Xsyon will probally suck when it comes out. Hasn't really been 1 sandbox mmorpg that has been really successful, I mean they keep enough to keep it open and to make a small profit but thats usually about it. To put it simply, AAA Devs/publishers don't wanna take risks like indie devs do, ever since wow the mmorpg market has been for the most part nothing but games trying to out wow, wow which pretty much is impossible. Look at rift. pretty much u can take wow and slap rifts graphics on it and its pretty much the same game. Bascally the wow-style of gameplay works, and until it stops making a mint almost every major studio making a mmo will most likely try to clone wow. This si why I consider wow to be the harbringer of death of the mmorpg genre, due to how its pretty much killed the entire market into nothing but clones or near clones.
I played wow, it was fun to level to cap but after that I quit, why? I felt the endgame was a waste of my time due to lack of really anything else to do with raid gear, cept more carrot-on-a-stick raids ad-nauseam. Course wow still has millions of mules that love to chase the carrot on a stick though.. mindless idiots.. but thats another topic entirely.
Xsyon's features sound good on paper but I bet, and its a fairly sure bet the game is going to flop, features like that don't really work in a online persistant world.
"An MMORPG could be completely diffirent from WoW. Just look at games like Dofus, Wizard101 or EVE. But as it is, most of the Western MMOs are trying to succeed by out-WoWing WoW. It's like an army of 10 sports games made about same sports, and barely none about other sports. WoW clone is an accurate description of those games, it manages to convey much information with only two words." -Poster on mmorpg.com
Rift: World of Warcraft clone #9321 Nothing special to see here move along.
Xsyon's features sound good on paper but I bet, and its a fairly sure bet the game is going to flop, features like that don't really work in a online persistant world.
I guess we will have to wait and see if this statement is correct. I doubt the game will flop and time will tell if these features work in an online persistant world that the players shape into their own image.
Xsyon will probally suck when it comes out. Hasn't really been 1 sandbox mmorpg that has been really successful, I mean they keep enough to keep it open and to make a small profit but thats usually about it. To put it simply, AAA Devs/publishers don't wanna take risks like indie devs do, ever since wow the mmorpg market has been for the most part nothing but games trying to out wow, wow which pretty much is impossible. Look at rift. pretty much u can take wow and slap rifts graphics on it and its pretty much the same game. Bascally the wow-style of gameplay works, and until it stops making a mint almost every major studio making a mmo will most likely try to clone wow. This si why I consider wow to be the harbringer of death of the mmorpg genre, due to how its pretty much killed the entire market into nothing but clones or near clones.
I played wow, it was fun to level to cap but after that I quit, why? I felt the endgame was a waste of my time due to lack of really anything else to do with raid gear, cept more carrot-on-a-stick raids ad-nauseam. Course wow still has millions of mules that love to chase the carrot on a stick though.. mindless idiots.. but thats another topic entirely.
Xsyon's features sound good on paper but I bet, and its a fairly sure bet the game is going to flop, features like that don't really work in a online persistant world.
These 2 ip's are not the same and not even close they use 2 diffrent engines. They dont act the same, they dont look the same, they dont even sound the same. The reason the AAA dont try things like a sandbox is because they will not waste money on somthing tht will not on paper trun a bug profit!!
So to summarize this thread it appears to be the majority consensus that it is not that the AAA games cannot do these features but that they will not because these type of features are unwanted by the majority of paying customers.
Do you guys agree?
I happen to disagree with that assessment. How do AAA titles know when they don't do them?
No, not even close. It would be more accurate to say that these type of features are unwanted buy those who invest millions of dollars in MMOs. If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it. If a major developer went to their investors with a list of features like this they wouldn't even get through the presentation before the investors would walk out. Until these features have been proven in a AAA MMO you'll never see them in a AAA MMO. It's kinda a 'Catch 22' situation.
