Clearly there is an over abundance of factions of mmo players here. We can paradigm them in many different ways. For this thread, there are the old school gamers and new age gamers. What I mean by this is, mmo players that played before 2004. And the new school are gamers who played 2004 and up.
For us the old school gamers who played UO, EQ, SWG, DaOC and AC to name a few, are you willing to play an mmo that goes back to the roots of the mmo philosphy of the old school design? Consider the following...
No instances, no quick travel, more incentives for grouping versus solo, a sense of adventure with immersion, community incentives and reputations, world pvp, diverse class design, diverse skill set design, challenge and to earn your spot in a guild and powerful items to just name a few.
However, with the old school philosphy of game design for mmos we can still implement new gameplay, graphics and immersion. I truly believe there is a niche market for this type playerbase. I haven't seen any new up coming title with these qualities of what mmorpgs are truly suppose to be.
So now I ask you, is there a playerbase willing to play an mmorpg, whether its themepark or sandbox or both with the old school mmo qualities with some new innovations? Please answer below.
I am an old school gamer, gaming since before Intellivision came out.
- No instances = mob camping/stealing.
- No quick travel = long, boring timesinks
- More incentives for grouping versus solo = pretty much every MMO today has this
- Sense of adventure with immersion, community incentives, world pvp, diverse class design, diverse skill design, challenge, powerful items = subjective and lots of MMOs today have these
I see exactly two items that old school had that, thankfully, most MMOs have evolved past today. Take off the rose-colored glasses and remember the bad with the good.
It's not a question of whether there is a market. There's a market for virtually everything.
Size of Market vs. Cost to Produce is the real question.
I think there's one more part of the equation.
As you increase size of the market (ad features to appeal to a wider audience) you end up making the game crappier and crappier.
When you reach ultimate crappyness, like say WoW, or Wal Mart, or McDonalds, it's a huge success because it appeals to such a wide audience.
But if you merely achieve moderate crappyness, it neither appeals to your niche market, nor the broad audience, and is just a flop.
That's what we've seen so far, flops that do not do a good job of going for the niche, and dont' go far enough into crappyness to appeal to the masses.
Clearly there is an over abundance of factions of mmo players here. We can paradigm them in many different ways. For this thread, there are the old school gamers and new age gamers. What I mean by this is, mmo players that played before 2004. And the new school are gamers who played 2004 and up.
For us the old school gamers who played UO, EQ, SWG, DaOC and AC to name a few, are you willing to play an mmo that goes back to the roots of the mmo philosphy of the old school design? Consider the following...
No instances, no quick travel, more incentives for grouping versus solo, a sense of adventure with immersion, community incentives and reputations, world pvp, diverse class design, diverse skill set design, challenge and to earn your spot in a guild and powerful items to just name a few.
However, with the old school philosphy of game design for mmos we can still implement new gameplay, graphics and immersion. I truly believe there is a niche market for this type playerbase. I haven't seen any new up coming title with these qualities of what mmorpgs are truly suppose to be.
So now I ask you, is there a playerbase willing to play an mmorpg, whether its themepark or sandbox or both with the old school mmo qualities with some new innovations? Please answer below.
I am "old school" MMO player by your definition, starting out in AO and then playing SWG and others. To me "old-school philosophy" is not the same as to you. Old-school philosophy to me was about striving to make the best game and best player experience. It wasn't about clinging to outdated design ideas and ignoring progress.
The games I played and enjoyed (AO and SWG for example) had instancing, had quick travel, had soloing and grouping, didn't have reputation systems or world pvp. All these things are not what define a "philosophy". They're tools used to build a game.
Confusing the limitations in technology or lack of progress that existed at the time with a "philosophy" is the reason stupid choices continued to get made in design and eventually alienated enough of an audience to create an appetite for the WoWs of the world.
Despite AO being my favourite game and my first, I'd want AO2 to be more than just AO with new graphics. I would want it take lessons learned in the last 10 years of game design and improve on the original.
Ultimately "old-school" philosophy was about "how do we make our game newer, better and different from the rest" it wasn't "how do we copy wow" (as is common today) or "how do we do we rebuild eq1/uo with better graphics" (what you seem to be suggesting).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall Currently Playing: ESO
There ARE new games that are trying to be old school. You just don't want to play those because these games suck as much as the old games did. There is even one coming now, mortal online that is trying to get you old school gamers but you refuse to see it and make posts like this. Lets face it, old games were in no way better. Those games impressed you at the time because it was something new, were the first of the genre.
There ARE new games that are trying to be old school. You just don't want to play those because these games suck as much as the old games did. There is even one coming now, mortal online that is trying to get you old school gamers but you refuse to see it and make posts like this. Lets face it, old games were in no way better. Those games impressed you at the time because it was something new, were the first of the genre.
See this is the new school, in your face, super extreme attitude that has kept me from playing a lot of games. Im not attacking you personally, but I will say you are an excellent example of why games are no longer immersive, communities are full of wankers, and why a lot of older gamers are disappearing.
Again 10 years ago, people playing EQ were 100,000,00x better gamers, and more importantly people with better socializing skills. It has nothing to do with the game, it has everything to do with the people that play them now. And frankly its the people that play them now that are ruining MMOs.
