I want dialog with fellow full blooded warriors. if it were up to me I'd delete any post from a LOTRO player so we can have a good productive discussion about hardcore PVP. ever topic ends up the same- we get a good conversation going and some silly troll jumps in and says hardcopre PVP cant work even though when I look at the charts I see Lineage stomping much competition.
I'd be so happy if LOTRO didnt post. but im glad I have found another old skool UO shard to discuss good hardcore PVP and avoid all the dribble from casual players that want kiddie PVP lol
So what you are saying is your want to complain with like minds... not that you want a discussion. Your good conversations from what I have read are people pretty much praising you for your point of view... What you label LOTRO is everyone else who dissent from your view.
I played LOTRO beta and left after 2 days as it is a WoW clone with a background history.
I refuse to play WOW as it's PvP sucks.
I play ShadowBane as it has FFA PvP.
I play AC1 DarkTide because it has FFA PvP and corpse looting.
I would play EVE in an instance if they removed real time skill advancement.
please try to label me as a carebear... you will only prove my point more.
What you want is not so unlike what I want... the difference is I live in reality.
You think subscriber base = success. It is only a fraction of what makes a game successful and thus what companies are willing to create. All companies want profit... again say they don't and show that you know nothing about business.
Lineage is an example how a company cornered the market in one specific area by making a game that was accessible financially and technically to their target market. In that area you are right they are hugely successful... Just like a store can be hugely successful in their home town but no one outside that town buys from them. Lineage generates a small fraction of revenue compared to several other MMOs out there... Second Life beats it for revenue... SECOND LIFE!
You want to prove your point... start a petition and get 300K+ signatures and you will validate your point. Make sure the petition states FFA PvP, full corpse looting, and $50 + $15 a month charge. I will even sign it with you... You know what... my guess is you get around 10K - 25K signatures... nothing more... Hence why again Hardcore PvP is not financially viable from a corp standpoint.
It is right, the "hardcore" pvp fanbase is not as huge as the pve fanbase or even the consentual pvp base. But, you have to accept, that the mmo market is now more than huge enough to offer more subgenres/niches that can compete with each others over the available playerbase.
Let say there are 10 mil. avaiable players:
(and of cousre every player fit in more than just one category)
5 million - pve wow/eq style
3 million - consentual pvp
1 million - sandbox
1 million - hardcore pvp
pve wow/eq style - 5-20 games available
consentual pvp - 3-10 games available
sandbox - 0 games available
hardcore pvp - 0 games available
So where are good chances to get enough customer to make a fair share of the market?
Of course, if you are a company like blizzard, you want the big part, so you make pve with consentual pvp, because there is the most available customers, but on the other side a lot of competitiors. But a company like blizzard do not have to fear other companies, blizzard may not be innovative, but they are well known for good polished products.
Others may choose much more a sandbox/hardcore pvp aprroach, not as much available customers, but on the same side not as much competitiors.
That is it basicly, it is the same with soloplayer games, or we would just have rts games, because of course there are the most available customers. Diversity is the key, it is sometimes better to look for a niche, and EvE is maybe a succesful proveness of this theory.
And now go back to the discussion, what ffa pvp game could have enough(or any other niche) appeal, to get the most share of those segment?
PS: All numbers are just assumptions, but may be more or less accurate.
PPS: Shadowbane had 75k subs from the beginning, even it was a bugridden shit of software. I was in the beta, and never bought it, because it was bugridden like hell, although the concept was quite well. And also do not forget, the crapped the european launch, because the european publisher gone broke before release, and a lot of european possible customers didnt bought the game because of this. So the overall potential of shadowbane was a lot more than just those 75k, and that to a time where games like daoc(200k subs), Anarchy Online(50k subs), were counted as successful. Just to get some facts straight.
Edit:
And dont argue about alternate server options, because this do not work. You can not make a game developed for eq-style pve and consentual pvp to a hardcore pvp game, it does not fit. And a lot of ffa server of such games, which failed miserable are just the prove of it. Sandbox on the other side, and hardcore pvp would fit quite good to each other.
When I was grinding my Jedi pre-cu I used to go mad when I died. All that XP lost! But at the same time it was a thrill when a BH turned up. My heart would be pounding out of my chest and if I won id be literally cheering and shouting at my monitor screen. Sounds a bit geeky but losing hundreds of thousands of XP which was hours upon hours of work was not the highlight of my day. So when i survived i'd be over the moon.
I've never experianced great pvp since my old SWG days. Fatigue, armour and weapons degrading on death, wounds, xp loss, buffs gone.. losing those things made you want to stay alive. PVP in swg was thrilling and pretty much made people stick together. I do miss the big guild city pvp battles
It is right, the "hardcore" pvp fanbase is not as huge as the pve fanbase or even the consentual pvp base. But, you have to accept, that the mmo market is now more than huge enough to offer more subgenres/niches that can compete with each others over the available playerbase.
Let say there are 10 mil. avaiable players: (and of cousre every player fit in more than just one category)
5 million - pve wow/eq style 3 million - consentual pvp 1 million - sandbox 1 million - hardcore pvp
pve wow/eq style - 5-20 games available consentual pvp - 3-10 games available sandbox - 0 games available hardcore pvp - 0 games available
So where are good chances to get enough customer to make a fair share of the market? Of course, if you are a company like blizzard, you want the big part, so you make pve with consentual pvp, because there is the most available customers, but on the other side a lot of competitiors. But a company like blizzard do not have to fear other companies, blizzard may not be innovative, but they are well known for good polished products. Others may choose much more a sandbox/hardcore pvp aprroach, not as much available customers, but on the same side not as much competitiors. That is it basicly, it is the same with soloplayer games, or we would just have rts games, because of course there are the most available customers. Diversity is the key, it is sometimes better to look for a niche, and EvE is maybe a succesful proveness of this theory.
And now go back to the discussion, what ffa pvp game could have enough(or any other niche) appeal, to get the most share of those segment?
PS: All numbers are just assumptions, but may be more or less accurate.
PPS: Shadowbane had 75k subs from the beginning, even it was a bugridden shit of software. I was in the beta, and never bought it, because it was bugridden like hell, although the concept was quite well. And also do not forget, the crapped the european launch, because the european publisher gone broke before release, and a lot of european possible customers didnt bought the game because of this. So the overall potential of shadowbane was a lot more than just those 75k, and that to a time where games like daoc(200k subs), Anarchy Online(50k subs), were counted as successful. Just to get some facts straight.
Edit: And dont argue about alternate server options, because this do not work. You can not make a game developed for eq-style pve and consentual pvp to a hardcore pvp game, it does not fit. And a lot of ffa server of such games, which failed miserable are just the prove of it. Sandbox on the other side, and hardcore pvp would fit quite good to each other.
I agree with most of what you say except for one thing... you failed to mention profits.
I agree that a FFA sandbox game could be made... That there is a small market for it and as Lineage has proven it can be successful in a small way. However only a new start-up developer would even think about trying this and getting a publisher would be a nightmare.
The funny thing is I am on your guys side... I like FFA PvP and lots of it... Some day that might be viable if trends change... but right now lets be realistic.
MMOs have an increasing development cost associated with them. More money has to be put into the product in order to compete in tomorrows market. That cost is not being pushed on the consumer yet... so companies have to appeal to a larger consumer base.
Publishers want nothing but big profits it is why they are in the market and do what they do. If you went to a publisher and said... "I have a game that is solid and will appeal to 10% of the MMO player base." What the publisher would hear is "I have a product that alienates 90% of you cash cow."
Can you understand my point? Even if you get a private developer to create the game it will be an inferior product because of money constraints and will have a really hard time finding a publisher... All this is true because it has happened before... Shadowbane....
You even said yourself you did not buy it because of the bugs.... Many PvP centric players did not buy it because the graphics sucked. That game is a prime example of everything I have been saying. People still play it... I still do in fact... but they can't make any money off their product and it has essentially died.
In order to get a good publisher and investment into an MMO... It has to appeal to the majority of the consumer base. That is just the way the industry works now. You can throw things at me, scream, insult, cry, and deny the truth... It will simply not change those facts.
You can say all numbers are subjective... I only rolled out numbers because other posters demanded them. The proof is now... like you said where are the FFA games... there were about 5 in development within the past 2 - 3 years... only one I know of is still around darkfall... and it has been in development what 7 years and still no beta... Sounds more and more like vaporware... I truly hope it is not but then I am a realist at heart. The rest died because of lack of interest. If there were 1 million people out there that fanatical about FFA PvP do you really think these games would have died?
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
A happy medium needs to be found for a death penalty. Wear and tear on your gear, maybe some coinage and buff loss and when your gear wears out its gone for ever. However the game needs to be pvp centric right from the first design thoughts. RvR seems to be a very nice method of PVP rather than a wide open kill it all type system.
making games really isn't as hard as people make it out to be. problem is the real guys that usually have great talent to make games are swooped up fast. and once you release a game title that is really a hit your phone will always ring with job offers. scouts call us all at our job cause they see our name on the credits and try to get us to leave
it is true though it is not easy making a good solid title i am no stranger to 7 days 10+ hr work days hence why California is aflame with lawsuits
and i have no idea why Shadowbane could come out and as bigridden as folks claim. ive shipped RPGs where we only had like 2 programmers on it full time and others rotated in. we fixed all the major bugs- shipped with no crashes which is a requirement for RPG ona console. but we were a console game developer and I guess we're a lot more careful then a PC programmer. we worry about memory and performance while they jsut do what they want seriously. atm im stuck on a team shipping to multiple platforms and im aghast how sloppy the PC guys are they dont give a shit about our console skus
problem is industry is overrun with people with no imagination like many of the posters here. maybe im not much better but ive at least shipped original games and took a chance.
They say it cant work which is a stupid thing no one knows if something will be a hit or miss. Game publishers do a lot more strategic releases then anything else jsut to ensure they dont get steamrolled by relesing a title the sametime as a major work
Have any idea how worried Gam,e publishers are about shipping the sametime as Halo 3?????