Xsyon will probally suck when it comes out. Hasn't really been 1 sandbox mmorpg that has been really successful, I mean they keep enough to keep it open and to make a small profit but thats usually about it. To put it simply, AAA Devs/publishers don't wanna take risks like indie devs do, ever since wow the mmorpg market has been for the most part nothing but games trying to out wow, wow which pretty much is impossible. Look at rift. pretty much u can take wow and slap rifts graphics on it and its pretty much the same game. Bascally the wow-style of gameplay works, and until it stops making a mint almost every major studio making a mmo will most likely try to clone wow. This si why I consider wow to be the harbringer of death of the mmorpg genre, due to how its pretty much killed the entire market into nothing but clones or near clones.
I played wow, it was fun to level to cap but after that I quit, why? I felt the endgame was a waste of my time due to lack of really anything else to do with raid gear, cept more carrot-on-a-stick raids ad-nauseam. Course wow still has millions of mules that love to chase the carrot on a stick though.. mindless idiots.. but thats another topic entirely.
Xsyon's features sound good on paper but I bet, and its a fairly sure bet the game is going to flop, features like that don't really work in a online persistant world.
lol mindless idiots? Oh please indulge us as to the higher class of gaming that you're taking part in.
It's video games, they are all mindless and hardly good for your own well-being. This misplaced sense of elitism over wow always makes me laugh. Are you that self-absorbed that you can't simply say "Ok well I didn't like the endgame, it's not for me". No that's not enough, you feel SOOO much better than anyone that plays the game that you have the sense of entitlement to call the people that play the game 'mindless idiots'. lol who lied to you?
Xsyon will probally suck when it comes out. Hasn't really been 1 sandbox mmorpg that has been really successful, I mean they keep enough to keep it open and to make a small profit but thats usually about it. To put it simply, AAA Devs/publishers don't wanna take risks like indie devs do, ever since wow the mmorpg market has been for the most part nothing but games trying to out wow, wow which pretty much is impossible. Look at rift. pretty much u can take wow and slap rifts graphics on it and its pretty much the same game. Bascally the wow-style of gameplay works, and until it stops making a mint almost every major studio making a mmo will most likely try to clone wow. This si why I consider wow to be the harbringer of death of the mmorpg genre, due to how its pretty much killed the entire market into nothing but clones or near clones.
I played wow, it was fun to level to cap but after that I quit, why? I felt the endgame was a waste of my time due to lack of really anything else to do with raid gear, cept more carrot-on-a-stick raids ad-nauseam. Course wow still has millions of mules that love to chase the carrot on a stick though.. mindless idiots.. but thats another topic entirely.
Xsyon's features sound good on paper but I bet, and its a fairly sure bet the game is going to flop, features like that don't really work in a online persistant world.
Is there any thought process that happens before you type?
or does everything simply fly at light speed from your ass directly to your fingers?
I have honestly never read anything more completely illogical on these forums.. ever... you present not a single original nor intelligent thought in the entirity of your post.
Mindless idiots? Pot calling the kettle black IMO.
To counter your statement I highlighted above-
Without WoW 1/2 the MMORPG's currently in development and/or those which have been released would not exist, and as such we'd have less choice the titles we did have would be lower quality due to lower budget. Grow a brain, learn some perspective and try and find a rational thought process while you are at it.
But a lot of those features are very atmosphere oriented. They pull you into the world. Why wouldn't a AAA company want that?
AAA themepark players dont want that to much time sink, to slow or to comeplicated.
Themepark players want it simple and fast with alot of fluff.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Since the AAA games tend to be themepark with a heavy emphasis on the game aspect vs. the sim aspect, I'm not sure which heavily sim-sandbox AAA game you are disappointed with for not having those features.
A working weather system, shadow system, sun and moon system, is SIM? Physics is SIM? Hell, making it a real MMORPG is a SIM?
I am sorry. A company that wastes over 10 million $$$ on a game and they do not have proper physics or night/day system with real shadows is a failure. I don't care if every NPC has a voice over or not or if you have 1232435324123 quests to do. MMO's are evolving backwards instead of forward these days.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Since the AAA games tend to be themepark with a heavy emphasis on the game aspect vs. the sim aspect, I'm not sure which heavily sim-sandbox AAA game you are disappointed with for not having those features.
