its CURRENT STATE they wouldn't have as many negative reviews.

Sovrath · January 30

Neoyoshi said:

Uuuuh, no.

It's the other way around.

Indie devs who have little to no experience in the industry are the ones setting expectations. Please do not dump that shit in the lap of the players, because that's asinine thinking.

If these indie devs would stop trying to reach for these impossible heights they have no business thinking they can reach and try to create smaller 'manageable' game experiences, we wouldn't be seeing or reading articles like this to begin with.

Players don’t have to give money. If players don’t understand the idea of unfinished then it’s their responsibility to be adults and be responsible with their money.

No one is holding a gun to their head.

Every day we are faced with choices on how to handle money. This is just one more.

I’ll add that unfinished means just that. Whether it’s 6 months or 5 years. Take that for truth and buyer beware.

xanthouscrown · January 30

Sovrath said:

Neoyoshi said:

I’ll add that unfinished means just that. Whether it’s 6 months or 5 years. Take that for truth and buyer beware.

I'll add that players leaving reviews, including negative reviews, are an important part of helping buyers beware.

Slapshot1188 · January 30

No. Indie game development companies are killing indie MMORPGs because THEY are the ones that SET the expectations. And it starts with unreasonable timelines on day one and then just snowballs into constant over promising on the sales pitch.

It’s not the buyers fault for believing what the sales guy is saying.

Sovrath · January 30

Slapshot1188 said:

No. Indie game development companies are killing indie MMORPGs because THEY are the ones that SET the expectations. And it starts with unreasonable timelines on day one and then just snowballs into constant over promising on the sales pitch.

It’s not the buyers fault for believing what the sales guy is saying.

Really?

Because it's my experience in the world that salespeople are always promising the world. Well, some are generally good and want their customer service and reliability to add to their trustworthiness so they can be considered the "go to" sales person.

But there are so many who just want to make a sale.

They were called snake oil salesman a time ago.

You're absolutely correct (and others) that there are developers who promise the moon and get their potential buyers excited. But players have to be better, have to be responsible. Because in the end all that's going to happen, with the bad examples of early access, of crowdfunding, is that people are going to bitch and moan on forums and still have lost x amount of dollars.

Buyer beware means "buyer beware." Has never changed.

KnightFalz · January 30

mitech616 said:

What exactly do you expect on week 1 of a $20 MMO beta?

And it's not "unplayable" or any such nonsense people have been lying about on these forums. All 3 days I tried to play, I could. And today, I got RIGHT IN with no errors or even a queue.

Stop throwing money at games before you even know what they are, then demanding they give you everything you think you're entitled to. Early access on Steam specifically says you should NOT purchase if you're not okay with a game that isn't ready, may not function fully, and may NEVER be completed. Literally at the top of the page!

Early Access isn't the problem; Entitled clueless gamers are.

I expect to be able to at least log in and play it, which I don't particularly feel to be indicative of an exaggerated sense of entitlement. While you were able to do so many were not so blessed early on and whatever frustration they felt over it was justified.

namcost · January 30

NGL I think this push for ultra high end graphics in MMO's is another reason why they keep failing. Just because your game is pretty doesn't mean people will play it. You could legit make a game with ps1/ps2 era polygon counts with decent looking textures and as long as the game is FUN it will sell and people will play. I think the obsession with "oooo pretty" is whats killing gaming. ESPECIALLY when you studios spending a week or more on a single 3d model because of the level of detail they add. We don't need it. They are doing extra work for zero profit. With that in mind, Technically Quinfall as mentioned, is an asset flip. Meaning they simply purchased models off the Unreal store (or Unity store) and simply imported them into their game. So they didn't spend wasted time on making models. But while you would think that would be a good thing, clearly its not, as the game is a complete mess. Not just server wise but design wise. The skill system? joke. Its really bad. I could do better and I'm a cripple with 0 programming skills.

