If I can watch a TV episode in a half hour and receive some level of gratification in that timeframe, I expect to be able to do the same in a MMO/game. I don't want "phat epicz" in the half hour, but I want to be able to hit some type of small, yet meaningful, milestone during this time.
Gaming shouldn't feel like a chore, and the incessant time-drains of grinding or 8-hour dungeon runs excludes any but the most "hardcore" gamers out there. Not every game will cater to the casual crowd, but any game that wants to reach mass-market success has to find a way to provide a casual-friendly experience.
And..?
You do realize that MMORPG are meant to be an adeventure? You seem to play games to be amused and entetained, you do not play to solve puzzles, overcome incredible challenges and seek your way as an adventurer in a new land.
You might as well be wtaching someone else play, or just finddling around in a single player game... if that is all your after... a few moment of instant gratification!
Before WoW.. games where challenging and fun, after WoW they became entertainment and themepark..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-you are grouped with players across multiple servers
-browser based auctions and crafting are seen as a good thing(really? wtf)
-every class can heal/cc/dps/tank
-your quests are spoonfed with giant fecking "go here" arrows on some playschool map
-novelty items are neither crafted or dropped in game, they are purchased with credit cards
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
You would also probably go out of business very quickly. From a company standpoint theres little to no profit in doing most of that.. at least to the extreams, which is why companies dont do it.. it there were profit they would if not they wont. Simple business
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
-you are grouped with players across multiple servers
-browser based auctions and crafting are seen as a good thing(really? wtf)
-every class can heal/cc/dps/tank
-your quests are spoonfed with giant fecking "go here" arrows on some playschool map
-novelty items are neither crafted or dropped in game, they are purchased with credit cards
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
You would also probably go out of business very quickly. From a company standpoint theres little to no profit in doing most of that.. at least to the extreams, which is why companies dont do it.. it there were profit they would if not they wont. Simple business
theres a large enough demographic to make that types of games flourish. theyre just not fully tapped into yet. a lot of coompanies were striving for the ultimate sandbox. but lets face it, when wow showed that you can make hundreds of millions of dollars from a much simpler formula, everyone abandoned ship.
but i assure you the subs are out there, just no-dev has the balls to step up and make a polished game like that yet.
I'm getting this in FFXIV. I think the environment is fantastic. The questleves can take as short as 5-10 minutes and they tell you where to go, and you teleport back after you're done. Rinse and repeat. To take advantage of the environment, it'd be nice if you could explore and have it be more meaningful. It doesn't seem like as much of an adventure as it could be.
-you are grouped with players across multiple servers
-browser based auctions and crafting are seen as a good thing(really? wtf)
-every class can heal/cc/dps/tank
-your quests are spoonfed with giant fecking "go here" arrows on some playschool map
-novelty items are neither crafted or dropped in game, they are purchased with credit cards
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
You would also probably go out of business very quickly. From a company standpoint theres little to no profit in doing most of that.. at least to the extreams, which is why companies dont do it.. it there were profit they would if not they wont. Simple business
theres a large enough demographic to make that types of games flourish. theyre just not fully tapped into yet. a lot of coompanies were striving for the ultimate sandbox. but lets face it, when wow showed that you can make hundreds of millions of dollars from a much simpler formula, everyone abandoned ship.
but i assure you the subs are out there, just no-dev has the balls to step up and make a polished game like that yet.
Im sure there are plenty of people out there that would want a game like that. but would it be enought to not only make a profit during subscription but make back all the money that went into development.. at this time just with the games that sell big theres not.
for that to happen they have to get everything right. not only gameplay and style, but story , setting background etc etc etc its much easier ( and financially compitant ) to go with a variation of what works with some of your own style than to go with something that hasnt worked or at least worked to a scale that would justify the cost. im sure somebody will get it right . probably a smaller company probably f2p will get it "right enough" to make a bigger company want to copy the idea on a bigger scale
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
Something that I think is interesting and ironic, is that Guild Wars 2 seems to be able to bring this feeling back to MMOs, but they have a cash shop for aesthetic items, so you will probably not like it because of your odd notions of what that means.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
-you are grouped with players across multiple servers
-browser based auctions and crafting are seen as a good thing(really? wtf)
-every class can heal/cc/dps/tank
-your quests are spoonfed with giant fecking "go here" arrows on some playschool map
-novelty items are neither crafted or dropped in game, they are purchased with credit cards
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
You would also probably go out of business very quickly. From a company standpoint theres little to no profit in doing most of that.. at least to the extreams, which is why companies dont do it.. it there were profit they would if not they wont. Simple business
theres a large enough demographic to make that types of games flourish. theyre just not fully tapped into yet. a lot of coompanies were striving for the ultimate sandbox. but lets face it, when wow showed that you can make hundreds of millions of dollars from a much simpler formula, everyone abandoned ship.
but i assure you the subs are out there, just no-dev has the balls to step up and make a polished game like that yet.