Lets face it, the teenager (and these days the teenager age limit seems to be somewhere inthe late 20s) has disposable income that companies want. And theyll make more money marketing to the large mass of kids out there than to older gamers.
See this is the new school, in your face, super extreme attitude that has kept me from playing a lot of games. Im not attacking you personally, but I will say you are an excellent example of why games are no longer immersive, communities are full of wankers, and why a lot of older gamers are disappearing.
Again 10 years ago, people playing EQ were 100,000,00x better gamers, and more importantly people with better socializing skills. It has nothing to do with the game, it has everything to do with the people that play them now. And frankly its the people that play them now that are ruining MMOs.
Lets face it, the teenager (and these days the teenager age limit seems to be somewhere inthe late 20s) has disposable income that companies want. And theyll make more money marketing to the large mass of kids out there than to older gamers.
We'll never return to an era of decent community.
I agree with you that by and large, communities today are filled with a-holes. You can blame the games if you like, but I think the majority of those issues are that everything today in MMOs, even MMOs themselves, are no longer new and shiny, like even the internet once was. I can't claim to have been there, but I'm quite certain the first few days of internet chat were not filled with "You suxxor!"
It's just that most people simply don't behave on the net today, including in games, the way they did then. I think for a lot of the old-school crowd, it's that that they really miss. The comraderie, and shared sense of purpose, that almost all gamers had in those days. And sadly, I'm afraid that those days are gone for good.
There ARE new games that are trying to be old school. You just don't want to play those because these games suck as much as the old games did. There is even one coming now, mortal online that is trying to get you old school gamers but you refuse to see it and make posts like this. Lets face it, old games were in no way better. Those games impressed you at the time because it was something new, were the first of the genre.
Games that suck in the mind of the "new school crowd" are great. Don't overlook the community aspect, having not to deal with new schoolers -> better community -> better game for everyone. Thanks for beeing the perfect example.
Tough I agree why can't return to our great era because lets face it, there is too much .... polluting our genre. Take every game you want there is absolutely no way for both groups to co-exist. You can't please everyone if you try you'll please no one, esp. World of Warcraft and the "hard(joking)mode" idea.
So the very best thing you can do seperating both groups.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
See this is the new school, in your face, super extreme attitude that has kept me from playing a lot of games. Im not attacking you personally, but I will say you are an excellent example of why games are no longer immersive, communities are full of wankers, and why a lot of older gamers are disappearing.
Again 10 years ago, people playing EQ were 100,000,00x better gamers, and more importantly people with better socializing skills. It has nothing to do with the game, it has everything to do with the people that play them now. And frankly its the people that play them now that are ruining MMOs.
Lets face it, the teenager (and these days the teenager age limit seems to be somewhere inthe late 20s) has disposable income that companies want. And theyll make more money marketing to the large mass of kids out there than to older gamers.
We'll never return to an era of decent community.
I agree with you that by and large, communities today are filled with a-holes. You can blame the games if you like, but I think the majority of those issues are that everything today in MMOs, even MMOs themselves, are no longer new and shiny, like even the internet once was. I can't claim to have been there, but I'm quite certain the first few days of internet chat were not filled with "You suxxor!"
It's just that most people simply don't behave on the net today, including in games, the way they did then. I think for a lot of the old-school crowd, it's that that they really miss. The comraderie, and shared sense of purpose, that almost all gamers had in those days. And sadly, I'm afraid that those days are gone for good.
Absolutely, when I played eq, it was a socializing tool first, and a game second, none of us rushed to end game, that wasnt the point. The whole point was to experience a harsh world with a group of your trusted pals and not only survive, but thrive.
I think we should dispense with the phrase "forced grouping" and just make a good niche game that requires you to actually cooperate with other people to get anywhere.
Frankly Id like to feel like Im sure Lewis and Clark did when they were setting off into an unknown land full of hidden dangers and possibilities. However these days MMOs make me feel like Im standing in line at Six Flags, sure theres some excitement at first, but in the end, when I get in its just the same old same old.
Clearly there is an over abundance of factions of mmo players here. We can paradigm them in many different ways. For this thread, there are the old school gamers and new age gamers. What I mean by this is, mmo players that played before 2004. And the new school are gamers who played 2004 and up.
For us the old school gamers who played UO, EQ, SWG, DaOC and AC to name a few, are you willing to play an mmo that goes back to the roots of the mmo philosphy of the old school design? Consider the following...
No instances, no quick travel, more incentives for grouping versus solo, a sense of adventure with immersion, community incentives and reputations, world pvp, diverse class design, diverse skill set design, challenge and to earn your spot in a guild and powerful items to just name a few.
However, with the old school philosphy of game design for mmos we can still implement new gameplay, graphics and immersion. I truly believe there is a niche market for this type playerbase. I haven't seen any new up coming title with these qualities of what mmorpgs are truly suppose to be.
So now I ask you, is there a playerbase willing to play an mmorpg, whether its themepark or sandbox or both with the old school mmo qualities with some new innovations? Please answer below.
I am an old school gamer, gaming since before Intellivision came out.
- No instances = mob camping/stealing.