You can have great balls of steel and shoot for the stars or/and punk out and take eays way out. it is true you can reduce your reduce by cloning whats out there. but sometimes you must innovate to get your title noticed. that is why I honestly prefer Console development to MMO because titles must innovate to get noticed while MMO market is a little different. It's about retaining players and stretching out character progression. shit that would tank bad if it was single player only most likely
The main issue is not the 'risk' like people think. The main reason is that the producers and designers are single player RPG nuts and they are WoW/EQ fans. seriously my producer thinks WoW greatest game on earth. they all play WoW everyone here. so first thing out of their mouth is timesinks.
they lack imagination and all there ideas are ripped from existing games they like. they are so desperate to get an original idea they contract out people from movie and books industry and use that IP nowadays
The average game designer ive seen- no offense- starts out as a beta tester. that is good and nice. but really I'd much rather see game designers ger recruited from comic book industry and console RPG market. those guys have true imagination and either must ship an innovative title or get laid off. The game industry is cruel that way all the major companies either shed dead weight or go out of business
I want dialog with fellow full blooded warriors. if it were up to me I'd delete any post from a LOTRO player so we can have a good productive discussion about hardcore PVP. ever topic ends up the same- we get a good conversation going and some silly troll jumps in and says hardcopre PVP cant work even though when I look at the charts I see Lineage stomping much competition.
I'd be so happy if LOTRO didnt post. but im glad I have found another old skool UO shard to discuss good hardcore PVP and avoid all the dribble from casual players that want kiddie PVP lol
So what you are saying is your want to complain with like minds... not that you want a discussion. Your good conversations from what I have read are people pretty much praising you for your point of view... What you label LOTRO is everyone else who dissent from your view.
I played LOTRO beta and left after 2 days as it is a WoW clone with a background history.
I refuse to play WOW as it's PvP sucks.
I play ShadowBane as it has FFA PvP.
I play AC1 DarkTide because it has FFA PvP and corpse looting.
I would play EVE in an instance if they removed real time skill advancement.
please try to label me as a carebear... you will only prove my point more.
What you want is not so unlike what I want... the difference is I live in reality.
You think subscriber base = success. It is only a fraction of what makes a game successful and thus what companies are willing to create. All companies want profit... again say they don't and show that you know nothing about business.
Lineage is an example how a company cornered the market in one specific area by making a game that was accessible financially and technically to their target market. In that area you are right they are hugely successful... Just like a store can be hugely successful in their home town but no one outside that town buys from them. Lineage generates a small fraction of revenue compared to several other MMOs out there... Second Life beats it for revenue... SECOND LIFE!
You want to prove your point... start a petition and get 300K+ signatures and you will validate your point. Make sure the petition states FFA PvP, full corpse looting, and $50 + $15 a month charge. I will even sign it with you... You know what... my guess is you get around 10K - 25K signatures... nothing more... Hence why again Hardcore PvP is not financially viable from a corp standpoint.
It is right, the "hardcore" pvp fanbase is not as huge as the pve fanbase or even the consentual pvp base. But, you have to accept, that the mmo market is now more than huge enough to offer more subgenres/niches that can compete with each others over the available playerbase.
Let say there are 10 mil. avaiable players:
(and of cousre every player fit in more than just one category)
5 million - pve wow/eq style
3 million - consentual pvp
1 million - sandbox
1 million - hardcore pvp
pve wow/eq style - 5-20 games available
consentual pvp - 3-10 games available
sandbox - 0 games available
hardcore pvp - 0 games available
So where are good chances to get enough customer to make a fair share of the market?
Of course, if you are a company like blizzard, you want the big part, so you make pve with consentual pvp, because there is the most available customers, but on the other side a lot of competitiors. But a company like blizzard do not have to fear other companies, blizzard may not be innovative, but they are well known for good polished products.
Others may choose much more a sandbox/hardcore pvp aprroach, not as much available customers, but on the same side not as much competitiors.
That is it basicly, it is the same with soloplayer games, or we would just have rts games, because of course there are the most available customers. Diversity is the key, it is sometimes better to look for a niche, and EvE is maybe a succesful proveness of this theory.
And now go back to the discussion, what ffa pvp game could have enough(or any other niche) appeal, to get the most share of those segment?
PS: All numbers are just assumptions, but may be more or less accurate.
PPS: Shadowbane had 75k subs from the beginning, even it was a bugridden shit of software. I was in the beta, and never bought it, because it was bugridden like hell, although the concept was quite well. And also do not forget, the crapped the european launch, because the european publisher gone broke before release, and a lot of european possible customers didnt bought the game because of this. So the overall potential of shadowbane was a lot more than just those 75k, and that to a time where games like daoc(200k subs), Anarchy Online(50k subs), were counted as successful. Just to get some facts straight.
Edit:
And dont argue about alternate server options, because this do not work. You can not make a game developed for eq-style pve and consentual pvp to a hardcore pvp game, it does not fit. And a lot of ffa server of such games, which failed miserable are just the prove of it. Sandbox on the other side, and hardcore pvp would fit quite good to each other.
yeah good post all the way. I guess the shadowbane guys got a really raw deal. it happens like that sometimes. I gues ive been fortunate to work with good publishers that would rather cancel the title then ship and tarnish their name
I agree with most of what you say except for one thing... you failed to mention profits.
I agree that a FFA sandbox game could be made... That there is a small market for it and as Lineage has proven it can be successful in a small way. However only a new start-up developer would even think about trying this and getting a publisher would be a nightmare. The funny thing is I am on your guys side... I like FFA PvP and lots of it... Some day that might be viable if trends change... but right now lets be realistic. MMOs have an increasing development cost associated with them. More money has to be put into the product in order to compete in tomorrows market. That cost is not being pushed on the consumer yet... so companies have to appeal to a larger consumer base. Publishers want nothing but big profits it is why they are in the market and do what they do. If you went to a publisher and said... "I have a game that is solid and will appeal to 10% of the MMO player base." What the publisher would hear is "I have a product that alienates 90% of you cash cow." Can you understand my point? Even if you get a private developer to create the game it will be an inferior product because of money constraints and will have a really hard time finding a publisher... All this is true because it has happened before... Shadowbane.... You even said yourself you did not buy it because of the bugs.... Many PvP centric players did not buy it because the graphics sucked. That game is a prime example of everything I have been saying. People still play it... I still do in fact... but they can't make any money off their product and it has essentially died. In order to get a good publisher and investment into an MMO... It has to appeal to the majority of the consumer base. That is just the way the industry works now. You can throw things at me, scream, insult, cry, and deny the truth... It will simply not change those facts. You can say all numbers are subjective... I only rolled out numbers because other posters demanded them. The proof is now... like you said where are the FFA games... there were about 5 in development within the past 2 - 3 years... only one I know of is still around darkfall... and it has been in development what 7 years and still no beta... Sounds more and more like vaporware... I truly hope it is not but then I am a realist at heart. The rest died because of lack of interest. If there were 1 million people out there that fanatical about FFA PvP do you really think these games would have died?
Well, at least a lot developer think like you, and it is right, that is the reason why we see more and more WoWstyle games, because it is successful and a proven concept.
But well, what are the 3 most succesful mmos out there?
WoW, Second Life and Dofus.. granted, Second Life and Dofus are free to play, but there are also a lot of EQstyle free to play title with little to no success at all. Second Life and Dofus are successful in their boundaries, because they are completely different than anything else without any compititor in their segment.
5 FFA games in development? Well, i really cant remember one release of an such a game.. Ok, DnL(it was not really ffa, but more or less in this direction), but why did it fail? Because of lack of potential subscribers? Hell no, it was one of the most hyped games, it had a lot of registered users in their forum. It did not fail because of the lack of potential subs, it failed because it was again a piece of crap just from the software view of point. Yes, i played the so called Settler of Ganareth.. just a nightmare.. played it not more than an hour.. and just the movement and fighting was the turn off for me, here.. i couldnt explore much more in this short time period.
Sure, if wannabe developers are unable to make a solid game(independent from the genre) it will fail, we have all some minimum standards nowadays, and those have to fullfilled at least. So yes, you need good developers and a more or less good funding, and enough time to develop it. And granted a good mmo is really extremely expensive, and here especially a sandbox game, because of the openended content. And it is also true, that it is hard to get a publisher or an investor for a not proved game style, it is always the same.
Well, so someone, have to make it, a more or less independent developer, because the big companies will never finanze such a project. It has to be someone like Richard Garriot, or maybe Raph Koster.. well known and succesful designers, they maybe get the funds, just because of their reputation, and then realize something like that.
Or even an indepentent and newcomer studio can pull it off, and prove that something like that can be successful, well, maybe darkfall can prove it, if the devs there are able to release a solid game... just from the software quality point of view.. the features sound promising, but if it is like DnL or Shadowbane, a bugridden piece of shit, it will fail like all the other bullshit. But again, not because of the features, just because it is not a quality product. And to be honest, with such a feature palett maybe a game like Vanguard(from the quality standpoint) would be successful, but in the pve segment it was just not good enough.. again, just the quality standpoint of the software.
And yeap, i am on your side, but i have at least some hope, or better said, only this little hope let me wait for something good.
But this is not only the dilemma of the mmo genre, it is an overall problem, the mainstream companies with enough fundings produce just clones.. why we have one million Dune2(first RTS) RTS games, or one million Wolfenstein3D(first FPS) FPS games, with almost no or little improvement at all? Because they were successful, and this is the place where the funds were, and will be invested. Or where are the big innovations in the single player segment?
It became harder and harder for independent development studios, which brought some innovation into computer games, look what happened with Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood Studios, Bitmap Brothers and all the small, independent, and innovativ development studios?
I really know what is going on, the mmo problem is not a stand alone complex, i have played computer/console games since over 25 years, and the quality(design) and innovation was always reduced step by step, the same way the production costs were increased step by step and of course the quality of graphics and the like.
And this is a reason because i do not play a lot of games lately, the last mmo i played, was for around 2 years. Or play games just for a few hours, because they are not worth anymore of my time. And know what, the last game i played longer than a few hours, and now more than one year is a game in development called mount&played(2 developers), and granted civilication4.(but civilication is one of the few games you can play for years and years and buy just the new graphical update with a few improvements)
And ok.. a multiplayer game.. Dawn of War(good old Z style RTS, which i prefer over the Dune2 style RTS.. it is maybe the same like EQstyle vs. UOstyle ), which i have played since over a year, or even two. And well, sometimes a shooter here and there, or BFxx casually.
Edit: And now look at Lord of the Ring, it is a solid quality product, but it will fail in the long run, not because of the quality, because it is in no way innovativ, it is WoW with another theme. And let say it like it is, WoW is the pinnacle of this style of games, it is perfect from a quality point of view, and from now on, you can just get enough subs, if a game has something to offer which WoW hasnt.
