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The MMORPG Race
ORsaleen
Member Posts: 20
How many good MMORPG's would you say are on the virge of release? 1? 2? 3? or maybe 10+? One thing is for sure there are quite a few. Many game developers have been working hard on for the past few months, and even years, just to make the next best game. Well I can tell you right now, the clock is ticking. This is a race between the top MMORPG's. Whoever comes out first WILL win.
The Name (10%)
Successful MMORPG's get their name out there. They advertise on top sites, and thats how they get their players and completitor's players. Spreading the word of their game is going to be their initial catch, bringing people to their website and making them potential customers.
P2p B2p F2p? (10%)
The cheapest will always win. It is fact. You WILL gain more players by making a free to play game. But if you make a free game how can you make money? Simple. Item malls are everywhere, and they are great sources of income. P2p is an option but beware. When making P2p games you SEVERLY cut your targeted player range. Not everybody has a credit card, and if your game isnt 100 times better than the next MMO, it wont be enough. A player who pays monthly for his already good character in another game will NEVER move if its just another P2p game where they will eventually realise that they wasted their time and money, again. P2p is NOT an option. Nobody should Pay monthly fees just to play a game. No matter how good it is. It was an option for WoW when it started, but this has now become a race. Buy to play is by far the best option. Buying a game once and playing it is definatly teh classic way to go. Your range increases greatly. Just like Guild Wars has done. They release a new one every so often and still continue to make more and more money. P2p WILL NOT WORK FOR ANY INCOMING GAME IN THIS RACE! ITEM MALLS AND B2P WILL PREVIAL.
Graphics (20%)
This is one of the biggest deciding factors. When someone goes to the MMO advertisement the first thing they will look at are the screenshots. PICK THEM WISELY. Graphics will always be constantly improved over time. Staying with a shity graphic'd game is completely retarded for any true player. For example, continuing to play runescape is continuing to live in your parents basement and becoming a 50 year old virgin. DONT BE AFRAID TO UPGRADE. Graphics are VERY VERY important. Who ever has the best will gain a very big lead.
Game Play (15%)
Gameplay is important to keep your players interest. With constant interest into one single game means less interest into competitor's games. Controling your character is also part of gameplay. You cannot feel like your controlling adrine, you must feel like yoru controlling a part of yourself! Customizability is a big plus because it WILL make a player feel more connected to the game. Having ultimate controls, no boundaries, limitless possibliities is the key to keeping a player's interest.
Customer Support (5%)
As of now it is semi important. Having great customer support will also keep players interests. Letting players know your game is constantly improved will boost moral.
Release Date/Speed (40%)
The BIGGEST factor in winning this race. Players do not want to stick around and wait and wait for promised release dates, which never get met. The first of them all will most liekly be the most successful. Beta's are always good but not always the best option. Having too many betas can really destroy your game. The best solution is to release your game after very few beta's, and patch as you go. Since most of these games are very similar we can only expect to see the first one to come out to be the most successful. It is only a simple race as to which one it will be. Players WILL NOT play every game when it comes out. The first to come out will swope up the majority of all the customers and profit the most. It is fact. No one will wait for your game if it comes out in 6 months. Players will abandon hope and put their interest on other games, ones that are already out.
These are what will determine the success of any and all MMO's in this race.
Comments
Sorry, but you are so, so wrong. The quality product is what is the important thing, not the release date.
By your reasoning Vanguard should have been a huge success....as it was out before LOTRO, before WAR/AOC and all the other. Oh wait, it wasn't. Becuase the game was a pile of crap.
WoW has the manta of, 'its ready when its ready'. Financal limiting reasons will always rule as well, but the providing of a quality product which attracts...and more importantly keeps people is the important thing. EA relased this when they put back WAR after seeing what happened to Vanguard.
Umm what is the point of this thread? You have no clue what you are talking about (Pay to play games don't work
), I'm guessing this is just a 13 year old ranting about something he knows nothing about.
OMG this, I think this is the most stupid person i have ever seen on this forum, He has no idea what he is talking about
90% of people who quote percentages have no idea what they are talking about
I respectfully disagree. I think the OP has an interesting point. I do agree that game play is more important than the release date, though. If a game that comes out earlier isn't compelling, people will switch quickly to the next big release.
I can't stop laughing... so simple, the irony. But at 7:00am on a work Friday this is hilarious. Maybe I need some coffee...