- No quick travel = long, boring timesinks
- More incentives for grouping versus solo = pretty much every MMO today has this
- Sense of adventure with immersion, community incentives, world pvp, diverse class design, diverse skill design, challenge, powerful items = subjective and lots of MMOs today have these
I see exactly two items that old school had that, thankfully, most MMOs have evolved past today. Take off the rose-colored glasses and remember the bad with the good.
I do remember the bad with the good. Thus, this is why I said we need to improve on those bad mechanics, time sinks and uneccassary down time but to complement the old feel. It's not an easy task to weld. I did forget that some old school mmos did have instancing. I guess I am somewhat biased because I played EQ the majority of the time. I do understand everything has two sides of the coin, please read it again.
So you don't like oldschool MMOs AND you don't like new ones either? If you don't like any MMORPGs why are you on a MMORPG forum? To lecture us about business?
In a recent poll here, fully a third of respondants said they don't play any MMOs so I'm in good company. I wish there was an MMO out there worth playing, there just isn't. Hopefully someday there will be but I'm not holding my breath, nor am I whining on the forums that I'm entitled to a game that I fully realize isn't financially viable.
Ofcourse there's a market for them, anyone would like them if they actually tried or even heard of them. How well a MMO does is mostly based on advertising/hype/popularity, along with polish and graphics, how can you not see that? Most things are like that now, music, movies, you name it.
That's an empty assertion. How do you know there is a market? Have you done serious market research to demonstrate this claim, or are you just pulling it out of your ass? I suspect the latter.
I guarentee you if WoW was released as an oldschool game with the same hype, IP, polish, graphics it'd have as much subs as it has now(actually even more, because the oldschool MMOers and people with higher standards wouldn't have quit)
If you expect that a company is going to spend millions of dollars and years of it's development life based on your misspelled guarantee, you're out of your mind. If you think these games have a demonstrable market, back it up with actual research and data. Until then, you're just running off at the keyboard.
The thing about old school games though is that your reputation meant something. If you became known as a douche you would be virtually blacklisted by most players. Maybe this had something to do with 1 player per account, at least SWG since that was my first mmo starting in 6/03.
That only works with a relatively small number of players. In most MMOs with large populations, the chances you'll even see the same character again down the road, unless they're in the same guild or something, is minimal. Reputation doesn't matter because it's easy to move to a different area or change toons and never have anyone question your actions at all.
In my opinion, the games of today are not some sort of freak aberration - they are an evolution of "old school" games. Many of the changes in design simply streamline some of the tedious, timesink style of gameplay so often found in older games. Unfortunately, those are some of the same elements that converged to create the feel of those early gameworlds - gameworlds, mind you, that had little competition back in those days.
Exactly. These old-school people seem to think that the entire universe stopped in 2004 and everything that has happened thereafter has been a step backwards. The reality is, the vast majority of players who started with UO or EQ or DAoC all moved on and are either playing WoW or other games today, or aren't playing at all. It's a ridiculous idea to think that the vast majority of former EQ players are sitting around dreaming about the return of EQ. It was a good game for it's time, like Pong was a good game for it's time, but times have changed and so, too, have the players. Modern games are the way they are because the majority of paying players WANT THEM THAT WAY! The reason games are no longer made with massive timesinks, absurd downtime and extreme difficulty is because the people who actually pay the bills don't want to play those games.
People need to get a grip and join reality.
Exactly? What I miss is the days when this kind of attitude wasnt prevelant. I could give a rats ass about technical aspects of an MMO. Its the spoiled kids with a huge sense of self entitlement that turns me off.
Back in the day MMOs were mostly played by bookworm type nerds who found EQ to be a nerds paradise. Now theyre full of chest beating, impatient, mewling kids.
The reality is MMOs arent MMOs anymore, theyre console games with chat boxes included. Again I could care less about the games themselves. What I miss is the community. Too many of todays kids grow up with the internet and it retards their social development in my opinion. I meet more childish asses in 1 day in todays MMOs than I met the entire 6 years I played EQ.
not getting paid to babysit other peoples kids isnt my idea of fun.
The reality is, while MMOs started out catering and marketing to nerds because they were the only people who had the fast computers and the good Internet connections, it's just not a viable long-term business model. MMOs catered to a niche because it was the only niche that could play the games. As that changed, so too did the MMO model because it wasn't financially viable to do otherwise. The days of games made for nerds is gone and never coming back. If that's the tiny box you want to put MMOs in, sorry, you're right, MMOs aren't MMOs anymore. But then again, video games aren't video games for people who think Pong is the epitome of a video game.
I agree with you entirely on the community in most MMOs, people are assholes and I choose not to be around assholes. Then again, I met plenty of assholes back in my UO and EQ days too but it's a matter of volume. It wasn't that the nerds of old weren't pricks, it's that most of the people who were playing had the same kind of expectations and acted the same general way, so maybe *EVERYONE* was a prick and didn't realize it. Today, with games being played by so many different kinds of people, the asshattery that we see comes from so many different viewpoints, it's no wonder that it seems most people are immature, self-indulgent, mental midgets.
While it might be impossible for a major title to duplicate the success of Blizzard/WOW, it is far more likely that an indie Dev house will duplicate what CCP did with EVE and we do have a reasonable chance of getting a successful game built one day with more "old school" mechanics. (there are several underway right now in fact).