Btw. it was almost the same with Starcraft, or was any other RTS really successful after it, with the same approach to the rts genre?
I agree with most of what you say except for one thing... you failed to mention profits.
I agree that a FFA sandbox game could be made... That there is a small market for it and as Lineage has proven it can be successful in a small way. However only a new start-up developer would even think about trying this and getting a publisher would be a nightmare. The funny thing is I am on your guys side... I like FFA PvP and lots of it... Some day that might be viable if trends change... but right now lets be realistic. MMOs have an increasing development cost associated with them. More money has to be put into the product in order to compete in tomorrows market. That cost is not being pushed on the consumer yet... so companies have to appeal to a larger consumer base. Publishers want nothing but big profits it is why they are in the market and do what they do. If you went to a publisher and said... "I have a game that is solid and will appeal to 10% of the MMO player base." What the publisher would hear is "I have a product that alienates 90% of you cash cow." Can you understand my point? Even if you get a private developer to create the game it will be an inferior product because of money constraints and will have a really hard time finding a publisher... All this is true because it has happened before... Shadowbane.... You even said yourself you did not buy it because of the bugs.... Many PvP centric players did not buy it because the graphics sucked. That game is a prime example of everything I have been saying. People still play it... I still do in fact... but they can't make any money off their product and it has essentially died. In order to get a good publisher and investment into an MMO... It has to appeal to the majority of the consumer base. That is just the way the industry works now. You can throw things at me, scream, insult, cry, and deny the truth... It will simply not change those facts. You can say all numbers are subjective... I only rolled out numbers because other posters demanded them. The proof is now... like you said where are the FFA games... there were about 5 in development within the past 2 - 3 years... only one I know of is still around darkfall... and it has been in development what 7 years and still no beta... Sounds more and more like vaporware... I truly hope it is not but then I am a realist at heart. The rest died because of lack of interest. If there were 1 million people out there that fanatical about FFA PvP do you really think these games would have died?
Well, at least a lot developer think like you, and it is right, that is the reason why we see more and more WoWstyle games, because it is successful and a proven concept.
But well, what are the 3 most succesful mmos out there?
WoW, Second Life and Dofus.. granted, Second Life and Dofus are free to play, but there are also a lot of EQstyle free to play title with little to no success at all. Second Life and Dofus are successful in their boundaries, because they are completely different than anything else without any compititor in their segment.
5 FFA games in development? Well, i really cant remember one release of an such a game.. Ok, DnL(it was not really ffa, but more or less in this direction), but why did it fail? Because of lack of potential subscribers? Hell no, it was one of the most hyped games, it had a lot of registered users in their forum. It did not fail because of the lack of potential subs, it failed because it was again a piece of crap just from the software view of point. Yes, i played the so called Settler of Ganareth.. just a nightmare.. played it not more than an hour.. and just the movement and fighting was the turn off for me, here.. i couldnt explore much more in this short time period.
Sure, if wannabe developers are unable to make a solid game(independent from the genre) it will fail, we have all some minimum standards nowadays, and those have to fullfilled at least. So yes, you need good developers and a more or less good funding, and enough time to develop it. And granted a good mmo is really extremely expensive, and here especially a sandbox game, because of the openended content. And it is also true, that it is hard to get a publisher or an investor for a not proved game style, it is always the same.
Well, so someone, have to make it, a more or less independent developer, because the big companies will never finanze such a project. It has to be someone like Richard Garriot, or maybe Raph Koster.. well known and succesful designers, they maybe get the funds, just because of their reputation, and then realize something like that.
Or even an indepentent and newcomer studio can pull it off, and prove that something like that can be successful, well, maybe darkfall can prove it, if the devs there are able to release a solid game... just from the software quality point of view.. the features sound promising, but if it is like DnL or Shadowbane, a bugridden piece of shit, it will fail like all the other bullshit. But again, not because of the features, just because it is not a quality product. And to be honest, with such a feature palett maybe a game like Vanguard(from the quality standpoint) would be successful, but in the pve segment it was just not good enough.. again, just the quality standpoint of the software.
And yeap, i am on your side, but i have at least some hope, or better said, only this little hope let me wait for something good.
But this is not only the dilemma of the mmo genre, it is an overall problem, the mainstream companies with enough fundings produce just clones.. why we have one million Dune2(first RTS) RTS games, or one million Wolfenstein3D(first FPS) FPS games, with almost no or little improvement at all? Because they were successful, and this is the place where the funds were, and will be invested. Or where are the big innovations in the single player segment?
It became harder and harder for independent development studios, which brought some innovation into computer games, look what happened with Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood Studios, Bitmap Brothers and all the small, independent, and innovativ development studios?
I really know what is going on, the mmo problem is not a stand alone complex, i have played computer/console games since over 25 years, and the quality(design) and innovation was always reduced step by step, the same way the production costs were increased step by step and of course the quality of graphics and the like.
And this is a reason because i do not play a lot of games lately, the last mmo i played, was for around 2 years. Or play games just for a few hours, because they are not worth anymore of my time. And know what, the last game i played longer than a few hours, and now more than one year is a game in development called mount&played(2 developers), and granted civilication4.(but civilication is one of the few games you can play for years and years and buy just the new graphical update with a few improvements)
And ok.. a multiplayer game.. Dawn of War(good old Z style RTS, which i prefer over the Dune2 style RTS.. it is maybe the same like EQstyle vs. UOstyle ), which i have played since over a year, or even two. And well, sometimes a shooter here and there, or BFxx casually.
Edit: And now look at Lord of the Ring, it is a solid quality product, but it will fail in the long run, not because of the quality, because it is in no way innovativ, it is WoW with another theme. And let say it like it is, WoW is the pinnacle of this style of games, it is perfect from a quality point of view, and from now on, you can just get enough subs, if a game has something to offer which WoW hasnt.
Btw. it was almost the same with Starcraft, or was any other RTS really successful after it, with the same approach to the rts genre?
Excellent post! I agree with most of your statements.
However, I have to disagree with you and Vajuras on the amount of ideas running around in the industry. I recently read an article, http://www.firingsquad.com/features/killing_game_development/, that explains that the apparent lack of innovation is not from the lack of ideas; in fact, there are PLENTY of ideas running around. The reason why we are seeing repetitive titles is, bottom line, INVESTMENT. Publishers dont want to invest in a title that will do bad. They want a garunteed success, like sequels, and that confidence that they gain from doing a tried and successful "forumla" trickles down into the development. You need an organized development team motived and on the job to get things done. Alot of the times the development team loses morale and steam and the development slows down (Darkfall, perhaps?).
Vajuras, again your wrong - it is becoming increasingly more and more difficult to create games. Lets put it this way - games are coming in to the tier as movies. Movies are big budget projects nowadays, not like it was 50 years ago. There are a ton of things that go in to creating a movie. There are a TON of scripts that go in yet only a handful are selected. The same thing for video games. The increasing demand for better graphics, more content and better quality and so forth forces the development of games to become more and more complex and more costly. A game's cost to make 10 years ago is dwarfed in comparison to today's top games.
Especially MMO's. MMO's are huge - take a look at the development of AoC. Just at the basics, Age of Conan needs animators, World Designers, script writers, an army of programmers, a whole musical division devoted to the creation of custom audio to the game, voice actors, testers, marketing, utility fees - the list goes on and on. And for how many years a game goes into development? There you go - the cost goes up, so the RISK of the game goes up. In addition, the price for games has averaged out to 50 bucks a pop, so publishers cant raise the price for a game.
So when you watch a movie, you may say "well, that was okay, but it was kinda predictable" then thats prolly on the same line as a formula game (The basic formula meaning WoW - example is LOTRO) . However, there are a couple times you can come out and say "hey, that movie was pretty damn good" then thats the equivalent of a unique game (Asheron's Call, DAoC). Relatively, of course.
But people are wrong when they say that there is no Hardcore PvP market. There IS. There is and there always will be. Sure, maybe they are lower in number, but they are there. Since there are so many formula games out, then there is eventually going to be money in a game that has PvP in it cause ALL of the hardcore PvP'rs are going to go to it. The thing is, is that a publisher needs to be willing to take the risk on such a game.
Saying that theres no market for Hardcore PvP is like saying the sun doesnt come up. Hehe, it does, you can deny reality all you want. Its there, theres a group that wants it. The publisher just needs to be willing to take a chance.
yep teams are getting bigger and bigger true- however people are getting smarter and smarter. procedural algorithms are getting better and better so generating viurtual worlds for players is becoming closer. this means less art and content is needed
look at EVE. from what ive seen so far ingame I do not see a huge dependency on art. independants can hit new enviroments and reduce their cost dramatically.
sure multi-core engines cost but really if they go sandbox your need for scripters drop dramatically. need for content drops dramatically. give the gamers a toybox and they will keep themselves entertained.
for a WoW equivalent yes thats massive. but for sandbox? less people are needed. hell you'd be suprised at the size of the teams employed by MMOs many of them pretty small
edit- I'm really suprised we dont see a lot more sandbox because they are a lot cheaper to make. Extreme example- I see a simple sandbox game that focuses on building cities pretty successful. Artist just focuses on props for buildings. 2-3 male and female base model (like city of heroes) for characters, some art here and there for NPCs, procedurally generate terrain / grass, etc. Generate events where city can be attacked. Reuse mobs like they do in city of herpoes and just dress them up different. before this was a pain to do due to static lighting but now we have dynamic lighting capable video cards. I expect to see this soon if not already done because now engines can allow players to put down geoemtry anywhere and collision detection systems are pretty flexible now that we moved away from BSP
Art? Dude, the animators are the ones that create the things we see in game. They create *everything* from every tree, rock, river. The world designers, they put everything there. The world isnt randomly generated, its hand made.
The costs to make an MMO are humongous. Its in the millions. Regardless if technology advanced and people figure out more, they cant keep up with the increasing costs. The costs alone for the staff is enough to make anyone barf. And the game development is in YEARS. The production costs are massive. Around 30 million.