I respectfully disagree. I think the OP has an interesting point. I do agree that game play is more important than the release date, though. If a game that comes out earlier isn't compelling, people will switch quickly to the next big release.
OK shouldn't of use the word stupid but just his % are way of IMO, i say about 80% of gamers base what game they are going to play is on game play alone. I would play a that has 1980's graphics if the game was fun to play than play a game that has the best graphics in the world but was only med-core on game play any day. the only thing i think is true about his post is the Buy to play games are going to be the games with the most active plays in the near future but not right as there are very few MMO like that out right now that use this.
This is very amusing, which is the point of op I guess, to amuse us
You gave graphics a higher % than gameplay... I mean, graphics might be almost equal to gameplay when it comes to getting people's attention (possibly even more important if it's someone who just picked up a game at a store and is looking at pretty screenshots) but without gameplay you get vanguard or ac2.
Your idea that p2p games are a thing of the past is just hilarious. f2p with item mall games for the most part are asian mmos, which are such crap that no one would ever pay to play them (honestly, almost every asian mmo is a lineage clone and they can't even make a game better than lineage..) none of successful na/euro based games use f2p so meh. B2p has only been done by guild wars, which some don't consider an mmo since it has mostly instances with little noneinstanced areas. It's an option, though seeing how it's only 1 game compared to many p2p it's hard to even guess why you feel f2p or b2p games are the future and p2p are the past =p
Your views on beta and release are of course the most amusing. So, companies should have short betas, try to release their games asap to beat competition to the punch, and then patch them up as they go? Well, if a company wants to pull off vanguard then yes, I guess that's the best way to do it. Not really the best way to get a lot of subscribers and make a financially successful game, but why bother with that when you could beat vanguard for the title of the worst mmo released? =p
More recent numbers put this at 82%. Check your sources.
Really? *Decides to quickly make a MMORPG out of that free software Eclipse* HAHAH! Instant riches!
ok? so?
Saying P2p is not an option is an incorrect statement, and thats it.
And yes we should pay monthly fees to play a game, you can't compare it to a non - MMO. Playing an MMO costs the game provider money, an MMO provider has to host servers and pay for the connection between you and the server. It also has to pay its staff for new content. Its like saying we should never pay money for gas for a car. A car requires resources, and an MMORPG is no different.
Its still an option, Lotro is doing fine, I'm sure all other upcomming P2P mmo's will do fine. while its true your range will increase greatly, you will NOT receive a monthly. In the long run, either item shop or a monthly fee is the way to go, not buying a game once.
An item mall is certainly a good option, but its just stupid to claim that a monthly fee is not an option. You are simply uneducated about this subject.
I really find this post amusing, it certainly has to have been written in jest.
Let me clarify a little better for you guys. This is a race. Its about the future. You will notice with the increasing MMO's players will be spread more evenly throughout every game.
Graphics are more important than gameplay. For example, you hear about a brand new MMO just released. You and along with 100,000 other people. You go to the website, the first thing you click on are the Screenshots. This is where the numbers will drop the most severly. No one, not even the person who said they would take 1980's graphics would even think about playing it. Let's say its a stick figures MMO, do you really think even 10% of the 100,000 players are going to stick around after seeing that? On the other hand, lets say the game supports shader model 3.0 and has the most realistic graphics you've ever seen in any MMO. Just the sight of seeing those graphics WILL make a player start to download their product, or look deeper into before deciding.
The biggest market is proven to be in item mall and Buy to play. Pay to play WILL be a thing of the past. Games are already starting to realise this the way Guild Wars has. Creating a new stand alone game after every 6 months will boost sales greatly. Please check out the list of P2p games, count how many you havent played. How many did you count? Probably 10? 20? more? All of them have a fanbase with people who like their game reguardless of what the majority thinks. But how does the majority get word of the game if its P2p? You really think with all the competition a Pay 2 Play game is a smart choice? Sure you will immediately grab a few players but you will never succeed. B2p and F2p has the biggest base with players and can still make plently of money. P2p is a thing of the past and is nopt an option with all of the imcomming competition
I know you all may think gameplay is much much more important but the truth is there are other factors that influence more than gameplay. I agree gameplay is important but it is not what gets you your customers. Its what keeps yoru customers. Grabbing your customers is much more important. The first step is to grab and the next is to get them to stay. Any player would tell you its all about gameplay, but the truth is its not. Its just a misconception.