A working weather system, shadow system, sun and moon system, is SIM? Physics is SIM? Hell, making it a real MMORPG is a SIM?
I am sorry. A company that wastes over 10 million $$$ on a game and they do not have proper physics or night/day system with real shadows is a failure. I don't care if every NPC has a voice over or not or if you have 1232435324123 quests to do. MMO's are evolving backwards instead of forward these days.
Yes, actually. A working weather system and sun/moon system are definitely features that push a game more towards being a sim, than a game. That isn't a bad thing, it's just a comment on what the goals of the game designers are. That's like somebody painting a car so it looks like a strawberry, and me saying 'That made the car more red than blue', and you coming up and saying 'Since when?'
Physics interactions don't HAVE to be pushing it towards being more of a sim, but in this particular case, they were.
So far as shadows go, I thought modern games tend to have shadows that actually work. I'm not sure, because my computer is so old I tend to play MMOs on the lowest graphical settings, but I thought even games like LotRO had a basic shadow system.
A company isn't wasting their 10 million dollars unless they fail to make a return and reasonable profit on it. There is not a single company in the whole world that has in their success/failure column 'Did I manage to please Zeno'. They don't care about you. At all. Not even the slightest bit. No offense.
I doubt the people at Blizzard stay up late at nights, crying and weeping at what a failure WoW is because it disappointed you. It may be a failure in YOUR eyes, but what you think doesn't really matter to anybody but you.
So to summarize this thread it appears to be the majority consensus that it is not that the AAA games cannot do these features but that they will not because these type of features are unwanted by the majority of paying customers.
Do you guys agree?
I happen to disagree with that assessment. How do AAA titles know when they don't do them?
No, not even close. It would be more accurate to say that these type of features are unwanted buy those who invest millions of dollars in MMOs. If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it. If a major developer went to their investors with a list of features like this they wouldn't even get through the presentation before the investors would walk out. Until these features have been proven in a AAA MMO you'll never see them in a AAA MMO. It's kinda a 'Catch 22' situation.
Bren
The investors that you know are weirdos.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Last year WoW had a continent redone and people were amazed!
But when an Indie developer redoes their entire world to a greater extent it's no big news... (added into the game this Q2)
What MMO are you talking about that redid their entire world, more than happened to WoW with Cata?
It's not put into the game yet, it's next expansion. But remember the huge fuss people made when WoW released they were redoing the old continent?!
The game I'm talking about is Darkfall. Q2 this year the entire world will change, terrain, where things are, whats there, cities redone, dead space removed and everything shuffled as needed (resources/mobs n tht)
It's not put into the game yet, it's next expansion. But remember the huge fuss people made when WoW released they were redoing the old continent?!
The game I'm talking about is Darkfall. Q2 this year the entire world will change, terrain, where things are, whats there, cities redone, dead space removed and everything shuffled as needed (resources/mobs n tht)
Darkfall doesn't even have 12,000 players. WoW has over 12 million.
That's like asking why nobody pays as much attention when one cat is stuck up a tree, as that one time when 1000 cats were stuck up in a single tree.
It's not put into the game yet, it's next expansion. But remember the huge fuss people made when WoW released they were redoing the old continent?!
The game I'm talking about is Darkfall. Q2 this year the entire world will change, terrain, where things are, whats there, cities redone, dead space removed and everything shuffled as needed (resources/mobs n tht)
Darkfall doesn't even have 12,000 players. WoW has over 12 million.
That's like asking why nobody pays as much attention when one cat is stuck up a tree, as that one time when 1000 cats were stuck up in a single tree.
What you're saying is true but not even the people playing Darkfall realise how huge and how much man hours is going into this kinda thing.
The point is AAA MMOs throw you a stick and everyone goes crazy hyping all over the place.
An indie developer cuts down a tree and turns it into a boat and people go 'ahh that's good'.