The issue with MMO's isn't high expectations, its the lack of design from developers. World of Warcraft is basically a single player game that you play online with thousands of people. That doesn't make it an MMO in my opinion. The world is too curated. Every zone is a Point of Interest (POI) with other smaller POI's inside them. That's not fun.... WoW is like the Tiktok of mmorpgs. For those with short attention spans. And sadly because WoW was successful every other game after wanted to copy it in one form or another, with only minor changes....

The recipe for the greatest MMORPG of all time? You start the game and you have black screen with little white dots/stars around. "Choose your Destiny" scrawls across the screen. You have "Died and Reincarnated in another world" you have "Pulled from your world by a God/Goddess/Demon/Demoness" and the third is "Summoned to a new world by the residents of that world".... If you choose died and reincarnation, you immediately get to choose where you start. You can start in a city/town, you can start out in the forest or wherever. It will only allow "starting" zone area's but still. You get to choose. If you chose Summoned by Residents of that world you pick a Church to start in. It will show you where the starting Churches are. For Pulled by a God/Goddess/Demons/Demoness, you can pick your Deity that brought you to this world. Each will have positives/negatives to it. Like how a Paladin might chose the Holy God Of War as their patron. It will give a bonus and a negative. Now some might cry "not fair" but you can always join a religious faction on your own if you chose the other two. They simply get to start with it. Anyway, after that choice you are put into a specific location with everyone else that chose that god/goddess/demon/demoness. Clearly at this point you pick your race, choose how you look, and pick your starting stats. Yes, instead of starting stats being chosen for you, you can choose them yourself. No hand holding. Just descriptions of what each stat effects. Immediately after the screen goes white and you fade into seeing the world and place you choose to start (or chosen for you for the god/goddess/demon/demoness route).

What's next? talk to NPC's, run around, explore. Wanna learn to craft weapons? Go talk to a bow crafter (fletcher) and learn how. Become an apprentice. Want to learn how to blacksmith? Become a blacksmith apprentice. Want to learn how to be stealthy? Find the thieves guild or assassins guild. Want to Learn weapons, visit the local military and take on quests to learn the weapon you want. Make the game fun! You can do anything and learn anything.

Skills, you get a hot-bar that has 6 skills. Yes, you can only use 6 skills at a time. This includes, active, passive, and utility. You can only change your skills in "safe zones" to ensure fair play. Its action based combat but not as hardcore as typical action based combat. You just have to aim at the target to cast spells or ranged weapons. Melee obviously you just get close enough and smack um upside the head with your weapon. Examples?

Druid?
1. Piercing Vine - Shoots a vine out of the ground to deal nature/piercing damage.
2. Veil of Thorns - Wraps vines around your enemy, constricting them causing crushing/bleeding damage.
3. Earthquake - AOE Earth damage in a range.
4. Natures Folly - When standing on natural ground gain enhanced nature/earth damage. (like if you are standing on grass/mud/dirt. But if you stand on a man made structure you lose the bonus)
5. Harden - Increase your defense ability utilizing earth. Water magic ignores the defense bonus (as water is the natural enemy to earth, think pokemon).
6. Earthen Grasp - Your physical attacks gain bonus Earth damage.

That is just ONE example. There would be 1000's of skills. But the best part? you can upgrade those skills if you specialize. Maybe you make the AOE range of your Earthquake skill huge. How? well each level you would get skill point/s. You spend them on skills and leveling up those skills. And each skill has MULTIPLE paths to upgrade based on that skill. Like an AOE skill can gain range, damage, time (how long it lasts) etc. So each player can be unique based on how THEY want to play. And with a proper strengths and weakness system, there would be no such thing as a perfect build that is unstoppable. Meaning no one can break the game with crazy builds. Also you would have a dodge skill which anyone can do (not tied to your 6 main skills, double tap your direction key, WASD or ARROWS or whatever) and a normal attack that isn't a skill either (your base attack, left click). Right click would be block. You can jump (spacebar). Shift would be sprint (actual sprint, that uses stamina).

More examples?