And yeah its sad we dont see alot of sandbox MMO's, they are alot more fun than the class based ones we see every day. A sand box MMo with good PvP is a dream. Classes right now dominate, we need a publisher again willing to invest in a game that breaks the formula.
see 1 programmer is doing this one. procedurally generating the worlds. this is what I speak of I dont see why you need a huge team to make a sandbox title. maybe we have miscommunition because I speak of sandbox and others might be thinking something crazy like WoW. Yeah WoW is good but it is no where near the potential I see for massive multiplayer games
I envision employing procedural algoirthms like this guy proposes to generate thousands of worlds to explore. maybe i am dreaming hard but eventually someone will use their noggin' and generate content for us gamers to explore.
only problem will be that the worlds be so vast- we might not ever find one another!
anyway just using Infinity as an example. see, small team doing something fairly competitive. mght not be a huge blockbuster but has good dieas and pushing forward
Art? Dude, the animators are the ones that create the things we see in game. They create *everything* from every tree, rock, river. The world designers, they put everything there. The world isnt randomly generated, its hand made. The costs to make an MMO are humongous. Its in the millions. Regardless if technology advanced and people figure out more, they cant keep up with the increasing costs. The costs alone for the staff is enough to make anyone barf. And the game development is in YEARS. The production costs are massive. Around 30 million. And yeah its sad we dont see alot of sandbox MMO's, they are alot more fun than the class based ones we see every day. A sand box MMo with good PvP is a dream. Classes right now dominate, we need a publisher again willing to invest in a game that breaks the formula.
well minor correction to this Animators dont create 'anything'. All they do is animate the skeletons and work with mocap data. Yeah stuff like mocap costs upwards of just 1 million if you try to get a celebrity and pay by the hour and foir all the mocap data
yeah what you say is true but I speak of true sandbox where content is either computer or player driven. Artists (modelers, enviroment) only provide the base pieces
checkout infinity. we both speak of different things. I do not think we need a huge art crafted world like WoW! Just give us gamer the ability to craft our own worlds and we can have huge worlds bigger then any developer could ever do. They can -never- keep up with gamers
see 1 programmer is doing this one. procedurally generating the worlds. this is what I speak of I dont see why you need a huge team to make a sandbox title. maybe we have miscommunition because I speak of sandbox and others might be thinking something crazy like WoW. Yeah WoW is good but it is no where near the potential I see for massive multiplayer games
I envision employing procedural algoirthms like this guy proposes to generate thousands of worlds to explore. maybe i am dreaming hard but eventually someone will use their noggin' and generate content for us gamers to explore.
only problem will be that the worlds be so vast- we might not ever find one another!
anyway just using Infinity as an example. see, small team doing something fairly competitive. mght not be a huge blockbuster but has good dieas and pushing forward
I don't think a sandbox game will be less complex to make. You could go the route of Second Life and put in a simple model and scripting languages but that would be almost impossible to control. The RPG elements would be extremely complex unless you went the FPS route. Sandbox games are also hard to get published... Second Life is free for that very reason.
80% of the MMO consumer base needs their hand held to be introduced to a game. That is why there is almost always a tutorial zone of some kind when you start. With such a free open type sandbox game the simple tutorial zone would not be enough which reduces subscriptions.
Your example only enforces my view. It has been in development for over 4 years and is perhaps at best 50% complete. Even with infinite resolve you are looking at another 3 - 4 years of development before it will be ready for beta. Perhaps he can find a publisher, but it will not be easy without a development firm backing him up. Without a publisher his game is going nowhere and all that time invested has no value returned. He would end up selling the bits that are not outdated and probably never do anything like that again.
I laughed when you slammed PC developers. You design games with rigid hardware and software requirements. Other then minor patches and HD upgrades when you write something for a console it is all static. When you write for a PC game you have to account for thousands of hardware, software, and network variants. To prove my point show me a console game box that has hardware and software requirements... You will not find a single PC game without it. Writing a PC game is far more difficult then writing for a console. I am not trying to belittle your job... any decent coding takes patience and skill... but it is laughable to see you mock PC programmers when you have no clue what they go through or ignore it which would be worse. Just writing a simple web page which is beyond basic programming still takes the consideration of 4 different browsers where your code could show up differently on all 4. Times that by the thousands and thats what PC game developers go through.
Sandbox games are not impossible to create... it is getting someone to stand up and take notice with money.
Since you are a developer why are you on here lamenting about this rather then doing like the developer in your link and build your perfect game. If you have the knowledge and apparently it is far superior to any PC developer... You should have no problem whipping up a game for us.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
meh Infinity was just an example he has good ideas is all I pointed out. my point was you can procedurally generate content. well this is known to programmers but maybe the community at large does not realize how well this technology can be utilized
edit- hm, reading my original post I did state I was using them as an example stop trying to nitpick everyone's post lol. if you dont want sandbox / hardcore PVP / risky PVP fine but at least allow others to have a good conversation about it. I know im not here to convince anyone of anything
As long as every game that comes out is based on loot, then PURE FFA loot drop PVP will not exisit. When people take hours upon hours and days upon days just to get 1 or 2 items, devs will never allow them to lose these items in 1 death. The people that play the game for the loot would quit in a heartbeat if thier ubersword of cowmilking that dropped off the last boss of *insert dungeoun name here, was ever taken from them.
People have been brain washed to care more about thier item pixels then playing the game. A majority, if this doesnt apply to you then good, of the MMOers that play now will spend hours upon hours to get thier ubersword of cowmilking cause they THINK that it will make them uber to.
Old school (and I mean pre-tram) UO, was one of the last games that was about the player character and skills. You didnt have an ubersword of cowmilking that took you 45 times killing *insert boss name* to get it. Crafters made items, they sold thier items, players used them and if they lost the item, you would go back to a crafter (or your mule) to get another item. There was no shortage of items to use in pvp.
As long as Devs make the game about the loot (which seems to sell thier games right now), then PVP will never be free again.
As long as every game that comes out is based on loot, then PURE FFA loot drop PVP will not exisit. When people take hours upon hours and days upon days just to get 1 or 2 items, devs will never allow them to lose these items in 1 death. The people that play the game for the loot would quit in a heartbeat if thier ubersword of cowmilking that dropped off the last boss of *insert dungeoun name here, was ever taken from them. People have been brain washed to care more about thier item pixels then playing the game. A majority, if this doesnt apply to you then good, of the MMOers that play now will spend hours upon hours to get thier ubersword of cowmilking cause they THINK that it will make them uber to. Old school (and I mean pre-tram) UO, was one of the last games that was about the player character and skills. You didnt have an ubersword of cowmilking that took you 45 times killing *insert boss name* to get it. Crafters made items, they sold thier items, players used them and if they lost the item, you would go back to a crafter (or your mule) to get another item. There was no shortage of items to use in pvp. As long as Devs make the game about the loot (which seems to sell thier games right now), then PVP will never be free again.
BINGO!!!
Currently in such formula games, notably WoW, is item primary, character customization secondary, and skills tertiary. (order of importance)
What you would want to make a better game, is Skills primary, customization secondary, and items tertiary.
I mean, take at all of the "WoW sucks" threads and you'll see that its the big problem out there. Item centric = grinding = people not wanting to give up their loot = farmers win. And as we all know, that SUCKS.
Vajuras, Im not going to further continue my discussion with sandbox MMO's, since I really dont know all that much on that topic and dont want to risk giving out false info.
things i suggest are experimental and shouldnt really be mentioned here. much better topic over at gamedev.
edit- well what i say isnt super experimental tho since almost every game uses procedural methods to make their base terrain. anyway gfone off topic i think on that minor thing was just elaborating on the emthod
FFA Pvp ought to be able to work, people want a place to fight each other and earn something from it, in a more in-depth and persistent world than the FPS games. It's not about being able to gank on the people who DONT want to play in that world. The people looking for "hardcore" pvp don't want others to be in their world; and vice versa. I am somewhat in the middle, as I usually am - sometimes I really enjoy the adrenaline that pumps when I know that I can be attacked at any time by anyone, and will lost my stuff. When someone does something that annoys me, does some exploit, steals a kill, or offends me in some way; it's really nice to be able to hurt them. If they didn't want to be hurt that way, I wouldn't expect them to be playing on that server. Most of the time though, I would rather be safe. If the game gives me a choice, I will choose to play it safe, but when a game is designed from the ground up for more hardcore play, I usually enjoy it.
More hardcore rulesets would be nice to add, and it doesn't have to cost that much either. These players will either be playing on server A (non-hardcore) or server B (hardcore), never both at the same time. So the processor usage for each player remains the same whether it is one server or two. Depending on how servers are distributed, the only reason it would cost more than NOT having a hardcore server, is if the hardcore server itself draws new players. In which case you are making more money Of course this is all theory; but I assume the costs that prohibit companies from running hardcore server have more to do with catering to those audiences, doing the bug testing with the seperate ruleset, and things of that nature.
People who don't like full looting, I can understand where your coming from. Most of the time I don't. But I don't see why you are so adamant in this thread that there should not be a full looting game, period. If enough people want it, why shouldn't there be. Heck, it's really too bad, even if only a few people want it, it seems like there ought to be a game for them anyway. Because none of the games made for people who don't want to have to much risk are ever going to satisfy these people. And don't be so quick to judge them as griefers. The best game for a griefer would be where you can attack someone with no retaliation. The best full loot game would be where you are never sure if the player you attack may be stronger than you - you should never be able to do a consider on another player. There should also be group size limits too avoid extremely lopsided battles, although a fairly lopsided fight such as 8 to 1 should happen every now and then - but victory should never be sure, even in a fight such as this.
I would enjoy a violent difficult gameworld where it may be a fight just to survive. I've played a few, such as star sonata, that gave this sort of feeling. It makes it that much more satisfying when you start being able to do well. It wouldn't be my primary game by any means, I prefer games with no fighting at all; but sometimes I want something to get my blood pumping. But we have to find a way to get a large enough audience or it would never be successful
-------------------- One last thing - it is asanine to use regular FPS to compare to MMO's for any of this discussion. Not only is there twitch based, player skill 100% combat - with 400% better netcode than most mmos I might add - but there is also a very short, non persistent match/goal that you are working towards. It is more like a sports match. You can invest everything into the 10 minutes or so that it lasts, and then its over and you can either be happy that you won, or sad that you were defeated. In an mmo, you have to be looking beyond just one match. This is where the loss needs to come into play somehow. When you get killed in a fps, you DO get to jump right back into the action, but you do lose something that counts a lot - you are giving the other team a point, or giving another player a point, etc. In effect, you are making your score go down. In an mmo, this could easily be compared with losing some xp or losing an item. And in a game like counterstrike, where you are down for the whole match, it would be like permanent death. Which even fewer people want than full looting. So, fps and mmo aren't really that comparable.
There is so much that is different just simply due to the altered timeframe.