Im sure there are plenty of people out there that would want a game like that. but would it be enought to not only make a profit during subscription but make back all the money that went into development.. at this time just with the games that sell big theres not.
for that to happen they have to get everything right. not only gameplay and style, but story , setting background etc etc etc its much easier ( and financially compitant ) to go with a variation of what works with some of your own style than to go with something that hasnt worked or at least worked to a scale that would justify the cost. im sure somebody will get it right . probably a smaller company probably f2p will get it "right enough" to make a bigger company want to copy the idea on a bigger scale
yeah youre prob right. the ironic thing is it'll take a big dev like blizz to do one up proper. and dont get me wrong, i enjoy games like wow and im looking forward to playing gw2 etc. but i mostly enjoy rping it up in fe, and eve, and i even play swg still. just wish some of the big boys wouls step up and make one proper you know?
-you are grouped with players across multiple servers
-browser based auctions and crafting are seen as a good thing(really? wtf)
-every class can heal/cc/dps/tank
-your quests are spoonfed with giant fecking "go here" arrows on some playschool map
-novelty items are neither crafted or dropped in game, they are purchased with credit cards
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
You would also probably go out of business very quickly. From a company standpoint theres little to no profit in doing most of that.. at least to the extreams, which is why companies dont do it.. it there were profit they would if not they wont. Simple business
theres a large enough demographic to make that types of games flourish. theyre just not fully tapped into yet. a lot of coompanies were striving for the ultimate sandbox. but lets face it, when wow showed that you can make hundreds of millions of dollars from a much simpler formula, everyone abandoned ship.
but i assure you the subs are out there, just no-dev has the balls to step up and make a polished game like that yet.
Im sure there are plenty of people out there that would want a game like that. but would it be enought to not only make a profit during subscription but make back all the money that went into development.. at this time just with the games that sell big theres not.
for that to happen they have to get everything right. not only gameplay and style, but story , setting background etc etc etc its much easier ( and financially compitant ) to go with a variation of what works with some of your own style than to go with something that hasnt worked or at least worked to a scale that would justify the cost. im sure somebody will get it right . probably a smaller company probably f2p will get it "right enough" to make a bigger company want to copy the idea on a bigger scale
yeah youre prob right. the ironic thing is it'll take a big dev like blizz to do one up proper. and dont get me wrong, i enjoy games like wow and im looking forward to playing gw2 etc. but i mostly enjoy rping it up in fe, and eve, and i even play swg still. just wish some of the big boys wouls step up and make one proper you know?
Im not a big follower of sandbox mmos but last i remember that tried on a large scale with a familer ip was ultima and they screwed the pooch bigtime so that probably got other devs scared to even go in. Especially when thye can be almost sure they can make money other ways.
But for it to happen i can see it going one of two ways
1. Someone takes a bit of the warcraft method and take a already established IP , something thats somewhat familiar to fans but not too much history to be bogged down by it and go from there
2. Or some smaller company with strong dev team( possable spin off from a large team) comes up with a idea and web hype it big time. Start small and grow from there. Probably if profilt constant a seasonal expansion adding content untill they can spin off into a full blown out mmo ( or copied by someone larger)
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
Are you sure about that? Aion fortresses dictates what and where you can farm. It dictates what instance, if any, you can farm. In WoW wintergrasp unlocks the Vault of Ages raid. Tell the allies on my server that Wintergrasp doesn't matter. Nothing just "resets", you can fight over it again in a few hours, yes, but it doesn't just "reset". How much impact are you looking for? You want some kind of butterfly effect when you step on a critter? You want every single quest to be game altering? Sounds like you want a game tailored for you.
Whether or not it provides access, it's temporary, and it continually resets as if nothing had happened. It might as well be stuck in an instance away from the rest of the game. It's not part of a persistent world, because a persistent world wouldn't reset every few hours on the dot.