So to summarize this thread it appears to be the majority consensus that it is not that the AAA games cannot do these features but that they will not because these type of features are unwanted by the majority of paying customers.
Do you guys agree?
I happen to disagree with that assessment. How do AAA titles know when they don't do them?
No, not even close. It would be more accurate to say that these type of features are unwanted buy those who invest millions of dollars in MMOs. If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it. If a major developer went to their investors with a list of features like this they wouldn't even get through the presentation before the investors would walk out. Until these features have been proven in a AAA MMO you'll never see them in a AAA MMO. It's kinda a 'Catch 22' situation.
Bren
The investors that you know are weirdos.
No, this is standard practice at all of the AAA MMO companies. Investors want a guaranteed return on their investments... Who wouldn't when we're talking 10's of millions of dollars. They can't get that guarantee with a totally untried product so they back whats been proven to make money. The MMO world isn't the only place this happens... It's just big business in general that operates in this way. You don't invest millions unless you have some kind of idea what you can expect for a return on that investment. These investors are far from being weirdos... they are just smart businessmen. Why do you think they have millions of dollars to invest in the first place? By making smart investment choices.
What you're saying is true but not even the people playing Darkfall realise how huge and how much man hours is going into this kinda thing.
The point is AAA MMOs throw you a stick and everyone goes crazy hyping all over the place.
An indie developer cuts down a tree and turns it into a boat and people go 'ahh that's good'.
Look at it this way. If McDonalds reveals they're going to make a new product, it gets TV commercials, people talk about it,e verybody knows about the McRibs or whatever.
If the local French restaurant makes a new dish, nobody knows except for people who go to that restaurant.
The quality is almost irrelevant, the important part is how many people it actually affects.
So to summarize this thread it appears to be the majority consensus that it is not that the AAA games cannot do these features but that they will not because these type of features are unwanted by the majority of paying customers.
Do you guys agree?
I happen to disagree with that assessment. How do AAA titles know when they don't do them?
No, not even close. It would be more accurate to say that these type of features are unwanted buy those who invest millions of dollars in MMOs. If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it. If a major developer went to their investors with a list of features like this they wouldn't even get through the presentation before the investors would walk out. Until these features have been proven in a AAA MMO you'll never see them in a AAA MMO. It's kinda a 'Catch 22' situation.
Bren
The investors that you know are weirdos.
No, this is standard practice at all of the AAA MMO companies. Investors want a guaranteed return on their investments... Who wouldn't when we're talking 10's of millions of dollars. They can't get that guarantee with a totally untried product so they back whats been proven to make money. The MMO world isn't the only place this happens... It's just big business in general that operates in this way. You don't invest millions unless you have some kind of idea what you can expect for a return on that investment. These investors are far from being weirdos... they are just smart businessmen. Why do you think they have millions of dollars to invest in the first place? By making smart investment choices.
Bren
Yeah, the investors you know are definite weirdos. You're also taling about 'untried product' which means you seem to not want to believe that any of this cutting edge indie stuff has been tried before or that there were any polls or studies to indicate whether it is even worth the effort or not.
"If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it"
You are either speaking from some point of authority (are an investor or know investors) or you're relaying opinion as if it were fact in order to try to give it credence. If the former, then , yes, the investors you know are oddballs because it doesn't seem like they are very risk averse which makes one wonder why they would invest in computer games when the chance of success is probably about that of a rock band.
To bring fact and reality to the table here, Games Invest 2010 is one way the investors get involved in and back these indie game projects. Indie Fund was set up by existing independent game makers to get investment money to indie developers. As for projects that went live, Riot Games had secured six million in investments about two and a half years ago. Who would have thought there'd be decent money in a commercial DOTA, huh?
Your contention is that triple AAA dvelopers/publishers will not try anything new, but they have been the first ones to venture out into unknown ares down the line of features and business models. In many of the cases where there's some kewl rad feature that an indie game has, it's more than likely the triple AAA developer chose to go with a slightly smarter AI or a much better visual experience or something else that would have offered more return to the consumer that bought the product than maybe spotting a deer eating a flower and later noticing that the flower grew back.
