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What happened to the market? (long)
vontornm
Member Posts: 23
It was in the year 1977 I was a 12 year old kid and I went to the movie theater with my older brother we watched in amazement a movie of a universe in a far off galaxy.
I was breath taken by all the things that spun wildly in my mind of what it would be like to live in that universe.
Yes as a young boy I wanted to be like one of the hero’s in the movie but I didn’t want to be that hero I wanted to have my own life and my own story.
Many years later I had a chance to live out that childhood dream and I felt like I was in heaven I could set out in that universe and build a name for myself.
I played in that universe for many hours of the week I would come home from work and jump in and spend the whole evening running around the city I built and out helping others that shared the same childhood dream I had.
I was in that world for well over a year and loved every minute I had there up un-till the modern world of corporate mergers and companies only caring about the all mighty dollar removed all that I loved about it and tried to make it more like the rest of the GAMES on the market.
Some of you may wonder where I’m going with this, well its simple I don’t want a game to play, I have many of them to choose from. I want another world to live in and explore. I need a place to spend my time and make a name for my character in an alternate universe.
In today’s corporate world the game development companies seem to care more about going with a standard basic theme and it just ends up being like the rest of the boring games with the same old things just rehashed and a new pretty paintjob. It seems that they are chasing the golden goose rather than selling the goose down to make great pillows.
In today’s market it seems that the companies are not happy with a player base of 250-300 thousand and that if there games don’t bring in a million plus players it was a failure.
Well I can tell you that if I had a game that was generating that kind of cash I know I would be damn happy, that’s no weak tea if you ask me.
I’m not trying to say that the manufactures of the current MMORPG market are doing a bad job at what they do, I know they have a lot of talent and I have some idea of the great amount of money and resources it takes to produce a game. What I would like to see is a company taking the lead and making a change in the mind set of this very stale MMORPG market.
I know what I would do if I had the talent to code and the vast amounts of resources to build a new MMORPG. I have been working on some of my own documents to build a game some day if I ever hit the lottery but that’s another topic all together.
I just hope that someday a company will break the mold and bring us another universe that we can live in and not another theme park.
Comments
I can summarize what happened to the market in one sentence.
WoW makes billions of dollars, so all the companies try to emulate it which ruined mmorpg diversity.
It'll require players to learn a new playstyle. And as you can see with the infighting between PvE and PvP/solo and groups, that's a challenge that won't come easy, if ever.
It's not that there can't be innovation, it's if there's enough players willing to support it. Indie development doesn't get the numbers to support the MMO in the MMORPG. Takes many people online to make the MMO part of the game.
We can have hope, and pray for luck, but that's about it now. Players want Crysis for a MMO (not happening in 10+ years). They want play styles that simply don't mix all in one world together (destroys games). They want interaction and Myspace (forget actual gameplay, since it's more a social MUD than a game). In that soup, you get fast food for the masses.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
making games has become very expensive. the capitol investment firms want return on their investment. it is
probably seen to be a "safer" risk to go with a design that has succeded so well. even though they havent
taken into account the fact that most players are tired of wow.
Something else happened as well. A great IP was bought up by a company and mismanaged so poorly that that game has been literally limping along for 4 years +. With this companies us against the consumer attitude they go to the different conferences and tell stories about how great they are but how no one wants that kind of a game. No one wants to be a farmer or dancer or a seamstress. Everyone wants to be the hero. It doesn't matter that said game had had several thousands of people that were farmers, dancers and tailors and with one stroke of a pen all of those people were driven from said game.
It will be some small company that comes out with a new virtual world for people to play in and enjoy and that may bring in the subscriptions that make the big boys and girls go oh... maybe that one company just sucked and we can do that
http://www.speedtest.net/result/7300033012
That's ridiculous.
Blizzard is not responsible for the failings of other companies.
...taps foot...
Yes I do. Being a planter makes goooooood gold in some games. Hard work, but it makes up for it in cold hard coin (15 mil a day possible [that's 15 plat for you EQII types] isn't nothing to sneeze at).
No need to kill rats. No need to run around on silly quests. No godless menus for crafting.
Supply the server. Get paid. Get your trinkets (or help level your alts). And socialize after 8hrs of work.
Yep, rather be a planter.
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.
It'll require players to learn a new playstyle. And as you can see with the infighting between PvE and PvP/solo and groups, that's a challenge that won't come easy, if ever.
It's not that there can't be innovation, it's if there's enough players willing to support it. Indie development doesn't get the numbers to support the MMO in the MMORPG. Takes many people online to make the MMO part of the game.
We can have hope, and pray for luck, but that's about it now. Players want Crysis for a MMO (not happening in 10+ years). They want play styles that simply don't mix all in one world together (destroys games). They want interaction and Myspace (forget actual gameplay, since it's more a social MUD than a game). In that soup, you get fast food for the masses.