You mean other than a pure space opera? That would be nice. Of course it's good to see EVE get success, I played EnB for some time, and the common complaint was that it was a pure space opera, people wanted to bi-pod around in cities and such places beyond just the starports. Rather than improving it, EA just canceled it which was tragic. But EVE managed to take the same sub-genre and improve on it to success where a big publisher like EA just wrote fail on it probably the day after launch, never even giving it a first expansion which often improves the game with the missing features they wanted at launch.
But yeah, I think so too. Though may be up to smaller AAA'a or big indies, that don't bend to pressure, but we'll see
The reality is, while MMOs started out catering and marketing to nerds because they were the only people who had the fast computers and the good Internet connections,
Actually to better define it, they were geeks. Most of the nerds didn't filter in until WoW.
Geeks like things like The Matrix, and such virtual worlds, they reflect into our games. Nerds like, I don't know... toenail clippings?
And of course your claim is misleading. All mmo's worked fine on dial-up. FPS's are the games that took the high-end home computers. MMO's were not even as demending as CRPG's for specs.
It's not a question of whether there is a market. There's a market for virtually everything.
Size of Market vs. Cost to Produce is the real question.
I think there's one more part of the equation.
As you increase size of the market (ad features to appeal to a wider audience) you end up making the game crappier and crappier.
When you reach ultimate crappyness, like say WoW, or Wal Mart, or McDonalds, it's a huge success because it appeals to such a wide audience.
But if you merely achieve moderate crappyness, it neither appeals to your niche market, nor the broad audience, and is just a flop.
That's what we've seen so far, flops that do not do a good job of going for the niche, and dont' go far enough into crappyness to appeal to the masses.
Well that's mostly just the opinion of someone who actively seeks to avoid mainstream things, even if they're good.
Having invested tens of thousands of hours into gaming, I played WOW for a considerable length of time and will probably return to it again in Cataclysm. It's a big stretch to call it "crappy" even if (like all games) it isn't perfect.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Well that's mostly just the opinion of someone who actively seeks to avoid mainstream things, even if they're good.
Having invested tens of thousands of hours into gaming, I played WOW for a considerable length of time and will probably return to it again in Cataclysm. It's a big stretch to call it "crappy" even if (like all games) it isn't perfect.
If you need to unsub and wait for the expansion... I don't know, seems crappy to me. Then what do you do with your time, look for WoW like games and petition devs from existing games to add WoW type flavors? I have seen too much of that Whether you do or don't, whatever you may claim, lots do... while they keep the sub though less used for a time as they do.
Well that's mostly just the opinion of someone who actively seeks to avoid mainstream things, even if they're good.
Having invested tens of thousands of hours into gaming, I played WOW for a considerable length of time and will probably return to it again in Cataclysm. It's a big stretch to call it "crappy" even if (like all games) it isn't perfect.
If you need to unsub and wait for the expansion... I don't know, seems crappy to me. Then what do you do with your time, look for WoW like games and petition devs from existing games to add WoW type flavors? I have seen too much of that Whether you do or don't, whatever you may claim, lots do... while they keep the sub though less used for a time as they do.
Exactly and thats why I can honestly say I'm hating a good amount of 85 % of WoW players. Even if they unsub their loved game they'll ruin other games but trolling forums till they implement stupid wow stuff. Just look like at the SWTOR boards people overthere are calling for things like achievements, dual spec and quest helpers.
Another reason why we need another oldschool game that avoids everything MMO players would call mainstream.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Well that's mostly just the opinion of someone who actively seeks to avoid mainstream things, even if they're good.
Having invested tens of thousands of hours into gaming, I played WOW for a considerable length of time and will probably return to it again in Cataclysm. It's a big stretch to call it "crappy" even if (like all games) it isn't perfect.
If you need to unsub and wait for the expansion... I don't know, seems crappy to me. Then what do you do with your time, look for WoW like games and petition devs from existing games to add WoW type flavors? I have seen too much of that Whether you do or don't, whatever you may claim, lots do... while they keep the sub though less used for a time as they do.
Exactly and thats why I can honestly say I'm hating a good amount of 85 % of WoW players. Even if they unsub their loved game they'll ruin other games but trolling forums till they implement stupid wow stuff. Just look like at the SWTOR boards people overthere are calling for things like achievements, dual spec and quest helpers. Another reason why we need another oldschool game that avoids everything MMO players would call mainstream.
I agree with Derwoten here. We do need an old school game that caters to that small niche. This mmorpg will cater to that crowd. You're exactly right, the old school gamers don't want the mainstream because we want our own niche community. I really believe mmorpgs were always meant for different niche crowds.
Well that's mostly just the opinion of someone who actively seeks to avoid mainstream things, even if they're good.
Having invested tens of thousands of hours into gaming, I played WOW for a considerable length of time and will probably return to it again in Cataclysm. It's a big stretch to call it "crappy" even if (like all games) it isn't perfect.
If you need to unsub and wait for the expansion... I don't know, seems crappy to me. Then what do you do with your time, look for WoW like games and petition devs from existing games to add WoW type flavors? I have seen too much of that Whether you do or don't, whatever you may claim, lots do... while they keep the sub though less used for a time as they do.
You're being ridiculous.