"If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it"
The investors that you know are odd and their criteria for what features they will consider is even more odd.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Last year WoW had a continent redone and people were amazed!
But when an Indie developer redoes their entire world to a greater extent it's no big news... (added into the game this Q2)
What MMO are you talking about that redid their entire world, more than happened to WoW with Cata?
It's not put into the game yet, it's next expansion. But remember the huge fuss people made when WoW released they were redoing the old continent?!
The game I'm talking about is Darkfall. Q2 this year the entire world will change, terrain, where things are, whats there, cities redone, dead space removed and everything shuffled as needed (resources/mobs n tht)
Well, its partly a matter of scale. WoW has more than 12 million players. Darkfal has a tiny fraction of that. Thus it lacks the impact, and the marketing budget.
Without WoW 1/2 the MMORPG's currently in development and/or those which have been released would not exist, and as such we'd have less choice the titles we did have would be lower quality due to lower budget. Grow a brain, learn some perspective and try and find a rational thought process while you are at it.
A tad hyperbolic and unfounded, don't ya think?
Ultima Online, Everquest 1 (and 2), FFXI, Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage 1 and 2.. and so forth... all came before WoW, none of them were "low budget" titles, and every one of them was successful in its own way, within its own portion of the market.
I'm with you on the part that there wouldn't be as many MMOs in development, but you kinda go off the deep end after that. And besides, it could be argued that considering the number of developers who've come out of the woodwork trying to play "Me Too" by riding Blizzard's coat-tails with half-assed, unoriginal WoW knock-offs, that WoW's release has led to the creation of a lot of crappy, low quality games as well.
"If you just step away for a sec you will clearly see all the pot holes in the road, and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Investor lag. They're responsible for lack of innovation most of the time, that's why electric cars are taking forever.
Since there is currently no high-profit sandbox, but is a high-profit themepark, investors do not want to invest into an AAA sandbox. And since they don't invest in an AAA sandbox, we don't get a high-profit sandbox. It's a vicious circle.
Eventually, some team of old developers may end up making a sandbox that will blow everything out of the water, but until then, you won't see investors putting money in sandboxes because they're too stupid to think beyond what's already there.
Eventually, some team of old developers may end up making a sandbox that will blow everything out of the water, but until then, you won't see investors putting money in sandboxes because they're too stupid to think beyond what's already there.
These people have millions of dollars to put into games. You have your opinion on a forum.
... and they're the stupid one?
...
...
I'm not calling you stupid, but you shouldn't go calling people stupid just because they don't spend all their time playing MMORPGs. Wanting safe investments with good returns isn't a sign of stupidity, it's a sign of being risk-adverse.
If you think they're so stupid, and you're so much smarter, how about you take all your money, invest it cleverly, put your earnings into a sandbox MMO, and laugh all the way to the bank?
Just because people aren't doing what you want, doesn't make them stupid. I know these investors are total strangers to you, but that doesn't mean you should be a dick to them. That's their MONEY you're talking about them risking. You're awfully free spending OTHER people's money. Spend your own.
Wow the quoting interface on this forum is confusing as hell.
"These people have millions of dollars to put into games ... and they're the stupid one?"
When they lose those millions because they keep investing into clones of a successful game, yes, they are. This happens all over EA, and in most of the flopped MMO's. People who have millions generally did not earn them through being terribly educated, unfortunately. Most professions which require a lot of education do not earn that much money excluding possibly doctors, and doctors work a lot harder than any investor.
"If you think they're so stupid, and you're so much smarter, how about you take all your money, invest it cleverly, put your earnings into a sandbox MMO, and laugh all the way to the bank?"
Maybe because I didn't get a huge inheritance from my parents or something? To invest money, you should have it first, and you need much more of it than a normal person can earn.
I'm also talking about the existing investors. I.E., video game publishers. I can't take their place, and they're the problem.