Spear/Lightening Build.
1. Thrust - Thrust forward stabbing the enemy. Piercing Damage.
2. Dragoon's Jump - Jump into the air towards your enemy, downward slashing at them. Slashing Damage.
3. Chain Lightening - Attack an enemy with Lightning magic, chains to nearby enemies. (enhancing the skill can increase how many it jumps to or the range between jumps or damage or chance to stun if it doesn't kill).
4. Static Charge - Basic attack becomes electrically charged. (so left click how does piercing/slashing AND lightning)
5. Whirlwind - DUH, a staple of any warrior. Spin and deal damage to all enemies withing a tight AOE range.
6. Flash Step - Utilizing Lightning to make you move % faster and attack % faster (base attack not skills)

Now maybe you as a player hate using skills. You simply want to use 6 passives. You can do that. You can have 6 actives. Its all down to the player and how they see fit. You could be a mage that utilizes fire ball, ice bolt, charged bolt, air slash, stone spear, and magic missile. You have all single attack skills. And because those are the ONLY skills you use, all your other skill points can be spent enhancing them! so you wont be weak because you specialize. And in a sense each of those skills has their own element. So you can easily deal damage to any mob in the game. Someone else might specialize in lightning magic only and deal way more damage because of that. It all comes down to PLAYER CHOICE. Which isn't an outrageous demand. I can dream this up in a matter of seconds. You are telling me that's too hard for developers to dream up? Are they that dumb? I refuse to believe game developers are stupid.... it takes great skill to make 3d models and design a game world, to develop a story, etc. So they can't be stupid, which means its other reasons why they don't make complex systems on the backend that is easy to use on the player front facing side....

OldKingLog · January 30

Its a matter of

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The statements of both yes and no are equally correct depending on the circumstances. Some indie developers badly over hype and over promise what their game will deliver. However at the same time there are some desperate impulse control challenged gamers that will whip themselves into a frenzy of anticipation over the most blatant pile of crap game imaginable. And then blame all and sundry with the exception of themselves when the game fails to live up to their fatuous expectations.

This issue isn't limited to the indie gaming industry. The same vicious cycle of hype vs disappointment happens to even AAA games on a yearly basis.

In fact it happens in every facet of the entertainment industry.

The industry will survive as it always has due to these two simple principles.

"If it sounds to good to be true, then it probably is." And "A fool and his money are soon parted."

Slapshot1188 · January 30

Sovrath said:

Slapshot1188 said:

No. Indie game development companies are killing indie MMORPGs because THEY are the ones that SET the expectations. And it starts with unreasonable timelines on day one and then just snowballs into constant over promising on the sales pitch.

It’s not the buyers fault for believing what the sales guy is saying.

Really?

Because it's my experience in the world that salespeople are always promising the world. Well, some are generally good and want their customer service and reliability to add to their trustworthiness so they can be considered the "go to" sales person.

But there are so many who just want to make a sale.

They were called snake oil salesman a time ago.

You're absolutely correct (and others) that there are developers who promise the moon and get their potential buyers excited. But players have to be better, have to be responsible. Because in the end all that's going to happen, with the bad examples of early access, of crowdfunding, is that people are going to bitch and moan on forums and still have lost x amount of dollars.

Buyer beware means "buyer beware." Has never changed.

The fault will ALWAYS 100% lay with those that CREATE the expectations and the timelines, and that's not the players. That's the developer. Always, and 100%.

In no way, shape or form is it valid to say that the CUSTOMER is killing indie MMORPGs because they believe what the developer tells them.

Sovrath · January 30

Slapshot1188 said:

The fault will ALWAYS 100% lay with those that CREATE the expectations and the timelines, and that's not the players. That's the developer. Always, and 100%.

In no way, shape or form is it valid to say that the CUSTOMER is killing indie MMORPGs because they believe what the developer tells them.

I think there's more to it than that.

There's the developer who makes a game, builds up expectations and they don't delivery. That's one topic.

then there's the topic at hand which is that their expectations are too high. Another topic. In this I think players have expectations that are too high.