Well I guess that's just the difference between some people. I enjoy my car more when I have it freshly washed and waxed. Again, you're more interested in what can be done for you.
Different people see things differently. To me, I view the instance and raid grind to be what it is, a grind. If it looks like a duck, and acts like a duck...
So your idea of progression is being further and staying further ahead of others in terms of gear. That's pretty sad to be honest. They did this before in WoW and it was completely TERRIBLE. Top guilds could only recruit people from other top guilds. Most of the lower/mid level guilds would lose people the second they helped them get geared out (since they were now ready to progress into the top guilds). If you were in a top raiding guild and you invited your friend to play the game, you wouldn't be playing with them, period, because you weren't running that content anymore.
I never said that I have to be the top of progression, nor that everyone else always had to be at the bottom. What I'm saying, is that progression needs to matter.
When Burning crusade came out for WoW, the beginning green quest reward items were superior to Molten Core raid gear, as early as level 68, BWL gear in the mid 60s, and Naxx gear at 70, and remember, greens, not even blues. Now, I can understand gear progression, but Blizzard purposefully destroyed the previous itemization curve to let everyone and there grandmother near instantly catch up.
Same thing happened for Wrath for the most part...
If someone else getting gear you left behind months ago makes progression moot for you then I kind of feel sorry for you. Do you really need that kind of confirmation to feel like you've accomplished something?
How would other people getting welfare epics affect your ability to progress through new content? I would worry less about how others enjoy the game, and worry more about yourself. If others enjoying the game in such a way keeps you from enjoying yours, then yes I really do feel sorry for you.
You're misunderstanding my point. It's not that people are getting gear that I left behind months ago. It's that they're getting it for a miniscule fraction of the effort required. I could understand if they made the raids easier as time progressed, but simply handing the gear out for running the same old, mindless, ridiculously easy, heroic dungeons, is nonsense.
It's created a zero progression system. The top raid today, will become tommorow's welfare epic. Today's welfare epics will be tommorow's trash epics. There's extremely little reason to spend the time and effort required to acquire today's top end gear, when it will become extremely easy to get tommorow. The welfare epics of today aren't worth getting because they'll be trash tommorow. The only real reason to work towards acquiring gear was to be able to pogress to the next step, but that's not even a worry anymore since everything gets bumped down every time the next tier cycles in. Hence the zero progression model.
Do you know why they released Naxxramas? It was the highest level raid in WoW classic. I think it was a reported that less than something like 2-3% of the population at the time even set foot in Naxx.
Sure, and it made sense to bring it back into the fold, because of the way they handled itemization between vanilla WoW and BC. Had they not screwed the item curve so much on BC's release, more people would have gone back to Naxx, even at level 70, because the progression there would still be somewhat meaningful.
It's funny because what you're referring to with regards to progression goes against everything else you said with regards to grinding the same dungeons. You do realize the progression you're for is actually 'pro' grinding the same raid over and over? Even if something new comes out, you have to keep grinding Molten Core because you're not quite ready for AQ, nevermind Naxx. Funny, I thought.
And it's replaced by grinding the same heroic dungeons over and over again. What's your point? Mine is that your so called 'superior non-grind modern MMOs', are very much just brain dead treadmill grinds. The only difference is, that with today's model, you quite litterally go nowhere with regards to progression.
You mean to tell me it took as long to get to max level in EQ1 as it does to get to max level in WoW today? Do you even know what you're saying anymore?
It was by far longer, and took more effort. But by the same token, that progression actually meant more, and was a lot more fulfilling.
And I know exactly what I'm saying, and it's that even though everything seems "shorter" and "less grindy", it's still just the same old grind. It's not actually any shorter of a grind, you just don't notice it because you're too busy running the same old heroics for yesterday's raid epics for "upgrades".
yeah this thread just reflects different desires towards mmorpgs- whether a rpg-driven, or whether gameplay driven. Posters like helthros irritate me because they have a one-track view of mmorpgs. You look at the console scene, you look at the different types of racers. Now expand your mind, and stop bleeting rubbish that the only valid mmo is a 'themepark' one.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
If I can watch a TV episode in a half hour and receive some level of gratification in that timeframe, I expect to be able to do the same in a MMO/game. I don't want "phat epicz" in the half hour, but I want to be able to hit some type of small, yet meaningful, milestone during this time.