Besides, I'm not a lazy investor who just wants to earn a quick buck. Once I get my education, I'll just MAKE such a game.
If you think they're so stupid, and you're so much smarter, how about you take all your money, invest it cleverly, put your earnings into a sandbox MMO, and laugh all the way to the bank?
Just because people aren't doing what you want, doesn't make them stupid. I know these investors are total strangers to you, but that doesn't mean you should be a dick to them. That's their MONEY you're talking about them risking. You're awfully free spending OTHER people's money. Spend your own.
Good point.
The only thing that can be said of investors is that they're fond of sure bets and wary of high risks, especially if large amounts of dough are involved.
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums: Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
Comments
You're gonna lose a lot of people talking about metrics
Xsyon will probally suck when it comes out. Hasn't really been 1 sandbox mmorpg that has been really successful, I mean they keep enough to keep it open and to make a small profit but thats usually about it. To put it simply, AAA Devs/publishers don't wanna take risks like indie devs do, ever since wow the mmorpg market has been for the most part nothing but games trying to out wow, wow which pretty much is impossible. Look at rift. pretty much u can take wow and slap rifts graphics on it and its pretty much the same game. Bascally the wow-style of gameplay works, and until it stops making a mint almost every major studio making a mmo will most likely try to clone wow. This si why I consider wow to be the harbringer of death of the mmorpg genre, due to how its pretty much killed the entire market into nothing but clones or near clones.
I played wow, it was fun to level to cap but after that I quit, why? I felt the endgame was a waste of my time due to lack of really anything else to do with raid gear, cept more carrot-on-a-stick raids ad-nauseam. Course wow still has millions of mules that love to chase the carrot on a stick though.. mindless idiots.. but thats another topic entirely.
Xsyon's features sound good on paper but I bet, and its a fairly sure bet the game is going to flop, features like that don't really work in a online persistant world.
"An MMORPG could be completely diffirent from WoW. Just look at games like Dofus, Wizard101 or EVE. But as it is, most of the Western MMOs are trying to succeed by out-WoWing WoW. It's like an army of 10 sports games made about same sports, and barely none about other sports. WoW clone is an accurate description of those games, it manages to convey much information with only two words."
-Poster on mmorpg.com
Rift: World of Warcraft clone #9321 Nothing special to see here move along.
I guess we will have to wait and see if this statement is correct. I doubt the game will flop and time will tell if these features work in an online persistant world that the players shape into their own image.
These 2 ip's are not the same and not even close they use 2 diffrent engines. They dont act the same, they dont look the same, they dont even sound the same. The reason the AAA dont try things like a sandbox is because they will not waste money on somthing tht will not on paper trun a bug profit!!
No, not even close. It would be more accurate to say that these type of features are unwanted buy those who invest millions of dollars in MMOs. If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it. If a major developer went to their investors with a list of features like this they wouldn't even get through the presentation before the investors would walk out. Until these features have been proven in a AAA MMO you'll never see them in a AAA MMO. It's kinda a 'Catch 22' situation.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
lol mindless idiots? Oh please indulge us as to the higher class of gaming that you're taking part in.
It's video games, they are all mindless and hardly good for your own well-being. This misplaced sense of elitism over wow always makes me laugh. Are you that self-absorbed that you can't simply say "Ok well I didn't like the endgame, it's not for me". No that's not enough, you feel SOOO much better than anyone that plays the game that you have the sense of entitlement to call the people that play the game 'mindless idiots'. lol who lied to you?
Is there any thought process that happens before you type?
or does everything simply fly at light speed from your ass directly to your fingers?
I have honestly never read anything more completely illogical on these forums.. ever... you present not a single original nor intelligent thought in the entirity of your post.
Mindless idiots? Pot calling the kettle black IMO.
To counter your statement I highlighted above-
Without WoW 1/2 the MMORPG's currently in development and/or those which have been released would not exist, and as such we'd have less choice the titles we did have would be lower quality due to lower budget. Grow a brain, learn some perspective and try and find a rational thought process while you are at it.