Think of your top 10 all-time favorite games. Some of those you didn't play this month: are those games crappy?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Like I said its not against all the ones I had on my friendslist are still present as icq buddies.
I think you hit the nail on the head MMORPG's were never ever supposed to be mainstream. You can see this easily if you look at the expectations back in the days 200k has been a success and I'm sure it still is for most games just some stupid publishers thinking only Wow, Aion numbers are counting which is BS.
MMORPG's are supposed to be niche such as RTS dedicated to a special group of players and NOT for everyone mainstream.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play." "Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Well that's mostly just the opinion of someone who actively seeks to avoid mainstream things, even if they're good.
Having invested tens of thousands of hours into gaming, I played WOW for a considerable length of time and will probably return to it again in Cataclysm. It's a big stretch to call it "crappy" even if (like all games) it isn't perfect.
If you need to unsub and wait for the expansion... I don't know, seems crappy to me. Then what do you do with your time, look for WoW like games and petition devs from existing games to add WoW type flavors? I have seen too much of that Whether you do or don't, whatever you may claim, lots do... while they keep the sub though less used for a time as they do.
You're being ridiculous.
Think of your top 10 all-time favorite games. Some of those you didn't play this month: are those games crappy?
You kidding? UO 5 years up until AoS. EQ 5 year until instances. PlanetSide 2 years until SOE screwed it up and it became a ghost town. SWG played a few months after launch (buggy launch) up until NGE, like 3 years abouts mostly after leaving UO and EQ around there. In all that time, I never unsubed to wait for an expansion. Only UO + EQ I unsubed for a few months (played both at same time) as I relocated for a job and didn’t take my computer since it was a short-term high pay job with solid 7day a week long hours. Took my laptop, but no time to play and a bit slow for games, only used it for work and taking programming classes at the time.
I don’t play games that run out of content then wait for expansions, those are crud. I’ve tried those, but I’m not a person to re-sub all that much, I like games that are playable without expansion release driven content. Player driven content and strong community keeps us playing, not expansions.
Why I quit those games, not waiting for expansions, or the dev content running out, but they dumbed them down making way for noob players rather than keeping the vets in good standing. Most of the games I've seen since then are disposable rat mazes… where they only test your performance in the rat maze to figure out how to get more money out of you.
Short answer is, Yes. But, prolly gonna be a smaller market as time progresses. I mean lets be realistic, old school vets, majority are how old now? The gaming companies prioritise profits over anything else obviously, and thus cater to the majority or rather what the majority wants. By now, most mmos thrive with majority of younger players. hell, some of those "younger players" could well be the kids of so-called "old school-ers". Majority of the new, younger generation of mmo players either never tried old school games or tried them and dismissed them simply because of the vast gap in graphics engine, generation vs generation. i'm sure there's still a market for old school gamers, but unfortunately, i forsee this market getting smaller and smaller as more of the kids grow up and start getting into mmos. It will reach a stage where either old schoolers conform and follow the large bandwagon into new age games and adjust to a new community or stay rigid and play the small market old school-type games by small gaming companies and realise there's near no community and feel its like a ghost-town.
Gaming companies want to make money, first and foremost, the number of kids / non oldschoolers or those that have already resigned themselves to the fate that old school is gone vastly outnumbers rigid old schoolers who are just waiting around for a successful old school game. Lets put it this way, if you are an old school gamer and you are playing a non old school type of game for the time being waiting for a good old school type of game to launch. you are already part of what is preventing such said game from being launched; reason being you are adding to the revenue of that temp game, as such if they are making money with the game type already present, there is no reason to cater to another market, and a smaller market at that.
Im suprised that there's been no mention of FFXI yet. It's relatively 'old school' in design philosophy and puts a very strong emphasis on community and player interaction. As far as I'm aware it still holds several hundred thousand players so that alone proves that there is a sizeable market for this sort of thing. If you then add up the combined subscriptions of all the major old school MMOs you're probably looking at a minimum of 1 mil players. That's roughly a million players who are sticking with an older game because none of the newer games have done anything better. If you gave them a game that all of them could enjoy (a difficult task, I know) that's a potentially huge player base. Ironically it's a number that would be bigger than any game that has attempted to copy WoW. That's also entirely ignoring the WoW players who are only playing it for lack of anything better or have never tried an old school MMO to see if they might prefer it...
And before anyone points out that no one would aim at that market when they have the 11mil player behemoth of WoW, devs are starting to realise that WoW is not likely to be beaten. This means three things:
They will throw a huge sum of money at a project to develop a game that specifically targets and improves upon WoW's features... i.e. SW:TOR.
OR they will come up with an entirely different business model in order to get past the issue of most MMO gamers only being subscribed to one MMO at a time... i.e. GW2.
OR devs are going to entirely break away from the design philosophy behind WoW and start looking for a relatively untapped audience that has a higher potential to generate a return on investment (as it seems producing WoW-clones or games that follow that concept are relatively unsuccessful). Low and behold which audience is that? The old school gamers.
A lot of people seem to be spouting that since WoW has the most subscribers it proves that its game design is the most popular and, therefore, most successful. In normal economics that would make sense. With MMOs it doesn't work like that; it's actually the opposite. Most MMO gamers only stick with one game, and once they're invested in that game they stick with it for a long time and are reluctant to leave. This means that anything that follows the same design concepts as WoW will NOT be anywhere near as successful. It's taken them a while but the devs understand this now.