Anyway, the hardcore pvp enthusiasts should stop calling other players carebears and the like, whats wrong with them wanting to play the type of game they like? And for everyone else, your style of game is pretty well supported already, why can't new (well, old...) playstyles be supported as well, at least to some extent?
To the OP, I think the title of this thread is a bit off. For very similar reasons as FPS, I don't think that player combat is that similar to poker. But I for one would like to have more pvp-style games to offset the million World of Warcraft style games.
meh Infinity was just an example he has good ideas is all I pointed out. my point was you can procedurally generate content. well this is known to programmers but maybe the community at large does not realize how well this technology can be utilized
edit- hm, reading my original post I did state I was using them as an example stop trying to nitpick everyone's post lol. if you dont want sandbox / hardcore PVP / risky PVP fine but at least allow others to have a good conversation about it. I know im not here to convince anyone of anything
I agree you can procedurally generate some content. Terrain, mob locations (if you have any), and other cosmetic features. What you cannot procedurally generate is the underlying mechanics and skills each player will use. You are generalizing to prove a point but it does not work. To use the Infinity example he has the universe already done from a basic structure point of view, but he is less then 50% done on the game mechanics after 4 years.
I do want sandbox and FFA PvP... I have stated this several times. You are not having a conversation you are complaining... I am simply pointing out that current market trends MUST change in order for these types of games to become mainstream. If you want a good conversation about what features would be good in a sandbox game... I am all for that... this thread has proven to be something else.
You also conveniently ignored my retort about console vs PC programming... just another indication you want to smack talk but can't take opposing points when you are called out.
Start a thread about what would make a good sandbox game without slamming any existing games or their communities and I will contribute positively. You will find what you and I want are not so different. If you start smack talking... you have to expect to be smacked back.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
It would seem at this stage, just shy of 100 votes, that roughly two thirds of voters have selected the "MMORPG's should have a Hardcore Server Option"
While I understand many of those voters may not play on the actual server, it must stand to reason that there ARE enough people there to warrent having that server option, at least on the more Popular MMORPG's.
And hardcore can take many forms, perhaps only partial lootings, or other penalties, boosts, timed looting etc...
I think instead of looting your equipment it should at least be looting your money. This would add great emphasis on depositing your money more often. Additionally, make money weigh like in EQ and possibly have a sound effect follow you around if you collect a lot of money. Such as the sound of a overstuffed purse of coins clattering. This would provide incentive for ganking, but it would also provide greater incentive to hunt down the gankers because they will most likely have very full wallets from all the other players they killed.
There are definite flaws in this idea, but it could work. A way to help balance things out could be that only 40 percent of your coins can be robbed at a time, and you cannot be looted again untill 5 minutes have passed. Just to protect them from people camping them and bleeding them dry.
Lastly people who go into the field with no coin what so ever will have a harder time getting around or hunting due to stable fees, buying food and drink, and repair bills. So this would encourage people to always carry atleast some coin on them, and it would encourage them to not lose all their coin because they will have a hard time getting back home or hunting efficiently.
P.S.
I was thinking that mailboxes set throughout the world like WoW or EQ2 would help as well for depositing funds straight into your bank, but you would only be able to do this every 30 minutes-1 hour.
the idea of Hardcore PVP is stupid,since the human nature is utterly stupid
MrBastard1. hey guys,do u know the news? MrNiceGuy finally got his Sword of the Heaven Pwnzord and enchanted it to +54! it only took him months of constant raiding and an absurd amount of ingame money to make it!
(MrNiceGuy is a lvl100 player,the best pvper in the game,can take anyone 1vs1 and he has been seen taking 1vs3 lots of times without much effort, hes skilled and knows everything abut the game, he is friendly with newbies and help them find their way,even gives them some gifts as help)
MrBastard2: oh noes...we cant leave it that way,can we?
MrBastard 3 to MrBastard8: no lol
(all make a 8 ppl (lvl80 average) party and search for him in the arena)
MrBastard6: he is over there! yahoooo!!
(they shameless gank him and MrNiceGuy drops his sword )
MrBastard1: cool,i got the drop. ima gonna sell it on ebay now...$300 first bid
I think that the only form of PvP should be hardcore. Why go part of the way with player killing? If someone wants to spend their time getting the best gear and are scared that they would loose it, then they should be playing PvE only games.
I like old school Player Killing. I would play muds where you looted the body and took not only their gear, but any money that they
had on them. We should have more of that style PvP. If you don't, then it is like playing poker for fun.
Comments
So what you are saying is your want to complain with like minds... not that you want a discussion. Your good conversations from what I have read are people pretty much praising you for your point of view... What you label LOTRO is everyone else who dissent from your view.I played LOTRO beta and left after 2 days as it is a WoW clone with a background history.
I refuse to play WOW as it's PvP sucks.
I play ShadowBane as it has FFA PvP.
I play AC1 DarkTide because it has FFA PvP and corpse looting.
I would play EVE in an instance if they removed real time skill advancement.
please try to label me as a carebear... you will only prove my point more.
What you want is not so unlike what I want... the difference is I live in reality.
You think subscriber base = success. It is only a fraction of what makes a game successful and thus what companies are willing to create. All companies want profit... again say they don't and show that you know nothing about business.
Lineage is an example how a company cornered the market in one specific area by making a game that was accessible financially and technically to their target market. In that area you are right they are hugely successful... Just like a store can be hugely successful in their home town but no one outside that town buys from them. Lineage generates a small fraction of revenue compared to several other MMOs out there... Second Life beats it for revenue... SECOND LIFE!
You want to prove your point... start a petition and get 300K+ signatures and you will validate your point. Make sure the petition states FFA PvP, full corpse looting, and $50 + $15 a month charge. I will even sign it with you... You know what... my guess is you get around 10K - 25K signatures... nothing more... Hence why again Hardcore PvP is not financially viable from a corp standpoint.
It is right, the "hardcore" pvp fanbase is not as huge as the pve fanbase or even the consentual pvp base. But, you have to accept, that the mmo market is now more than huge enough to offer more subgenres/niches that can compete with each others over the available playerbase.
Let say there are 10 mil. avaiable players:
(and of cousre every player fit in more than just one category)
5 million - pve wow/eq style
3 million - consentual pvp
1 million - sandbox
1 million - hardcore pvp
pve wow/eq style - 5-20 games available
consentual pvp - 3-10 games available
sandbox - 0 games available
hardcore pvp - 0 games available
So where are good chances to get enough customer to make a fair share of the market?
Of course, if you are a company like blizzard, you want the big part, so you make pve with consentual pvp, because there is the most available customers, but on the other side a lot of competitiors. But a company like blizzard do not have to fear other companies, blizzard may not be innovative, but they are well known for good polished products.
Others may choose much more a sandbox/hardcore pvp aprroach, not as much available customers, but on the same side not as much competitiors.
That is it basicly, it is the same with soloplayer games, or we would just have rts games, because of course there are the most available customers. Diversity is the key, it is sometimes better to look for a niche, and EvE is maybe a succesful proveness of this theory.
And now go back to the discussion, what ffa pvp game could have enough(or any other niche) appeal, to get the most share of those segment?
PS: All numbers are just assumptions, but may be more or less accurate.
PPS: Shadowbane had 75k subs from the beginning, even it was a bugridden shit of software. I was in the beta, and never bought it, because it was bugridden like hell, although the concept was quite well. And also do not forget, the crapped the european launch, because the european publisher gone broke before release, and a lot of european possible customers didnt bought the game because of this. So the overall potential of shadowbane was a lot more than just those 75k, and that to a time where games like daoc(200k subs), Anarchy Online(50k subs), were counted as successful. Just to get some facts straight.
Edit:
And dont argue about alternate server options, because this do not work. You can not make a game developed for eq-style pve and consentual pvp to a hardcore pvp game, it does not fit. And a lot of ffa server of such games, which failed miserable are just the prove of it. Sandbox on the other side, and hardcore pvp would fit quite good to each other.
When I was grinding my Jedi pre-cu I used to go mad when I died. All that XP lost! But at the same time it was a thrill when a BH turned up. My heart would be pounding out of my chest and if I won id be literally cheering and shouting at my monitor screen. Sounds a bit geeky but losing hundreds of thousands of XP which was hours upon hours of work was not the highlight of my day. So when i survived i'd be over the moon.
I've never experianced great pvp since my old SWG days. Fatigue, armour and weapons degrading on death, wounds, xp loss, buffs gone.. losing those things made you want to stay alive. PVP in swg was thrilling and pretty much made people stick together. I do miss the big guild city pvp battles
I agree that a FFA sandbox game could be made... That there is a small market for it and as Lineage has proven it can be successful in a small way. However only a new start-up developer would even think about trying this and getting a publisher would be a nightmare.
The funny thing is I am on your guys side... I like FFA PvP and lots of it... Some day that might be viable if trends change... but right now lets be realistic.
MMOs have an increasing development cost associated with them. More money has to be put into the product in order to compete in tomorrows market. That cost is not being pushed on the consumer yet... so companies have to appeal to a larger consumer base.
Publishers want nothing but big profits it is why they are in the market and do what they do. If you went to a publisher and said... "I have a game that is solid and will appeal to 10% of the MMO player base." What the publisher would hear is "I have a product that alienates 90% of you cash cow."
Can you understand my point? Even if you get a private developer to create the game it will be an inferior product because of money constraints and will have a really hard time finding a publisher... All this is true because it has happened before... Shadowbane....
You even said yourself you did not buy it because of the bugs.... Many PvP centric players did not buy it because the graphics sucked. That game is a prime example of everything I have been saying. People still play it... I still do in fact... but they can't make any money off their product and it has essentially died.
In order to get a good publisher and investment into an MMO... It has to appeal to the majority of the consumer base. That is just the way the industry works now. You can throw things at me, scream, insult, cry, and deny the truth... It will simply not change those facts.
You can say all numbers are subjective... I only rolled out numbers because other posters demanded them. The proof is now... like you said where are the FFA games... there were about 5 in development within the past 2 - 3 years... only one I know of is still around darkfall... and it has been in development what 7 years and still no beta... Sounds more and more like vaporware... I truly hope it is not but then I am a realist at heart. The rest died because of lack of interest. If there were 1 million people out there that fanatical about FFA PvP do you really think these games would have died?