AAA themepark players dont want that to much time sink, to slow or to comeplicated.
Themepark players want it simple and fast with alot of fluff.
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
A working weather system, shadow system, sun and moon system, is SIM? Physics is SIM? Hell, making it a real MMORPG is a SIM?
I am sorry. A company that wastes over 10 million $$$ on a game and they do not have proper physics or night/day system with real shadows is a failure. I don't care if every NPC has a voice over or not or if you have 1232435324123 quests to do. MMO's are evolving backwards instead of forward these days.
The definition of insanity: doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.
Yes, actually. A working weather system and sun/moon system are definitely features that push a game more towards being a sim, than a game. That isn't a bad thing, it's just a comment on what the goals of the game designers are. That's like somebody painting a car so it looks like a strawberry, and me saying 'That made the car more red than blue', and you coming up and saying 'Since when?'
Physics interactions don't HAVE to be pushing it towards being more of a sim, but in this particular case, they were.
So far as shadows go, I thought modern games tend to have shadows that actually work. I'm not sure, because my computer is so old I tend to play MMOs on the lowest graphical settings, but I thought even games like LotRO had a basic shadow system.
A company isn't wasting their 10 million dollars unless they fail to make a return and reasonable profit on it. There is not a single company in the whole world that has in their success/failure column 'Did I manage to please Zeno'. They don't care about you. At all. Not even the slightest bit. No offense.
I doubt the people at Blizzard stay up late at nights, crying and weeping at what a failure WoW is because it disappointed you. It may be a failure in YOUR eyes, but what you think doesn't really matter to anybody but you.
The investors that you know are weirdos.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Last year WoW had a continent redone and people were amazed!
But when an Indie developer redoes their entire world to a greater extent it's no big news... (added into the game this Q2)
What MMO are you talking about that redid their entire world, more than happened to WoW with Cata?
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
It's not put into the game yet, it's next expansion. But remember the huge fuss people made when WoW released they were redoing the old continent?!
The game I'm talking about is Darkfall. Q2 this year the entire world will change, terrain, where things are, whats there, cities redone, dead space removed and everything shuffled as needed (resources/mobs n tht)
Darkfall doesn't even have 12,000 players. WoW has over 12 million.
That's like asking why nobody pays as much attention when one cat is stuck up a tree, as that one time when 1000 cats were stuck up in a single tree.
What you're saying is true but not even the people playing Darkfall realise how huge and how much man hours is going into this kinda thing.
The point is AAA MMOs throw you a stick and everyone goes crazy hyping all over the place.
An indie developer cuts down a tree and turns it into a boat and people go 'ahh that's good'.
No, this is standard practice at all of the AAA MMO companies. Investors want a guaranteed return on their investments... Who wouldn't when we're talking 10's of millions of dollars. They can't get that guarantee with a totally untried product so they back whats been proven to make money. The MMO world isn't the only place this happens... It's just big business in general that operates in this way. You don't invest millions unless you have some kind of idea what you can expect for a return on that investment. These investors are far from being weirdos... they are just smart businessmen. Why do you think they have millions of dollars to invest in the first place? By making smart investment choices.
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Look at it this way. If McDonalds reveals they're going to make a new product, it gets TV commercials, people talk about it,e verybody knows about the McRibs or whatever.
If the local French restaurant makes a new dish, nobody knows except for people who go to that restaurant.
The quality is almost irrelevant, the important part is how many people it actually affects.
Yeah, the investors you know are definite weirdos. You're also taling about 'untried product' which means you seem to not want to believe that any of this cutting edge indie stuff has been tried before or that there were any polls or studies to indicate whether it is even worth the effort or not.
"If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it"
You are either speaking from some point of authority (are an investor or know investors) or you're relaying opinion as if it were fact in order to try to give it credence. If the former, then , yes, the investors you know are oddballs because it doesn't seem like they are very risk averse which makes one wonder why they would invest in computer games when the chance of success is probably about that of a rock band.