We see that a lot with graphics, animations and a comparison with AAA games.

I also think their expectations on what early access really is needs to be tempered unless the developers can prove otherwise.

I absolutely think, regardless of what a developer tells you, that players need to take more responsibility with how they spend their money. So I won't agree with you on that. I don't care if they promise the moon and the stars and say that they can easily do it in a month. That's all ridiculous.

I do agree that there are developers who create excitement, state ridiculous timelines and are essentially selling "the dream." But, once again, I think players need to learn to recognize that and NOT spend their money.

As someone who has had every single player game launch with some sort of crowdfunding (and some coming along nicely like Monomyth, I've seen all sorts of games that had all sorts of promises that I would have loved to back but passed because I called "bullsh*t."

I've only backed two mmorpg's, Pantheon and Camelot Unchained because I don't think they can deliver. With Pantheon I did not immediately back it as I didn't buy their story on kickstarter. It wasn't until I saw a lot more game play that I threw $100 their way expecting it very well could fail. I only backed Camelot Unchained to help out those who reallllly wanted a new Dark Age of Camelot. But otherwise wouldn't have backed it as they showed nothing.

Players need to understand what they are backing, know that it might not happen, realize it won't necessarily have "great graphics or animations."

StoneRoses · January 30

I find articles like these fucking hilarious, which comes with fucking hilarious comments. Not like folks are wrong, however, you're trying to convince behavior. Guess what you can't with a click of a keyboard button! I will say this as I have been saying before, it's not the developers fault, it's the players that have allowed EA Games to evolve into what it is now.

StoneRoses · January 30

Slapshot1188 said:

Sovrath said:

Slapshot1188 said:

No. Indie game development companies are killing indie MMORPGs because THEY are the ones that SET the expectations. And it starts with unreasonable timelines on day one and then just snowballs into constant over promising on the sales pitch.

It’s not the buyers fault for believing what the sales guy is saying.

Really?

Because it's my experience in the world that salespeople are always promising the world. Well, some are generally good and want their customer service and reliability to add to their trustworthiness so they can be considered the "go to" sales person.

But there are so many who just want to make a sale.

They were called snake oil salesman a time ago.

You're absolutely correct (and others) that there are developers who promise the moon and get their potential buyers excited. But players have to be better, have to be responsible. Because in the end all that's going to happen, with the bad examples of early access, of crowdfunding, is that people are going to bitch and moan on forums and still have lost x amount of dollars.

Buyer beware means "buyer beware." Has never changed.

The fault will ALWAYS 100% lay with those that CREATE the expectations and the timelines, and that's not the players. That's the developer. Always, and 100%.

In no way, shape or form is it valid to say that the CUSTOMER is killing indie MMORPGs because they believe what the developer tells them.

You and I have the option to open our wallets and finalize the purchase. The developers are not forcing you to make that purchase. You're behavior, being an impulsive consumer is not the fault of anyone but your own.

KnightFalz · January 30

Slapshot1188 said:

No. Indie game development companies are killing indie MMORPGs because THEY are the ones that SET the expectations. And it starts with unreasonable timelines on day one and then just snowballs into constant over promising on the sales pitch.

It’s not the buyers fault for believing what the sales guy is saying.

Game companies set expectations but players can and should curb them. Salespeople always promise the moon while downplaying the craters. Potential buyers should be on the lookout for them or they may be in for a rough ride. It is the buyer's fault if he takes what the seller says without at least a grain of salt.

KnightFalz · January 30

StoneRoses said:

I find articles like these fucking hilarious, which comes with fucking hilarious comments. Not like folks are wrong, however, you're trying to convince behavior. Guess what you can't with a click of a keyboard button! I will say this as I have been saying before, it's not the developers fault, it's the players that have allowed EA Games to evolve into what it is now.

It's the fault of both, the developers for adopting the practice and the players for embracing it. Without both doing their part it would have failed as a practice. Companies can't sell what customers won't buy.

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