@ Gameloading - I respect what you have to say. However you are wrong. First off, game companies can buy servers, rent them, or even get them for free. The costs to host these large servers is quite a bit. However most of these companies strike great deals by renting or buying multiple servers. However just advertising on their site will fully cover their server cost if they have a decent amount of players. For example, MMORPG ranks about 5,000 out of every website.They probably make somewhere around $25,000 a month just on advertisements. Dont believe me? They could probably sell their website for over a quarter of a million. Still dont believe me? Check yourself. Look and see how much traffic comes to MMORPG.
http://www.alexa.com/data/details/traffic_details?url=www.mmorpg.com
As for your comment on P2p being an option. It is wrong. It may have worked for lotr only because of fan base. Just wait and see when it dies down. P2p is a thing of the past. Just wait and see. Its like those good old price wars between similar companies. Lowest prices outsource everyone else. It will be the same for MMORPG's in this race. B2p and item mall is the future.
"Its like saying we should never pay money for gas for a car. A car requires resources, and an MMORPG is no different."
Wrong. I am saying the future does not rely on gas. Gas WILL run out. The resources for the car are not limitless. I am saying rather than paying for a gas car and putting gas into it every week, buy an electric or hybrid car. Its all about the future, not the past. The past is P2p, the future will not shine so brightly on any P2p game. Gaming companies are even starting to notice this. Take for example 9 Dragons, Cabal, 2 moons, and even ArchLord. All of these are realising what the future brings. A game like lotr might have gotten away with it, but mark my words. It will NOT get away with it in the end. Eventually it will fail, and even you will begin to notice.
I thought your second post was supposed to clarify things? Well, I guess it clarified one thing, your still trying to throw us your opinions around as fact. You may look for eye-candy when buying a game, and you may look for the cheapest way to entertain yourself, however, the majority of the MMO players out there put these WAAAAY behind gameplay. Take LoTRO for example, excellext graphics (the eye-candy), yes it is pay to play, but if you got in on the founder discounts it's one of the cheapest out there, BUT the majority of complaints about the game on these forums is how boring/hollow the game is. Another example, and the most successful MMO to date, is WoW. Ok graphics (nothing spectacular there in my opinion), yet again, pay to play, but low and behold, millions of subscibers because the game is fun to play. I could go on giving examples, but I think those 2 make my point pretty well.
Those aspects you list as high priority might be just that for you, but I (and alot of others by the posts here) completely disagree.
You've once again fallen into that range of posters who think they speak for the entire gaming community and wind up making an ass of themselves.
Well, hell. Let's just make stuff up.
The Color Blue (37%): How much of this color does the game have? Not enough blue can spell disaster for a game. Blizzard introduced Draenei and they sold millions of TBC boxes. Auto Assault didn't have any blue people, and it failed.
Ears (26%): Look at the frickin' ears in Lineage and WoW! They're the longest I've ever seen! People like big ears, and big ears are more important than solid gameplay. Again, poor Auto Assault didn't put any long-eared races into their game, and look what happened. Vanguard is barely alive, thanks to a few longer-than-average ears, but the game would be kicking ass if they'd taken a hint from WoW's Elves.
Prepositions (18%): City of Heroes, World of Warcraft - both doing quite well. Auto Assault, Vanguard - not doing so well. I guarantee you if they'd been named "Assault of Auto" and "World of Vanguard," they'd have bajillions of players right now.
Dwarves (12%): I like Dwarves. Of all the fantasy races, Dwarves are my favorite. Since my opinion is fact, Dwarves are more important than gameplay. Auto Assault didn't have Dwarves, and it failed. PUT DORFS IN TEH GAME AND U WIL MAKE TEH MONEYS!
Box Size (17%): As I look across my shelf of game boxes, I see that WoW and EQ2 have average-sized boxes. It's not surprising that I play those two more than any other MMOs. Guild Wars has a slightly larger-than-average box, and I stopped playing that a long time ago. I bought The Burning Crusade via digital download - NO BOX - and I don't like it. I quit playing my level 60 warrior, even though he was a dwarf, because I just didn't like Outlands. I can't get into my Draenei character, even though he's blue, and there's no way I'll play a Blood Elf, no matter how long their ears are. Box size matters!