Gaming shouldn't feel like a chore, and the incessant time-drains of grinding or 8-hour dungeon runs excludes any but the most "hardcore" gamers out there. Not every game will cater to the casual crowd, but any game that wants to reach mass-market success has to find a way to provide a casual-friendly experience.
That is so stupid terror from casuals - if they wanna insta-gratification, then all MMOs MUST be those babysitter themeparks with cash-shops, and those so-"casuals" already call death to every normal game. But in same logic all casual eaters must call death for restaurants, and especially to gourmet food. One wanna fast instant gratification in half hour in da crapfood, junkfood place like mcdonalds or hesburger or chick king or... And then they jump into restaurants yelling "Gimme my hotdog, NOW! in minute! or ya house will be burned down by junklovers!".
But still we see gourmet flourish and restaurants aren't dead - so there is enough market for junkfood companies to make their Mios, but still there is room and stays room for educated eaters, food-lovers who even thought touching some crappy burger as blasphemy.
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
Originally posted by Phelcher
You do realize that MMORPG are meant to be an adeventure? You seem to play games to be amused and entetained, you do not play to solve puzzles, overcome incredible challenges and seek your way as an adventurer in a new land.
You might as well be wtaching someone else play, or just finddling around in a single player game... if that is all your after... a few moment of instant gratification!
Not saying that either of you are wrong, but that argument is a very silly way to go about making your point. Just because a game has features that you don't enjoy or lacks gameplay elements that you would enjoy doesn't mean it is erroneously classified as an MMORPG. Understand that no matter how it may infuriate you, there are people who play these games for different reasons than you and they are not a problem.
We used to run for 2 hours to get to our destination, get PKed 20 times while on the way, lose all our gear each time we got PKed, get killed by bunnies and rats and tree roots and then watch them feed upon our miserable corpses, get lost in mazes and stuck in black holes, find out we went the wrong way and double back several times, run in circles until we caught up with ourselves, have our horses stolen by pixies and killed by orges and eaten by dragons, seeking shelter on dark rainy nights in taverns run by vampires, have our blood sucked completely from our bodies, have our shirts stolen off our backs while negotiating to buy our horses back, have to wear makeshift zombie skin armor and use their legs for weapons, fight off rabid GMs with their own carrot sticks, and when we got there we'd find out no one took the quest............
Hear hear brother, totally agree with the OP - this is what happens when something small but good gets popular. Lets hope all the poppy girls and boys go off and find something else poppy to do and leave us nerds alone to enjoy our games.
Can't they all go back to watching footy or something? We don't raid they're past times, why are they raiding ours???
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
Originally posted by Phelcher
You do realize that MMORPG are meant to be an adeventure? You seem to play games to be amused and entetained, you do not play to solve puzzles, overcome incredible challenges and seek your way as an adventurer in a new land.
You might as well be wtaching someone else play, or just finddling around in a single player game... if that is all your after... a few moment of instant gratification!
Not saying that either of you are wrong, but that argument is a very silly way to go about making your point. Just because a game has features that you don't enjoy or lacks gameplay elements that you would enjoy doesn't mean it is erroneously classified as an MMORPG. Understand that no matter how it may infuriate you, there are people who play these games for different reasons than you and they are not a problem.
If were to go by my personal definition of what MMORPG should mean then none of the games ever made would fit it. I consider games like UO, EQ, WoW or EVE to be missing key parts of what a MMORPG should mean. The parts they do have are pretty nice but they lack the whole experience.
I think the thread topic has wandered far afield of my original point, not that I mind, but I never posed the question on what made a game an MMO or stated that todays MMOs are shoddier than their ancestors. I simply asked why are we seeing the rise of behavior like THIS, when it seems to run contrary to the reasons we play these games in the first place.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
Like it or not, all MMORPGs are a business and it is only natural that those who run them will maximize their profits. Cash shops are only going to increase in popularity despite the angry rants of the vocal minority on forums. Fortunately cash shop items usually do not affect balance, so I don't really see it as a huge problem. As long as it doesn't overpower my enemies or give access to a part of the game I cannot access, I really don't care if someone else is riding some stupid magical horse they paid for. If I REALLY wanted that item, I could buy it too and further support the development of content in my game of choice. It doesn't bother me at all...
Like it or not, there are people who simply won't play games like this... that trend is growing, too.