Essentially WoW's success actually makes it less likely that we'll see another successful MMO of a similar design. The real money to be made in subscription-based MMOs now is by getting as far away from WoW as possible and trying to appeal to another audience that actually wants to leave their current game for something better.
With the old school community of yesteryear? Sure! With the new MMO player generation, and everyone that joined in the last 5-6 years... together with 20 year olds that think they are "old school".... Nope, not a chance. Games can be the same.. the community will not. And the old games depended on community.
Comments
I am an old school gamer, gaming since before Intellivision came out.
- No instances = mob camping/stealing.
- No quick travel = long, boring timesinks
- More incentives for grouping versus solo = pretty much every MMO today has this
- Sense of adventure with immersion, community incentives, world pvp, diverse class design, diverse skill design, challenge, powerful items = subjective and lots of MMOs today have these
I see exactly two items that old school had that, thankfully, most MMOs have evolved past today. Take off the rose-colored glasses and remember the bad with the good.
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I think there's one more part of the equation.
As you increase size of the market (ad features to appeal to a wider audience) you end up making the game crappier and crappier.
When you reach ultimate crappyness, like say WoW, or Wal Mart, or McDonalds, it's a huge success because it appeals to such a wide audience.
But if you merely achieve moderate crappyness, it neither appeals to your niche market, nor the broad audience, and is just a flop.
That's what we've seen so far, flops that do not do a good job of going for the niche, and dont' go far enough into crappyness to appeal to the masses.
I am "old school" MMO player by your definition, starting out in AO and then playing SWG and others. To me "old-school philosophy" is not the same as to you. Old-school philosophy to me was about striving to make the best game and best player experience. It wasn't about clinging to outdated design ideas and ignoring progress.
The games I played and enjoyed (AO and SWG for example) had instancing, had quick travel, had soloing and grouping, didn't have reputation systems or world pvp. All these things are not what define a "philosophy". They're tools used to build a game.
Confusing the limitations in technology or lack of progress that existed at the time with a "philosophy" is the reason stupid choices continued to get made in design and eventually alienated enough of an audience to create an appetite for the WoWs of the world.
Despite AO being my favourite game and my first, I'd want AO2 to be more than just AO with new graphics. I would want it take lessons learned in the last 10 years of game design and improve on the original.
Ultimately "old-school" philosophy was about "how do we make our game newer, better and different from the rest" it wasn't "how do we copy wow" (as is common today) or "how do we do we rebuild eq1/uo with better graphics" (what you seem to be suggesting).
"Id rather work on something with great potential than on fulfilling a promise of mediocrity."
- Raph Koster
Tried: AO,EQ,EQ2,DAoC,SWG,AA,SB,HZ,CoX,PS,GA,TR,IV,GnH,EVE, PP,DnL,WAR,MxO,SWG,FE,VG,AoC,DDO,LoTRO,Rift,TOR,Aion,Tera,TSW,GW2,DCUO,CO,STO
Favourites: AO,SWG,EVE,TR,LoTRO,TSW,EQ2, Firefall
Currently Playing: ESO
There ARE new games that are trying to be old school. You just don't want to play those because these games suck as much as the old games did. There is even one coming now, mortal online that is trying to get you old school gamers but you refuse to see it and make posts like this. Lets face it, old games were in no way better. Those games impressed you at the time because it was something new, were the first of the genre.
See this is the new school, in your face, super extreme attitude that has kept me from playing a lot of games. Im not attacking you personally, but I will say you are an excellent example of why games are no longer immersive, communities are full of wankers, and why a lot of older gamers are disappearing.
Again 10 years ago, people playing EQ were 100,000,00x better gamers, and more importantly people with better socializing skills. It has nothing to do with the game, it has everything to do with the people that play them now. And frankly its the people that play them now that are ruining MMOs.
Lets face it, the teenager (and these days the teenager age limit seems to be somewhere inthe late 20s) has disposable income that companies want. And theyll make more money marketing to the large mass of kids out there than to older gamers.
We'll never return to an era of decent community.
I agree with you that by and large, communities today are filled with a-holes. You can blame the games if you like, but I think the majority of those issues are that everything today in MMOs, even MMOs themselves, are no longer new and shiny, like even the internet once was. I can't claim to have been there, but I'm quite certain the first few days of internet chat were not filled with "You suxxor!"
It's just that most people simply don't behave on the net today, including in games, the way they did then. I think for a lot of the old-school crowd, it's that that they really miss. The comraderie, and shared sense of purpose, that almost all gamers had in those days. And sadly, I'm afraid that those days are gone for good.
Games that suck in the mind of the "new school crowd" are great. Don't overlook the community aspect, having not to deal with new schoolers -> better community -> better game for everyone. Thanks for beeing the perfect example.
Tough I agree why can't return to our great era because lets face it, there is too much .... polluting our genre. Take every game you want there is absolutely no way for both groups to co-exist. You can't please everyone if you try you'll please no one, esp. World of Warcraft and the "hard(joking)mode" idea.
So the very best thing you can do seperating both groups.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
Absolutely, when I played eq, it was a socializing tool first, and a game second, none of us rushed to end game, that wasnt the point. The whole point was to experience a harsh world with a group of your trusted pals and not only survive, but thrive.