I know this all adds up to 110%, but that just proves how important these factors are! These will decide the future! Small-boxed, short-eared, non-blue games have no place in the world. Some may be having a moderate amount of success, but they will fail in a few years! And if they don't, you'll al have forgotten this post by then, and I'll be long gone, so nobody will tell me I was wrong.
WoW and lotr are only successful as of now. Once the race begins they will be obsolete. Its like buying an ipod before looking at the other MP3 players. As of now it is only a popularity contest. When action happens it will change. Gameplay is only for keeping players. It does not get you them. Graphics and media BRINGS players to your game. This is far more important than gameplay. You must first get quantity before focusing on quality. I never said gameplay didnt matter. It does. Just not as much as you believe it does. If you think im 100% wrong, we will see how things turn out.
There are many different marketing views and i dont speak for them all. I only speak for one. We'll see who wins the race. Its all about the future. Players who continue to live in the past will be pushed aside.
that was the longest rant of bullshit ive read on this forum since i joined...So much speculation and personal oppinion disguised as facts... you know CAPITALIZING words doesnt make them true.. Yah less beta testing and debuggins is better. Everyone agrees vanguard is the best game EVER... god i want to go shoot myself in the god damn leg after reading that trash
Which Final Fantasy Character Are You?
Final Fantasy 7
It's a skill of its own to write so much without giving any thought what one is actually writing about. Another MMO nub with an insight.
Race? What race? Win what?
wtf is wrong with some of you people that you spend soooo much time analyzing game statistics? Do you even PLAY any of these games.
SOE should charge a monthly fee so you guys can keep wringing your hands over who will "beat" WoW.
The Race involves the new and upcomming MMO's. If you do not believe there is a race then you need to open your eyes. Many games are going to be released late 2007 and will take big chunks of players from every other game and distributing more evenly. Once B2p and F2p games start to come out, you will notice how much WoW and all other P2p games will soon switch. Take ArchLord as an example.
I wasn't aware archlord was doing good at all in na/euro, in fact, going by some people's posts on this forum archlord was pretty blah.
Also, while there will be indeed a lot of mmos released in later 2007 early 2008, and they are all mmos they are very different. Although, you are apparently blind, and fail to see that after guild war's release (the only b2p mmo ever) there has been a number of mmos released, some prety sucessful (like lotro) and all of them are p2p, witht he exception of free with item mall asian games which are for the most part so bad they can't even get decent numbers withotu a montly fee.
But back to your original post, you seem to think that there is an mmo race because all of the releasing mmos are the same. Well, unfortunately that's not the best gem of wisdom you have displayed in this thread, imo claiming graphics > gameplay would win that, it's still a rather amusing statement.
AoC, releasing first (but even aoc fans seem to agree warhammer will be more popular even though it's relasing later, granted none of them have seen the future like you did, but still) has new combat, great graphics, player built cities and ffa servers.
Warhammer has faction pvp (quite different from guild pvp that aoc has) same ol' but improved combat, no ffa server (at least at release) warhammer fan base.
Aion a new version of lineage 2 clone like every other asian mmo (with some new futures) not at all like aoc or war.
potbs/tabula rasa are also very deifferent.
So, I don't see a race there =p only players that really overlap would be aoc/war for people who just want to pvp but don't care if it's faction or guild pvp and don't care about any other things game has to offer. Aoc will pick them up first, but unless it blows them away they can try war. And guess what? =p good grphics and no gameplay won't do it lol, so much for your theory =p
By any chance are you related to Jackdog?
My theory is about winning the race. I never said good graphics with no gameplay wont do it. Graphics are important in winning. If i gave you a brand new MMO you never heard of where are you looking first. Graphics. If they suck your interest is gone. That is what weeves out the players. You bring in more by showing players your superior graphics than claiming you have the most advanced gameplay. Once you begin the game and actually start to play it, thats where gameplay matters. You need gameplay to make sure your customers stay. But you need superior graphics if you even want to attempt to get anyone to put a single thought into your game.Once and for all i never said gameplay doesnt mean anything. Read my post carefully and you will see that it has its own assaigned percentage. You and everybody else looks at the graphics of a game first. Thats the biggest factor into getting players. Not gameplay. When you first hear of the game you dont know anything about its gameplay. You only see the graphics, and when they suck and the screenshots look like shit, you dont even bother to look anymore.
By any chance are you related to Jackdog?
Continue to pay monthly and when a good game comes out for free or even cheaper. Have fun realizing how much money and time you've wasted.