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
A happy medium needs to be found for a death penalty. Wear and tear on your gear, maybe some coinage and buff loss and when your gear wears out its gone for ever. However the game needs to be pvp centric right from the first design thoughts. RvR seems to be a very nice method of PVP rather than a wide open kill it all type system.
Just a thought.
making games really isn't as hard as people make it out to be. problem is the real guys that usually have great talent to make games are swooped up fast. and once you release a game title that is really a hit your phone will always ring with job offers. scouts call us all at our job cause they see our name on the credits and try to get us to leave
it is true though it is not easy making a good solid title i am no stranger to 7 days 10+ hr work days hence why California is aflame with lawsuits
and i have no idea why Shadowbane could come out and as bigridden as folks claim. ive shipped RPGs where we only had like 2 programmers on it full time and others rotated in. we fixed all the major bugs- shipped with no crashes which is a requirement for RPG ona console. but we were a console game developer and I guess we're a lot more careful then a PC programmer. we worry about memory and performance while they jsut do what they want seriously. atm im stuck on a team shipping to multiple platforms and im aghast how sloppy the PC guys are they dont give a shit about our console skus
problem is industry is overrun with people with no imagination like many of the posters here. maybe im not much better but ive at least shipped original games and took a chance.
They say it cant work which is a stupid thing no one knows if something will be a hit or miss. Game publishers do a lot more strategic releases then anything else jsut to ensure they dont get steamrolled by relesing a title the sametime as a major work
Have any idea how worried Gam,e publishers are about shipping the sametime as Halo 3?????
You can have great balls of steel and shoot for the stars or/and punk out and take eays way out. it is true you can reduce your reduce by cloning whats out there. but sometimes you must innovate to get your title noticed. that is why I honestly prefer Console development to MMO because titles must innovate to get noticed while MMO market is a little different. It's about retaining players and stretching out character progression. shit that would tank bad if it was single player only most likely
The main issue is not the 'risk' like people think. The main reason is that the producers and designers are single player RPG nuts and they are WoW/EQ fans. seriously my producer thinks WoW greatest game on earth. they all play WoW everyone here. so first thing out of their mouth is timesinks.
they lack imagination and all there ideas are ripped from existing games they like. they are so desperate to get an original idea they contract out people from movie and books industry and use that IP nowadays
The average game designer ive seen- no offense- starts out as a beta tester. that is good and nice. but really I'd much rather see game designers ger recruited from comic book industry and console RPG market. those guys have true imagination and either must ship an innovative title or get laid off. The game industry is cruel that way all the major companies either shed dead weight or go out of business
I played LOTRO beta and left after 2 days as it is a WoW clone with a background history.
I refuse to play WOW as it's PvP sucks.
I play ShadowBane as it has FFA PvP.
I play AC1 DarkTide because it has FFA PvP and corpse looting.
I would play EVE in an instance if they removed real time skill advancement.
please try to label me as a carebear... you will only prove my point more.
What you want is not so unlike what I want... the difference is I live in reality.
You think subscriber base = success. It is only a fraction of what makes a game successful and thus what companies are willing to create. All companies want profit... again say they don't and show that you know nothing about business.
Lineage is an example how a company cornered the market in one specific area by making a game that was accessible financially and technically to their target market. In that area you are right they are hugely successful... Just like a store can be hugely successful in their home town but no one outside that town buys from them. Lineage generates a small fraction of revenue compared to several other MMOs out there... Second Life beats it for revenue... SECOND LIFE!
You want to prove your point... start a petition and get 300K+ signatures and you will validate your point. Make sure the petition states FFA PvP, full corpse looting, and $50 + $15 a month charge. I will even sign it with you... You know what... my guess is you get around 10K - 25K signatures... nothing more... Hence why again Hardcore PvP is not financially viable from a corp standpoint.
It is right, the "hardcore" pvp fanbase is not as huge as the pve fanbase or even the consentual pvp base. But, you have to accept, that the mmo market is now more than huge enough to offer more subgenres/niches that can compete with each others over the available playerbase.
Let say there are 10 mil. avaiable players:
(and of cousre every player fit in more than just one category)
5 million - pve wow/eq style
3 million - consentual pvp
1 million - sandbox
1 million - hardcore pvp
pve wow/eq style - 5-20 games available
consentual pvp - 3-10 games available
sandbox - 0 games available
hardcore pvp - 0 games available
So where are good chances to get enough customer to make a fair share of the market?
Of course, if you are a company like blizzard, you want the big part, so you make pve with consentual pvp, because there is the most available customers, but on the other side a lot of competitiors. But a company like blizzard do not have to fear other companies, blizzard may not be innovative, but they are well known for good polished products.
Others may choose much more a sandbox/hardcore pvp aprroach, not as much available customers, but on the same side not as much competitiors.
That is it basicly, it is the same with soloplayer games, or we would just have rts games, because of course there are the most available customers. Diversity is the key, it is sometimes better to look for a niche, and EvE is maybe a succesful proveness of this theory.
And now go back to the discussion, what ffa pvp game could have enough(or any other niche) appeal, to get the most share of those segment?
PS: All numbers are just assumptions, but may be more or less accurate.
PPS: Shadowbane had 75k subs from the beginning, even it was a bugridden shit of software. I was in the beta, and never bought it, because it was bugridden like hell, although the concept was quite well. And also do not forget, the crapped the european launch, because the european publisher gone broke before release, and a lot of european possible customers didnt bought the game because of this. So the overall potential of shadowbane was a lot more than just those 75k, and that to a time where games like daoc(200k subs), Anarchy Online(50k subs), were counted as successful. Just to get some facts straight.
Edit:
And dont argue about alternate server options, because this do not work. You can not make a game developed for eq-style pve and consentual pvp to a hardcore pvp game, it does not fit. And a lot of ffa server of such games, which failed miserable are just the prove of it. Sandbox on the other side, and hardcore pvp would fit quite good to each other.
yeah good post all the way. I guess the shadowbane guys got a really raw deal. it happens like that sometimes. I gues ive been fortunate to work with good publishers that would rather cancel the title then ship and tarnish their name
Well, at least a lot developer think like you, and it is right, that is the reason why we see more and more WoWstyle games, because it is successful and a proven concept.
But well, what are the 3 most succesful mmos out there?
WoW, Second Life and Dofus.. granted, Second Life and Dofus are free to play, but there are also a lot of EQstyle free to play title with little to no success at all. Second Life and Dofus are successful in their boundaries, because they are completely different than anything else without any compititor in their segment.
5 FFA games in development? Well, i really cant remember one release of an such a game.. Ok, DnL(it was not really ffa, but more or less in this direction), but why did it fail? Because of lack of potential subscribers? Hell no, it was one of the most hyped games, it had a lot of registered users in their forum. It did not fail because of the lack of potential subs, it failed because it was again a piece of crap just from the software view of point. Yes, i played the so called Settler of Ganareth.. just a nightmare.. played it not more than an hour.. and just the movement and fighting was the turn off for me, here.. i couldnt explore much more in this short time period.
Sure, if wannabe developers are unable to make a solid game(independent from the genre) it will fail, we have all some minimum standards nowadays, and those have to fullfilled at least. So yes, you need good developers and a more or less good funding, and enough time to develop it. And granted a good mmo is really extremely expensive, and here especially a sandbox game, because of the openended content. And it is also true, that it is hard to get a publisher or an investor for a not proved game style, it is always the same.
Well, so someone, have to make it, a more or less independent developer, because the big companies will never finanze such a project. It has to be someone like Richard Garriot, or maybe Raph Koster.. well known and succesful designers, they maybe get the funds, just because of their reputation, and then realize something like that.
Or even an indepentent and newcomer studio can pull it off, and prove that something like that can be successful, well, maybe darkfall can prove it, if the devs there are able to release a solid game... just from the software quality point of view.. the features sound promising, but if it is like DnL or Shadowbane, a bugridden piece of shit, it will fail like all the other bullshit. But again, not because of the features, just because it is not a quality product. And to be honest, with such a feature palett maybe a game like Vanguard(from the quality standpoint) would be successful, but in the pve segment it was just not good enough.. again, just the quality standpoint of the software.
And yeap, i am on your side, but i have at least some hope, or better said, only this little hope let me wait for something good.
But this is not only the dilemma of the mmo genre, it is an overall problem, the mainstream companies with enough fundings produce just clones.. why we have one million Dune2(first RTS) RTS games, or one million Wolfenstein3D(first FPS) FPS games, with almost no or little improvement at all? Because they were successful, and this is the place where the funds were, and will be invested. Or where are the big innovations in the single player segment?
It became harder and harder for independent development studios, which brought some innovation into computer games, look what happened with Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood Studios, Bitmap Brothers and all the small, independent, and innovativ development studios?
I really know what is going on, the mmo problem is not a stand alone complex, i have played computer/console games since over 25 years, and the quality(design) and innovation was always reduced step by step, the same way the production costs were increased step by step and of course the quality of graphics and the like.
And this is a reason because i do not play a lot of games lately, the last mmo i played, was for around 2 years. Or play games just for a few hours, because they are not worth anymore of my time. And know what, the last game i played longer than a few hours, and now more than one year is a game in development called mount&played(2 developers), and granted civilication4.(but civilication is one of the few games you can play for years and years and buy just the new graphical update with a few improvements)
And ok.. a multiplayer game.. Dawn of War(good old Z style RTS, which i prefer over the Dune2 style RTS.. it is maybe the same like EQstyle vs. UOstyle
), which i have played since over a year, or even two. And well, sometimes a shooter here and there, or BFxx casually.
Edit: And now look at Lord of the Ring, it is a solid quality product, but it will fail in the long run, not because of the quality, because it is in no way innovativ, it is WoW with another theme. And let say it like it is, WoW is the pinnacle of this style of games, it is perfect from a quality point of view, and from now on, you can just get enough subs, if a game has something to offer which WoW hasnt.
Btw. it was almost the same with Starcraft, or was any other RTS really successful after it, with the same approach to the rts genre?
Well, at least a lot developer think like you, and it is right, that is the reason why we see more and more WoWstyle games, because it is successful and a proven concept.
But well, what are the 3 most succesful mmos out there?
WoW, Second Life and Dofus.. granted, Second Life and Dofus are free to play, but there are also a lot of EQstyle free to play title with little to no success at all. Second Life and Dofus are successful in their boundaries, because they are completely different than anything else without any compititor in their segment.