But for oldschool'ers.. they have never liked WOW, or any of the thempark children games.. You are under the assumption that you need 500K, or more subns to be succesful. You don't!
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-you are grouped with players across multiple servers
-browser based auctions and crafting are seen as a good thing(really? wtf)
-every class can heal/cc/dps/tank
-your quests are spoonfed with giant fecking "go here" arrows on some playschool map
-novelty items are neither crafted or dropped in game, they are purchased with credit cards
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
You would also probably go out of business very quickly. From a company standpoint theres little to no profit in doing most of that.. at least to the extreams, which is why companies dont do it.. it there were profit they would if not they wont. Simple business
Little do you know... there are thousands of people screeaming for these types of games. We need to get back to the old MMORPG and get away from all these damn WoW clones.
Plus, you only need 200k subs, to have a succesful MMORPG...
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
Originally posted by Phelcher
You do realize that MMORPG are meant to be an adeventure? You seem to play games to be amused and entetained, you do not play to solve puzzles, overcome incredible challenges and seek your way as an adventurer in a new land.
You might as well be wtaching someone else play, or just finddling around in a single player game... if that is all your after... a few moment of instant gratification!
Not saying that either of you are wrong, but that argument is a very silly way to go about making your point. Just because a game has features that you don't enjoy or lacks gameplay elements that you would enjoy doesn't mean it is erroneously classified as an MMORPG. Understand that no matter how it may infuriate you, there are people who play these games for different reasons than you and they are not a problem.
You're right, and those people are called KIDS...
Can you imagaine if no one under 21 was allowed to post here..? Then you would clearly see the need for an Everquest, or UO again. But that violent plea can't be heard because newbies and wow tards are everywhere... and the only thing they know is themeparks and cotten candy...
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
when stuff like that happens, you lose the right to be called an mmorpg.
when you get rid of all that stuff written above, lo and behold you get your community back, your socialization back, your adventures back, your "stories to tell" back, your heroes back, your mmorpg back.
Originally posted by Phelcher
You do realize that MMORPG are meant to be an adeventure? You seem to play games to be amused and entetained, you do not play to solve puzzles, overcome incredible challenges and seek your way as an adventurer in a new land.
You might as well be wtaching someone else play, or just finddling around in a single player game... if that is all your after... a few moment of instant gratification!
Not saying that either of you are wrong, but that argument is a very silly way to go about making your point. Just because a game has features that you don't enjoy or lacks gameplay elements that you would enjoy doesn't mean it is erroneously classified as an MMORPG. Understand that no matter how it may infuriate you, there are people who play these games for different reasons than you and they are not a problem.
You're right, and those people are called KIDS...
Can you imagaine if no one under 21 was allowed to post here..? Then you would clearly see the need for an Everquest, or UO again. But that violent plea can't be heard because newbies and wow tards are everywhere... and the only thing they know is themeparks and cotten candy...
LOL .. the average age of WOW players is 28. They have all moved on from UO & EQ.
The simple answer to this question is WoW. They started the trend (competing against EQII, which was the exact opposite) and they won the popularity contest. Others followed.
LOL .. the average age of WOW players is 28. They have all moved on from UO & EQ.
You are correct on average WoW player-age, but there is still a healthy UO & EQ community to this day, the very largest slice of WoW's numbers came from fan communities of Blizzard's prior games, but there's quite the large overlap between the two & I know quite a few players who are still playing EQ & UO also play WoW to keep in touch with friends there they made in earlier games.
So not "all" have moved on, some just adopted it in addition.
LOL .. the average age of WOW players is 28. They have all moved on from UO & EQ.
You are correct on average WoW player-age, but there is still a healthy UO & EQ community to this day, the very largest slice of WoW's numbers came from fan communities of Blizzard's prior games, but there's quite the large overlap between the two & I know quite a few players who are still playing EQ & UO also play WoW to keep in touch with friends there they made in earlier games.
So not "all" have moved on, some just adopted it in addition.
How can that be? The total WOW player base is 11.5M. EQ & UO are under 100k. So even if that whole 100k are overlap ... which obviously not ... that is not a "quite the large overlap".
It is less than 1% of WOW players. Sure, not ALL ... how about MOST ...
LOL .. the average age of WOW players is 28. They have all moved on from UO & EQ.