Geesh are you my twin or something? lol.I think for once someone actually has paid attn to what goes on out there.
Your second part about players not supporting is oh so accurate.What do players do the most in the mmorpg market right now?They try to do NOTHING but level up as fast they can and talk trash about END game.There seems to be NO other trend than that right now.So a game could spend thousands developing content to appease who? a small majority,sad really.Most players fly by levels so fast they would'nt even take time to enjoy any of that content until there way over levelled and mobs are greyed out or no challenge whatsoever.
Anyhow everything you said sums it all up bang on accurate.I think a game should just stick to one theme and make it great rather than the latest theme of trying to appease every sub it can by adding everything it can into the game .This is especially noticeable by the latest PVP trend that is just done horribly by all games.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
It's all about the money, like so many things. Big companies that make computer games are run by accountants and statistics and if they are plugging a lot of money into a game they want a pretty good idea of how much money it's gonna make. So it's a brave step to try something different, much safer to make a game that is similar to another one, so they can have a prediction as to how successful it should be.
The up side of this is, if enough games start to fall flat, it may not seem such a safe bet to produce another clone and they may decide to try something different. Lets hope so!
It'll require players to learn a new playstyle. And as you can see with the infighting between PvE and PvP/solo and groups, that's a challenge that won't come easy, if ever.
It's not that there can't be innovation, it's if there's enough players willing to support it. Indie development doesn't get the numbers to support the MMO in the MMORPG. Takes many people online to make the MMO part of the game.
We can have hope, and pray for luck, but that's about it now. Players want Crysis for a MMO (not happening in 10+ years). They want play styles that simply don't mix all in one world together (destroys games). They want interaction and Myspace (forget actual gameplay, since it's more a social MUD than a game). In that soup, you get fast food for the masses.
Geesh are you my twin or something? lol.I think for once someone actually has paid attn to what goes on out there.
Your second part about players not supporting is oh so accurate.What do players do the most in the mmorpg market right now?They try to do NOTHING but level up as fast they can and talk trash about END game.There seems to be NO other trend than that right now.So a game could spend thousands developing content to appease who? a small majority,sad really.Most players fly by levels so fast they would'nt even take time to enjoy any of that content until there way over levelled and mobs are greyed out or no challenge whatsoever.
Anyhow everything you said sums it all up bang on accurate.I think a game should just stick to one theme and make it great rather than the latest theme of trying to appease every sub it can by adding everything it can into the game .This is especially noticeable by the latest PVP trend that is just done horribly by all games.
I'm a skeptic. Burn one to many times with games -- the latest being EQII (1/3 content not soloable...I simply not waiting hours for someone to show up to group, and not paying for it too. That simple).
Would love to play an innovative game (Deus Ex online would be swell), but when folks really want is Myspace in a game, we'll get chitty chatty games with little content but for chitty chatty types...
Guild member A: "I'm bored, want to go after the dragon?"
Guild member B: "Doesn't look like [C/D/E] are online, yet"
Guild member A: "Did you see that girl.........."
MMOs are basically that. Chat. Wait. Chat. Maybe group/guild up. L00t. Wash. Rinse. Repeat.
Is that even gaming??
Get online go into the city to clear my bags of raws. Go past the broker, basically the entire city is in there of about 5 warm bodies. All decked out with LoN mounts and guild cloaks and all. Chat is about some basic Q+A maybe 5x an hour.
Dead.
Is that even gaming??
Run out into the field, encounter a NPC with the feather above his head (quest giver). Get a quest. Run off to get it done. Get there and a scamp/gnoll or whatever is on a rock, says he needs to get his fishes. Then suggests, "It's best that you bring along a few friends". Oh, great my quest journal now has yet another group quest, and I'm down to 20 free slots left. Not a soul around but NPCs.
Is that even gaming??
Basically these games are FPSes, but unlike FPSes that you can jump in to shoot 'em up, you have this big lost world -- that the 300+ people online can be swallowed up in, so much you won't see a person for hours. They're there, alright. BUT, they're level 80, and level 80 is doing level 80 content -- meaning farming the dungeons.
It's no wonder why MMOs just don't get the market share. People get them, play them for maybe a week, get bored and move along. I was bored to tears in EQII, even if I was grouped or in a guild would still be bored killing animals for pelts or some trinket everyone else has and selling at the broker anyway -- f-o-r-e-v-e-r.
Sandbox. Open ended. I don't know, but something is needed as MMOs now are so boring -- watching paint dry is more interesting. And I have a very high tolerance to warding off boredom (I can plant in a MMO one-plant-at-a-time for 8hrs straight for months -- even that is more entertaining than killing rats, snakes and gnolls over and over and over for ***1 piece of silver***...$*(%#+%)#)_@)#).
.:| Kevyne@Shandris - Armory |:. - When WoW was #1 - .:| I AM A HOLY PALADIN - Guild Theme |:.