5 FFA games in development? Well, i really cant remember one release of an such a game.. Ok, DnL(it was not really ffa, but more or less in this direction), but why did it fail? Because of lack of potential subscribers? Hell no, it was one of the most hyped games, it had a lot of registered users in their forum. It did not fail because of the lack of potential subs, it failed because it was again a piece of crap just from the software view of point. Yes, i played the so called Settler of Ganareth.. just a nightmare.. played it not more than an hour.. and just the movement and fighting was the turn off for me, here.. i couldnt explore much more in this short time period.
Sure, if wannabe developers are unable to make a solid game(independent from the genre) it will fail, we have all some minimum standards nowadays, and those have to fullfilled at least. So yes, you need good developers and a more or less good funding, and enough time to develop it. And granted a good mmo is really extremely expensive, and here especially a sandbox game, because of the openended content. And it is also true, that it is hard to get a publisher or an investor for a not proved game style, it is always the same.
Well, so someone, have to make it, a more or less independent developer, because the big companies will never finanze such a project. It has to be someone like Richard Garriot, or maybe Raph Koster.. well known and succesful designers, they maybe get the funds, just because of their reputation, and then realize something like that.
Or even an indepentent and newcomer studio can pull it off, and prove that something like that can be successful, well, maybe darkfall can prove it, if the devs there are able to release a solid game... just from the software quality point of view.. the features sound promising, but if it is like DnL or Shadowbane, a bugridden piece of shit, it will fail like all the other bullshit. But again, not because of the features, just because it is not a quality product. And to be honest, with such a feature palett maybe a game like Vanguard(from the quality standpoint) would be successful, but in the pve segment it was just not good enough.. again, just the quality standpoint of the software.
And yeap, i am on your side, but i have at least some hope, or better said, only this little hope let me wait for something good.
But this is not only the dilemma of the mmo genre, it is an overall problem, the mainstream companies with enough fundings produce just clones.. why we have one million Dune2(first RTS) RTS games, or one million Wolfenstein3D(first FPS) FPS games, with almost no or little improvement at all? Because they were successful, and this is the place where the funds were, and will be invested. Or where are the big innovations in the single player segment?
It became harder and harder for independent development studios, which brought some innovation into computer games, look what happened with Bullfrog, Origin, Westwood Studios, Bitmap Brothers and all the small, independent, and innovativ development studios?
I really know what is going on, the mmo problem is not a stand alone complex, i have played computer/console games since over 25 years, and the quality(design) and innovation was always reduced step by step, the same way the production costs were increased step by step and of course the quality of graphics and the like.
And this is a reason because i do not play a lot of games lately, the last mmo i played, was for around 2 years. Or play games just for a few hours, because they are not worth anymore of my time. And know what, the last game i played longer than a few hours, and now more than one year is a game in development called mount&played(2 developers), and granted civilication4.(but civilication is one of the few games you can play for years and years and buy just the new graphical update with a few improvements)
And ok.. a multiplayer game.. Dawn of War(good old Z style RTS, which i prefer over the Dune2 style RTS.. it is maybe the same like EQstyle vs. UOstyle
), which i have played since over a year, or even two. And well, sometimes a shooter here and there, or BFxx casually.
Edit: And now look at Lord of the Ring, it is a solid quality product, but it will fail in the long run, not because of the quality, because it is in no way innovativ, it is WoW with another theme. And let say it like it is, WoW is the pinnacle of this style of games, it is perfect from a quality point of view, and from now on, you can just get enough subs, if a game has something to offer which WoW hasnt.
Btw. it was almost the same with Starcraft, or was any other RTS really successful after it, with the same approach to the rts genre?
Excellent post! I agree with most of your statements.
However, I have to disagree with you and Vajuras on the amount of ideas running around in the industry. I recently read an article, http://www.firingsquad.com/features/killing_game_development/, that explains that the apparent lack of innovation is not from the lack of ideas; in fact, there are PLENTY of ideas running around. The reason why we are seeing repetitive titles is, bottom line, INVESTMENT. Publishers dont want to invest in a title that will do bad. They want a garunteed success, like sequels, and that confidence that they gain from doing a tried and successful "forumla" trickles down into the development. You need an organized development team motived and on the job to get things done. Alot of the times the development team loses morale and steam and the development slows down (Darkfall, perhaps?).
Vajuras, again your wrong - it is becoming increasingly more and more difficult to create games. Lets put it this way - games are coming in to the tier as movies. Movies are big budget projects nowadays, not like it was 50 years ago. There are a ton of things that go in to creating a movie. There are a TON of scripts that go in yet only a handful are selected. The same thing for video games. The increasing demand for better graphics, more content and better quality and so forth forces the development of games to become more and more complex and more costly. A game's cost to make 10 years ago is dwarfed in comparison to today's top games.
Especially MMO's. MMO's are huge - take a look at the development of AoC. Just at the basics, Age of Conan needs animators, World Designers, script writers, an army of programmers, a whole musical division devoted to the creation of custom audio to the game, voice actors, testers, marketing, utility fees - the list goes on and on. And for how many years a game goes into development? There you go - the cost goes up, so the RISK of the game goes up. In addition, the price for games has averaged out to 50 bucks a pop, so publishers cant raise the price for a game.
So when you watch a movie, you may say "well, that was okay, but it was kinda predictable" then thats prolly on the same line as a formula game (The basic formula meaning WoW - example is LOTRO) . However, there are a couple times you can come out and say "hey, that movie was pretty damn good" then thats the equivalent of a unique game (Asheron's Call, DAoC). Relatively, of course.
But people are wrong when they say that there is no Hardcore PvP market. There IS. There is and there always will be. Sure, maybe they are lower in number, but they are there. Since there are so many formula games out, then there is eventually going to be money in a game that has PvP in it cause ALL of the hardcore PvP'rs are going to go to it. The thing is, is that a publisher needs to be willing to take the risk on such a game.
Saying that theres no market for Hardcore PvP is like saying the sun doesnt come up. Hehe, it does, you can deny reality all you want. Its there, theres a group that wants it. The publisher just needs to be willing to take a chance.
Thats all.
yep teams are getting bigger and bigger true- however people are getting smarter and smarter. procedural algorithms are getting better and better so generating viurtual worlds for players is becoming closer. this means less art and content is needed
look at EVE. from what ive seen so far ingame I do not see a huge dependency on art. independants can hit new enviroments and reduce their cost dramatically.
sure multi-core engines cost but really if they go sandbox your need for scripters drop dramatically. need for content drops dramatically. give the gamers a toybox and they will keep themselves entertained.
for a WoW equivalent yes thats massive. but for sandbox? less people are needed. hell you'd be suprised at the size of the teams employed by MMOs many of them pretty small
edit- I'm really suprised we dont see a lot more sandbox because they are a lot cheaper to make. Extreme example- I see a simple sandbox game that focuses on building cities pretty successful. Artist just focuses on props for buildings. 2-3 male and female base model (like city of heroes) for characters, some art here and there for NPCs, procedurally generate terrain / grass, etc. Generate events where city can be attacked. Reuse mobs like they do in city of herpoes and just dress them up different. before this was a pain to do due to static lighting but now we have dynamic lighting capable video cards. I expect to see this soon if not already done because now engines can allow players to put down geoemtry anywhere and collision detection systems are pretty flexible now that we moved away from BSP
Art? Dude, the animators are the ones that create the things we see in game. They create *everything* from every tree, rock, river. The world designers, they put everything there. The world isnt randomly generated, its hand made.
The costs to make an MMO are humongous. Its in the millions. Regardless if technology advanced and people figure out more, they cant keep up with the increasing costs. The costs alone for the staff is enough to make anyone barf. And the game development is in YEARS. The production costs are massive. Around 30 million.
And yeah its sad we dont see alot of sandbox MMO's, they are alot more fun than the class based ones we see every day. A sand box MMo with good PvP is a dream. Classes right now dominate, we need a publisher again willing to invest in a game that breaks the formula.
http://www.fl-tw.com/Infinity/infinity_media.php
see 1 programmer is doing this one. procedurally generating the worlds. this is what I speak of I dont see why you need a huge team to make a sandbox title. maybe we have miscommunition because I speak of sandbox and others might be thinking something crazy like WoW. Yeah WoW is good but it is no where near the potential I see for massive multiplayer games
I envision employing procedural algoirthms like this guy proposes to generate thousands of worlds to explore. maybe i am dreaming hard but eventually someone will use their noggin' and generate content for us gamers to explore.
only problem will be that the worlds be so vast- we might not ever find one another!
anyway just using Infinity as an example. see, small team doing something fairly competitive. mght not be a huge blockbuster but has good dieas and pushing forward
well minor correction to this Animators dont create 'anything'. All they do is animate the skeletons and work with mocap data. Yeah stuff like mocap costs upwards of just 1 million if you try to get a celebrity and pay by the hour and foir all the mocap data
yeah what you say is true but I speak of true sandbox where content is either computer or player driven. Artists (modelers, enviroment) only provide the base pieces
checkout infinity. we both speak of different things. I do not think we need a huge art crafted world like WoW! Just give us gamer the ability to craft our own worlds and we can have huge worlds bigger then any developer could ever do. They can -never- keep up with gamers
80% of the MMO consumer base needs their hand held to be introduced to a game. That is why there is almost always a tutorial zone of some kind when you start. With such a free open type sandbox game the simple tutorial zone would not be enough which reduces subscriptions.
Your example only enforces my view. It has been in development for over 4 years and is perhaps at best 50% complete. Even with infinite resolve you are looking at another 3 - 4 years of development before it will be ready for beta. Perhaps he can find a publisher, but it will not be easy without a development firm backing him up. Without a publisher his game is going nowhere and all that time invested has no value returned. He would end up selling the bits that are not outdated and probably never do anything like that again.
I laughed when you slammed PC developers. You design games with rigid hardware and software requirements. Other then minor patches and HD upgrades when you write something for a console it is all static. When you write for a PC game you have to account for thousands of hardware, software, and network variants. To prove my point show me a console game box that has hardware and software requirements...
You will not find a single PC game without it. Writing a PC game is far more difficult then writing for a console. I am not trying to belittle your job... any decent coding takes patience and skill... but it is laughable to see you mock PC programmers when you have no clue what they go through or ignore it which would be worse. Just writing a simple web page which is beyond basic programming still takes the consideration of 4 different browsers where your code could show up differently on all 4. Times that by the thousands and thats what PC game developers go through.
Sandbox games are not impossible to create... it is getting someone to stand up and take notice with money.