You are correct on average WoW player-age, but there is still a healthy UO & EQ community to this day, the very largest slice of WoW's numbers came from fan communities of Blizzard's prior games, but there's quite the large overlap between the two & I know quite a few players who are still playing EQ & UO also play WoW to keep in touch with friends there they made in earlier games.
So not "all" have moved on, some just adopted it in addition.
Furthermore, of those who did play EQ or UO that do play WoW now, many of them do so for a lack of any better alternative in MMOs.
EQ and UO today are drastically different than they were in the past. So much so they're entirely different games.
So they haven't "moved on", they just can't stay with what doesn't exist anymore.
Comments
And..?
You do realize that MMORPG are meant to be an adeventure? You seem to play games to be amused and entetained, you do not play to solve puzzles, overcome incredible challenges and seek your way as an adventurer in a new land.
You might as well be wtaching someone else play, or just finddling around in a single player game... if that is all your after... a few moment of instant gratification!
Before WoW.. games where challenging and fun, after WoW they became entertainment and themepark..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
You would also probably go out of business very quickly. From a company standpoint theres little to no profit in doing most of that.. at least to the extreams, which is why companies dont do it.. it there were profit they would if not they wont. Simple business
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
theres a large enough demographic to make that types of games flourish. theyre just not fully tapped into yet. a lot of coompanies were striving for the ultimate sandbox. but lets face it, when wow showed that you can make hundreds of millions of dollars from a much simpler formula, everyone abandoned ship.
but i assure you the subs are out there, just no-dev has the balls to step up and make a polished game like that yet.
I'm getting this in FFXIV. I think the environment is fantastic. The questleves can take as short as 5-10 minutes and they tell you where to go, and you teleport back after you're done. Rinse and repeat. To take advantage of the environment, it'd be nice if you could explore and have it be more meaningful. It doesn't seem like as much of an adventure as it could be.
Im sure there are plenty of people out there that would want a game like that. but would it be enought to not only make a profit during subscription but make back all the money that went into development.. at this time just with the games that sell big theres not.
for that to happen they have to get everything right. not only gameplay and style, but story , setting background etc etc etc its much easier ( and financially compitant ) to go with a variation of what works with some of your own style than to go with something that hasnt worked or at least worked to a scale that would justify the cost. im sure somebody will get it right . probably a smaller company probably f2p will get it "right enough" to make a bigger company want to copy the idea on a bigger scale
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
Something that I think is interesting and ironic, is that Guild Wars 2 seems to be able to bring this feeling back to MMOs, but they have a cash shop for aesthetic items, so you will probably not like it because of your odd notions of what that means.
"Gamers will no longer buy the argument that every MMO requires a subscription fee to offset server and bandwidth costs. It's not true you know it, and they know it." Jeff Strain, co-founder of ArenaNet, 2007
WTF? No subscription fee?
yeah youre prob right. the ironic thing is it'll take a big dev like blizz to do one up proper. and dont get me wrong, i enjoy games like wow and im looking forward to playing gw2 etc. but i mostly enjoy rping it up in fe, and eve, and i even play swg still. just wish some of the big boys wouls step up and make one proper you know?
Im not a big follower of sandbox mmos but last i remember that tried on a large scale with a familer ip was ultima and they screwed the pooch bigtime so that probably got other devs scared to even go in. Especially when thye can be almost sure they can make money other ways.
But for it to happen i can see it going one of two ways
1. Someone takes a bit of the warcraft method and take a already established IP , something thats somewhat familiar to fans but not too much history to be bogged down by it and go from there
2. Or some smaller company with strong dev team( possable spin off from a large team) comes up with a idea and web hype it big time. Start small and grow from there. Probably if profilt constant a seasonal expansion adding content untill they can spin off into a full blown out mmo ( or copied by someone larger)
I challenged my reflection to a staring contest....4 days later i won
yeah this thread just reflects different desires towards mmorpgs- whether a rpg-driven, or whether gameplay driven. Posters like helthros irritate me because they have a one-track view of mmorpgs. You look at the console scene, you look at the different types of racers. Now expand your mind, and stop bleeting rubbish that the only valid mmo is a 'themepark' one.
This thread & sometimes this site reminds me of this minus the humour.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xe1a1wHxTyo
Cal.
This doom and gloom thread was brought to you by Chin Up the new ultra high caffeine soft drink for gamers who just need that boost of happiness after a long forum session.