I think we should dispense with the phrase "forced grouping" and just make a good niche game that requires you to actually cooperate with other people to get anywhere.
Frankly Id like to feel like Im sure Lewis and Clark did when they were setting off into an unknown land full of hidden dangers and possibilities. However these days MMOs make me feel like Im standing in line at Six Flags, sure theres some excitement at first, but in the end, when I get in its just the same old same old.
I do remember the bad with the good. Thus, this is why I said we need to improve on those bad mechanics, time sinks and uneccassary down time but to complement the old feel. It's not an easy task to weld. I did forget that some old school mmos did have instancing. I guess I am somewhat biased because I played EQ the majority of the time. I do understand everything has two sides of the coin, please read it again.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
That only works with a relatively small number of players. In most MMOs with large populations, the chances you'll even see the same character again down the road, unless they're in the same guild or something, is minimal. Reputation doesn't matter because it's easy to move to a different area or change toons and never have anyone question your actions at all.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
The reality is, while MMOs started out catering and marketing to nerds because they were the only people who had the fast computers and the good Internet connections, it's just not a viable long-term business model. MMOs catered to a niche because it was the only niche that could play the games. As that changed, so too did the MMO model because it wasn't financially viable to do otherwise. The days of games made for nerds is gone and never coming back. If that's the tiny box you want to put MMOs in, sorry, you're right, MMOs aren't MMOs anymore. But then again, video games aren't video games for people who think Pong is the epitome of a video game.
I agree with you entirely on the community in most MMOs, people are assholes and I choose not to be around assholes. Then again, I met plenty of assholes back in my UO and EQ days too but it's a matter of volume. It wasn't that the nerds of old weren't pricks, it's that most of the people who were playing had the same kind of expectations and acted the same general way, so maybe *EVERYONE* was a prick and didn't realize it. Today, with games being played by so many different kinds of people, the asshattery that we see comes from so many different viewpoints, it's no wonder that it seems most people are immature, self-indulgent, mental midgets.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
You mean other than a pure space opera? That would be nice. Of course it's good to see EVE get success, I played EnB for some time, and the common complaint was that it was a pure space opera, people wanted to bi-pod around in cities and such places beyond just the starports. Rather than improving it, EA just canceled it which was tragic. But EVE managed to take the same sub-genre and improve on it to success where a big publisher like EA just wrote fail on it probably the day after launch, never even giving it a first expansion which often improves the game with the missing features they wanted at launch.
But yeah, I think so too. Though may be up to smaller AAA'a or big indies, that don't bend to pressure, but we'll see
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Pfft .. I remember back when we had real nostalgia ... not the shallow shabby stuff people make do with today ...
..
If games like EQ etc are classed as 'old school', does that make MuDs prehistoric ?
Actually to better define it, they were geeks. Most of the nerds didn't filter in until WoW.
Geeks like things like The Matrix, and such virtual worlds, they reflect into our games. Nerds like, I don't know... toenail clippings?
And of course your claim is misleading. All mmo's worked fine on dial-up. FPS's are the games that took the high-end home computers. MMO's were not even as demending as CRPG's for specs.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Well that's mostly just the opinion of someone who actively seeks to avoid mainstream things, even if they're good.
Having invested tens of thousands of hours into gaming, I played WOW for a considerable length of time and will probably return to it again in Cataclysm. It's a big stretch to call it "crappy" even if (like all games) it isn't perfect.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
If you need to unsub and wait for the expansion... I don't know, seems crappy to me. Then what do you do with your time, look for WoW like games and petition devs from existing games to add WoW type flavors? I have seen too much of that
Whether you do or don't, whatever you may claim, lots do... while they keep the sub though less used for a time as they do.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Well that's mostly just the opinion of someone who actively seeks to avoid mainstream things, even if they're good.
Having invested tens of thousands of hours into gaming, I played WOW for a considerable length of time and will probably return to it again in Cataclysm. It's a big stretch to call it "crappy" even if (like all games) it isn't perfect.
If you need to unsub and wait for the expansion... I don't know, seems crappy to me. Then what do you do with your time, look for WoW like games and petition devs from existing games to add WoW type flavors? I have seen too much of that
Whether you do or don't, whatever you may claim, lots do... while they keep the sub though less used for a time as they do.
Exactly and thats why I can honestly say I'm hating a good amount of 85 % of WoW players. Even if they unsub their loved game they'll ruin other games but trolling forums till they implement stupid wow stuff. Just look like at the SWTOR boards people overthere are calling for things like achievements, dual spec and quest helpers.Another reason why we need another oldschool game that avoids everything MMO players would call mainstream.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
I agree with Derwoten here. We do need an old school game that caters to that small niche. This mmorpg will cater to that crowd. You're exactly right, the old school gamers don't want the mainstream because we want our own niche community. I really believe mmorpgs were always meant for different niche crowds.
You're being ridiculous.
Think of your top 10 all-time favorite games. Some of those you didn't play this month: are those games crappy?
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I think you hit the nail on the head MMORPG's were never ever supposed to be mainstream. You can see this easily if you look at the expectations back in the days 200k has been a success and I'm sure it still is for most games just some stupid publishers thinking only Wow, Aion numbers are counting which is BS.