Since you are a developer why are you on here lamenting about this rather then doing like the developer in your link and build your perfect game. If you have the knowledge and apparently it is far superior to any PC developer... You should have no problem whipping up a game for us.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
meh Infinity was just an example he has good ideas is all I pointed out. my point was you can procedurally generate content. well this is known to programmers but maybe the community at large does not realize how well this technology can be utilized
edit- hm, reading my original post I did state I was using them as an example stop trying to nitpick everyone's post lol. if you dont want sandbox / hardcore PVP / risky PVP fine but at least allow others to have a good conversation about it. I know im not here to convince anyone of anything
As long as every game that comes out is based on loot, then PURE FFA loot drop PVP will not exisit. When people take hours upon hours and days upon days just to get 1 or 2 items, devs will never allow them to lose these items in 1 death. The people that play the game for the loot would quit in a heartbeat if thier ubersword of cowmilking that dropped off the last boss of *insert dungeoun name here, was ever taken from them.
People have been brain washed to care more about thier item pixels then playing the game. A majority, if this doesnt apply to you then good, of the MMOers that play now will spend hours upon hours to get thier ubersword of cowmilking cause they THINK that it will make them uber to.
Old school (and I mean pre-tram) UO, was one of the last games that was about the player character and skills. You didnt have an ubersword of cowmilking that took you 45 times killing *insert boss name* to get it. Crafters made items, they sold thier items, players used them and if they lost the item, you would go back to a crafter (or your mule) to get another item. There was no shortage of items to use in pvp.
As long as Devs make the game about the loot (which seems to sell thier games right now), then PVP will never be free again.
BINGO!!!
Currently in such formula games, notably WoW, is item primary, character customization secondary, and skills tertiary. (order of importance)
What you would want to make a better game, is Skills primary, customization secondary, and items tertiary.
I mean, take at all of the "WoW sucks" threads and you'll see that its the big problem out there. Item centric = grinding = people not wanting to give up their loot = farmers win. And as we all know, that SUCKS.
Vajuras, Im not going to further continue my discussion with sandbox MMO's, since I really dont know all that much on that topic and dont want to risk giving out false info.
things i suggest are experimental and shouldnt really be mentioned here. much better topic over at gamedev.
edit- well what i say isnt super experimental tho since almost every game uses procedural methods to make their base terrain. anyway gfone off topic i think on that minor thing was just elaborating on the emthod
Yes, PvP with no loot is like Poker with no money - fun for a short while, but then pointless.
FFA Pvp ought to be able to work, people want a place to fight each other and earn something from it, in a more in-depth and persistent world than the FPS games. It's not about being able to gank on the people who DONT want to play in that world. The people looking for "hardcore" pvp don't want others to be in their world; and vice versa. I am somewhat in the middle, as I usually am - sometimes I really enjoy the adrenaline that pumps when I know that I can be attacked at any time by anyone, and will lost my stuff. When someone does something that annoys me, does some exploit, steals a kill, or offends me in some way; it's really nice to be able to hurt them. If they didn't want to be hurt that way, I wouldn't expect them to be playing on that server. Most of the time though, I would rather be safe. If the game gives me a choice, I will choose to play it safe, but when a game is designed from the ground up for more hardcore play, I usually enjoy it.
More hardcore rulesets would be nice to add, and it doesn't have to cost that much either. These players will either be playing on server A (non-hardcore) or server B (hardcore), never both at the same time. So the processor usage for each player remains the same whether it is one server or two. Depending on how servers are distributed, the only reason it would cost more than NOT having a hardcore server, is if the hardcore server itself draws new players. In which case you are making more money
Of course this is all theory; but I assume the costs that prohibit companies from running hardcore server have more to do with catering to those audiences, doing the bug testing with the seperate ruleset, and things of that nature.
People who don't like full looting, I can understand where your coming from. Most of the time I don't. But I don't see why you are so adamant in this thread that there should not be a full looting game, period. If enough people want it, why shouldn't there be. Heck, it's really too bad, even if only a few people want it, it seems like there ought to be a game for them anyway. Because none of the games made for people who don't want to have to much risk are ever going to satisfy these people. And don't be so quick to judge them as griefers. The best game for a griefer would be where you can attack someone with no retaliation. The best full loot game would be where you are never sure if the player you attack may be stronger than you - you should never be able to do a consider on another player. There should also be group size limits too avoid extremely lopsided battles, although a fairly lopsided fight such as 8 to 1 should happen every now and then - but victory should never be sure, even in a fight such as this.
I would enjoy a violent difficult gameworld where it may be a fight just to survive. I've played a few, such as star sonata, that gave this sort of feeling. It makes it that much more satisfying when you start being able to do well. It wouldn't be my primary game by any means, I prefer games with no fighting at all; but sometimes I want something to get my blood pumping. But we have to find a way to get a large enough audience or it would never be successful
--------------------
One last thing - it is asanine to use regular FPS to compare to MMO's for any of this discussion. Not only is there twitch based, player skill 100% combat - with 400% better netcode than most mmos I might add - but there is also a very short, non persistent match/goal that you are working towards. It is more like a sports match. You can invest everything into the 10 minutes or so that it lasts, and then its over and you can either be happy that you won, or sad that you were defeated. In an mmo, you have to be looking beyond just one match. This is where the loss needs to come into play somehow. When you get killed in a fps, you DO get to jump right back into the action, but you do lose something that counts a lot - you are giving the other team a point, or giving another player a point, etc. In effect, you are making your score go down. In an mmo, this could easily be compared with losing some xp or losing an item. And in a game like counterstrike, where you are down for the whole match, it would be like permanent death. Which even fewer people want than full looting. So, fps and mmo aren't really that comparable.
There is so much that is different just simply due to the altered timeframe.
Anyway, the hardcore pvp enthusiasts should stop calling other players carebears and the like, whats wrong with them wanting to play the type of game they like? And for everyone else, your style of game is pretty well supported already, why can't new (well, old...) playstyles be supported as well, at least to some extent?
To the OP, I think the title of this thread is a bit off. For very similar reasons as FPS, I don't think that player combat is that similar to poker. But I for one would like to have more pvp-style games to offset the million World of Warcraft style games.
I do want sandbox and FFA PvP... I have stated this several times. You are not having a conversation you are complaining... I am simply pointing out that current market trends MUST change in order for these types of games to become mainstream. If you want a good conversation about what features would be good in a sandbox game... I am all for that... this thread has proven to be something else.
You also conveniently ignored my retort about console vs PC programming... just another indication you want to smack talk but can't take opposing points when you are called out.
Start a thread about what would make a good sandbox game without slamming any existing games or their communities and I will contribute positively. You will find what you and I want are not so different. If you start smack talking... you have to expect to be smacked back.
-Atziluth-
- Never underestimate the predictability of stupidity.
It would seem at this stage, just shy of 100 votes, that roughly two thirds of voters have selected the "MMORPG's should have a Hardcore Server Option"
While I understand many of those voters may not play on the actual server, it must stand to reason that there ARE enough people there to warrent having that server option, at least on the more Popular MMORPG's.
And hardcore can take many forms, perhaps only partial lootings, or other penalties, boosts, timed looting etc...
Developers take note.
----
MMORPG's I've Played: World of Warcraft: 10/10 - Rappelz: 7/10 - Ragnarok Online: 8/10 - DnD Online: 2/10 - Runescape: 6/10 - LotR Online: 5/10 - Anarchy Online: 7/10 - CoV: 8/10 - Rohan Online: 8/10 - Guild Wars: 7/10 - Flyff: 8/10 - Warhammer Online: 8/10
My HARDCORE Story
I think instead of looting your equipment it should at least be looting your money. This would add great emphasis on depositing your money more often. Additionally, make money weigh like in EQ and possibly have a sound effect follow you around if you collect a lot of money. Such as the sound of a overstuffed purse of coins clattering. This would provide incentive for ganking, but it would also provide greater incentive to hunt down the gankers because they will most likely have very full wallets from all the other players they killed.
There are definite flaws in this idea, but it could work. A way to help balance things out could be that only 40 percent of your coins can be robbed at a time, and you cannot be looted again untill 5 minutes have passed. Just to protect them from people camping them and bleeding them dry.
Lastly people who go into the field with no coin what so ever will have a harder time getting around or hunting due to stable fees, buying food and drink, and repair bills. So this would encourage people to always carry atleast some coin on them, and it would encourage them to not lose all their coin because they will have a hard time getting back home or hunting efficiently.
P.S.
I was thinking that mailboxes set throughout the world like WoW or EQ2 would help as well for depositing funds straight into your bank, but you would only be able to do this every 30 minutes-1 hour.
the idea of Hardcore PVP is stupid,since the human nature is utterly stupid
MrBastard1. hey guys,do u know the news? MrNiceGuy finally got his Sword of the Heaven Pwnzord and enchanted it to +54! it only took him months of constant raiding and an absurd amount of ingame money to make it!
(MrNiceGuy is a lvl100 player,the best pvper in the game,can take anyone 1vs1 and he has been seen taking 1vs3 lots of times without much effort, hes skilled and knows everything abut the game, he is friendly with newbies and help them find their way,even gives them some gifts as help)
MrBastard2: oh noes...we cant leave it that way,can we?
MrBastard 3 to MrBastard8: no lol
(all make a 8 ppl (lvl80 average) party and search for him in the arena)
MrBastard6: he is over there! yahoooo!!
(they shameless gank him and MrNiceGuy drops his sword )
MrBastard1: cool,i got the drop. ima gonna sell it on ebay now...$300 first bid
MrBastard2-MrBastard8: hehehehe
I think that the only form of PvP should be hardcore. Why go part of the way with player killing? If someone wants to spend their time getting the best gear and are scared that they would loose it, then they should be playing PvE only games.
I like old school Player Killing. I would play muds where you looted the body and took not only their gear, but any money that they
had on them. We should have more of that style PvP. If you don't, then it is like playing poker for fun.
well, IMHO PvP is the way to test yourself and your skills against another player,not an AI mob.
there isnt any" test yourself" in zerging one guy that cant defend himself, but that could pwn 1 by 1 any of you
and any Hardcore PvP server will become a zerg feast. thats a cold fact.
ppl would stay in town for hours till they get a full party,then they'd dare to step out. jeeeeesus,sooo funny! waiting for hours for a full party!
let me remark again. a hardcore PvP server is stupid cuz human nature is utterly stupid.