To bring fact and reality to the table here, Games Invest 2010 is one way the investors get involved in and back these indie game projects. Indie Fund was set up by existing independent game makers to get investment money to indie developers. As for projects that went live, Riot Games had secured six million in investments about two and a half years ago. Who would have thought there'd be decent money in a commercial DOTA, huh?
Your contention is that triple AAA dvelopers/publishers will not try anything new, but they have been the first ones to venture out into unknown ares down the line of features and business models. In many of the cases where there's some kewl rad feature that an indie game has, it's more than likely the triple AAA developer chose to go with a slightly smarter AI or a much better visual experience or something else that would have offered more return to the consumer that bought the product than maybe spotting a deer eating a flower and later noticing that the flower grew back.
"If it hasn't been proven to work in a game with at least a million subs MMO investors don't even want to hear about it"
The investors that you know are odd and their criteria for what features they will consider is even more odd.
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
Well, its partly a matter of scale. WoW has more than 12 million players. Darkfal has a tiny fraction of that. Thus it lacks the impact, and the marketing budget.
A tad hyperbolic and unfounded, don't ya think?
Ultima Online, Everquest 1 (and 2), FFXI, Dark Age of Camelot, Lineage 1 and 2.. and so forth... all came before WoW, none of them were "low budget" titles, and every one of them was successful in its own way, within its own portion of the market.
I'm with you on the part that there wouldn't be as many MMOs in development, but you kinda go off the deep end after that. And besides, it could be argued that considering the number of developers who've come out of the woodwork trying to play "Me Too" by riding Blizzard's coat-tails with half-assed, unoriginal WoW knock-offs, that WoW's release has led to the creation of a lot of crappy, low quality games as well.
and the cash shop selling asphalt..." - Mimzel on F2P/Cash Shops
Investor lag. They're responsible for lack of innovation most of the time, that's why electric cars are taking forever.
Since there is currently no high-profit sandbox, but is a high-profit themepark, investors do not want to invest into an AAA sandbox. And since they don't invest in an AAA sandbox, we don't get a high-profit sandbox. It's a vicious circle.
Eventually, some team of old developers may end up making a sandbox that will blow everything out of the water, but until then, you won't see investors putting money in sandboxes because they're too stupid to think beyond what's already there.
These people have millions of dollars to put into games. You have your opinion on a forum.
... and they're the stupid one?
...
...
I'm not calling you stupid, but you shouldn't go calling people stupid just because they don't spend all their time playing MMORPGs. Wanting safe investments with good returns isn't a sign of stupidity, it's a sign of being risk-adverse.
If you think they're so stupid, and you're so much smarter, how about you take all your money, invest it cleverly, put your earnings into a sandbox MMO, and laugh all the way to the bank?
Just because people aren't doing what you want, doesn't make them stupid. I know these investors are total strangers to you, but that doesn't mean you should be a dick to them. That's their MONEY you're talking about them risking. You're awfully free spending OTHER people's money. Spend your own.
Wow the quoting interface on this forum is confusing as hell.
"These people have millions of dollars to put into games ... and they're the stupid one?"
When they lose those millions because they keep investing into clones of a successful game, yes, they are. This happens all over EA, and in most of the flopped MMO's. People who have millions generally did not earn them through being terribly educated, unfortunately. Most professions which require a lot of education do not earn that much money excluding possibly doctors, and doctors work a lot harder than any investor.
"If you think they're so stupid, and you're so much smarter, how about you take all your money, invest it cleverly, put your earnings into a sandbox MMO, and laugh all the way to the bank?"
Maybe because I didn't get a huge inheritance from my parents or something? To invest money, you should have it first, and you need much more of it than a normal person can earn.
I'm also talking about the existing investors. I.E., video game publishers. I can't take their place, and they're the problem.
Besides, I'm not a lazy investor who just wants to earn a quick buck. Once I get my education, I'll just MAKE such a game.
Good point.
The only thing that can be said of investors is that they're fond of sure bets and wary of high risks, especially if large amounts of dough are involved.
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."