That is so stupid terror from casuals - if they wanna insta-gratification, then all MMOs MUST be those babysitter themeparks with cash-shops, and those so-"casuals" already call death to every normal game. But in same logic all casual eaters must call death for restaurants, and especially to gourmet food. One wanna fast instant gratification in half hour in da crapfood, junkfood place like mcdonalds or hesburger or chick king or... And then they jump into restaurants yelling "Gimme my hotdog, NOW! in minute! or ya house will be burned down by junklovers!".
But still we see gourmet flourish and restaurants aren't dead - so there is enough market for junkfood companies to make their Mios, but still there is room and stays room for educated eaters, food-lovers who even thought touching some crappy burger as blasphemy.
Not saying that either of you are wrong, but that argument is a very silly way to go about making your point. Just because a game has features that you don't enjoy or lacks gameplay elements that you would enjoy doesn't mean it is erroneously classified as an MMORPG. Understand that no matter how it may infuriate you, there are people who play these games for different reasons than you and they are not a problem.
We used to run for 2 hours to get to our destination, get PKed 20 times while on the way, lose all our gear each time we got PKed, get killed by bunnies and rats and tree roots and then watch them feed upon our miserable corpses, get lost in mazes and stuck in black holes, find out we went the wrong way and double back several times, run in circles until we caught up with ourselves, have our horses stolen by pixies and killed by orges and eaten by dragons, seeking shelter on dark rainy nights in taverns run by vampires, have our blood sucked completely from our bodies, have our shirts stolen off our backs while negotiating to buy our horses back, have to wear makeshift zombie skin armor and use their legs for weapons, fight off rabid GMs with their own carrot sticks, and when we got there we'd find out no one took the quest............
And we loved every second of it.
Once upon a time....
Hear hear brother, totally agree with the OP - this is what happens when something small but good gets popular. Lets hope all the poppy girls and boys go off and find something else poppy to do and leave us nerds alone to enjoy our games.
Can't they all go back to watching footy or something? We don't raid they're past times, why are they raiding ours???
P.S. @Amaranthar - simply awesome dude! :oD
If were to go by my personal definition of what MMORPG should mean then none of the games ever made would fit it. I consider games like UO, EQ, WoW or EVE to be missing key parts of what a MMORPG should mean. The parts they do have are pretty nice but they lack the whole experience.
LOL.
I think the thread topic has wandered far afield of my original point, not that I mind, but I never posed the question on what made a game an MMO or stated that todays MMOs are shoddier than their ancestors. I simply asked why are we seeing the rise of behavior like THIS, when it seems to run contrary to the reasons we play these games in the first place.
If you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, riddle 'em with bullets
Like it or not, there are people who simply won't play games like this... that trend is growing, too.
But for oldschool'ers.. they have never liked WOW, or any of the thempark children games.. You are under the assumption that you need 500K, or more subns to be succesful. You don't!
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
Little do you know... there are thousands of people screeaming for these types of games. We need to get back to the old MMORPG and get away from all these damn WoW clones.
Plus, you only need 200k subs, to have a succesful MMORPG...
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
You're right, and those people are called KIDS...
Can you imagaine if no one under 21 was allowed to post here..? Then you would clearly see the need for an Everquest, or UO again. But that violent plea can't be heard because newbies and wow tards are everywhere... and the only thing they know is themeparks and cotten candy...
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
LOL .. the average age of WOW players is 28. They have all moved on from UO & EQ.
The simple answer to this question is WoW. They started the trend (competing against EQII, which was the exact opposite) and they won the popularity contest. Others followed.
You are correct on average WoW player-age, but there is still a healthy UO & EQ community to this day, the very largest slice of WoW's numbers came from fan communities of Blizzard's prior games, but there's quite the large overlap between the two & I know quite a few players who are still playing EQ & UO also play WoW to keep in touch with friends there they made in earlier games.
So not "all" have moved on, some just adopted it in addition.
How can that be? The total WOW player base is 11.5M. EQ & UO are under 100k. So even if that whole 100k are overlap ... which obviously not ... that is not a "quite the large overlap".
It is less than 1% of WOW players. Sure, not ALL ... how about MOST ...
Furthermore, of those who did play EQ or UO that do play WoW now, many of them do so for a lack of any better alternative in MMOs.
EQ and UO today are drastically different than they were in the past. So much so they're entirely different games.
So they haven't "moved on", they just can't stay with what doesn't exist anymore.