MMORPG's are supposed to be niche such as RTS dedicated to a special group of players and NOT for everyone mainstream.
We need a MMORPG Cataclysm asap, finish the dark age of MMORPGS now!
"Everything you're bitching about is wrong. People don't have the time to invest in corpse runs, impossible zones, or long winded quests. Sometimes, they just want to pop on and play."
"Then maybe MMORPGs aren't for you."
You kidding? UO 5 years up until AoS. EQ 5 year until instances. PlanetSide 2 years until SOE screwed it up and it became a ghost town. SWG played a few months after launch (buggy launch) up until NGE, like 3 years abouts mostly after leaving UO and EQ around there. In all that time, I never unsubed to wait for an expansion. Only UO + EQ I unsubed for a few months (played both at same time) as I relocated for a job and didn’t take my computer since it was a short-term high pay job with solid 7day a week long hours. Took my laptop, but no time to play and a bit slow for games, only used it for work and taking programming classes at the time.
I don’t play games that run out of content then wait for expansions, those are crud. I’ve tried those, but I’m not a person to re-sub all that much, I like games that are playable without expansion release driven content. Player driven content and strong community keeps us playing, not expansions.
Why I quit those games, not waiting for expansions, or the dev content running out, but they dumbed them down making way for noob players rather than keeping the vets in good standing. Most of the games I've seen since then are disposable rat mazes… where they only test your performance in the rat maze to figure out how to get more money out of you.
M59, UO, EQ1, WWIIOL, PS, EnB, SL, SWG. MoM, EQ2, AO, SB, CoH, LOTRO, WoW, DDO+ f2p's, Demos & indie alpha's.
Short answer is, Yes. But, prolly gonna be a smaller market as time progresses. I mean lets be realistic, old school vets, majority are how old now? The gaming companies prioritise profits over anything else obviously, and thus cater to the majority or rather what the majority wants. By now, most mmos thrive with majority of younger players. hell, some of those "younger players" could well be the kids of so-called "old school-ers". Majority of the new, younger generation of mmo players either never tried old school games or tried them and dismissed them simply because of the vast gap in graphics engine, generation vs generation. i'm sure there's still a market for old school gamers, but unfortunately, i forsee this market getting smaller and smaller as more of the kids grow up and start getting into mmos. It will reach a stage where either old schoolers conform and follow the large bandwagon into new age games and adjust to a new community or stay rigid and play the small market old school-type games by small gaming companies and realise there's near no community and feel its like a ghost-town.
Gaming companies want to make money, first and foremost, the number of kids / non oldschoolers or those that have already resigned themselves to the fate that old school is gone vastly outnumbers rigid old schoolers who are just waiting around for a successful old school game. Lets put it this way, if you are an old school gamer and you are playing a non old school type of game for the time being waiting for a good old school type of game to launch. you are already part of what is preventing such said game from being launched; reason being you are adding to the revenue of that temp game, as such if they are making money with the game type already present, there is no reason to cater to another market, and a smaller market at that.
Sigh heh.
<QQ moar plz. kkthxbai.>
Im suprised that there's been no mention of FFXI yet. It's relatively 'old school' in design philosophy and puts a very strong emphasis on community and player interaction. As far as I'm aware it still holds several hundred thousand players so that alone proves that there is a sizeable market for this sort of thing. If you then add up the combined subscriptions of all the major old school MMOs you're probably looking at a minimum of 1 mil players. That's roughly a million players who are sticking with an older game because none of the newer games have done anything better. If you gave them a game that all of them could enjoy (a difficult task, I know) that's a potentially huge player base. Ironically it's a number that would be bigger than any game that has attempted to copy WoW. That's also entirely ignoring the WoW players who are only playing it for lack of anything better or have never tried an old school MMO to see if they might prefer it...
And before anyone points out that no one would aim at that market when they have the 11mil player behemoth of WoW, devs are starting to realise that WoW is not likely to be beaten. This means three things:
They will throw a huge sum of money at a project to develop a game that specifically targets and improves upon WoW's features... i.e. SW:TOR.
OR they will come up with an entirely different business model in order to get past the issue of most MMO gamers only being subscribed to one MMO at a time... i.e. GW2.
OR devs are going to entirely break away from the design philosophy behind WoW and start looking for a relatively untapped audience that has a higher potential to generate a return on investment (as it seems producing WoW-clones or games that follow that concept are relatively unsuccessful). Low and behold which audience is that? The old school gamers.
A lot of people seem to be spouting that since WoW has the most subscribers it proves that its game design is the most popular and, therefore, most successful. In normal economics that would make sense. With MMOs it doesn't work like that; it's actually the opposite. Most MMO gamers only stick with one game, and once they're invested in that game they stick with it for a long time and are reluctant to leave. This means that anything that follows the same design concepts as WoW will NOT be anywhere near as successful. It's taken them a while but the devs understand this now.
Essentially WoW's success actually makes it less likely that we'll see another successful MMO of a similar design. The real money to be made in subscription-based MMOs now is by getting as far away from WoW as possible and trying to appeal to another audience that actually wants to leave their current game for something better.
Truth. At least for me. I completely agree.
President of The Marvelously Meowhead Fan Club