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The MMO industry is doing just fine
i00x00i
Member Posts: 243
For every great game there are 10 games of crap that come before it. Greatness is acheived through the process of failure. So of course there are going to be games that are complete crap and watered down clones of other games that were even more crap. It's always been this way, there's nothing new about this. So why are all these gamer's suddenly acting like the MMO industry is going to hell in a hand basket when it's doing exactly what it has been doing for the past decade.
Last year was bad for MMO's, it happens. This year is looking great for MMO's, with games like GW2, ArcheAge, Secret World and countless F2P's that look like they'll actually compete with sub games. Games take time to evolve and become what us gamers want. So stop acting like MMO's were "ruined by WoW" and will never recover from this non-existent tragic state that your putting them in.
Keep in mind that MMORPG's have become ten times more popular than they ever have been. Yet there's all these veteran old time gamer's on this site that complain about how watered down and simple todays games are. Well here's the problem, things just aren't as simple as they used to be. Back in the day PvP could get away with being embalanced, death penalties could be harsh, grouping was much easier, and a good community was alot easier to maintain especially when your playerbase was less than half of what it is in today's average MMORPG. Developers didn't have to worry about pleasing millions of gamers because MMO's simply weren't as popular then. Thing's aren't so simple and many MMO's are actually doing alot better than this sites "veteran" community gives them credit for.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
Comments
If you can't see the decline the industry is in then there's no point trying to explain it to you.
Smarter people than I will be sure to try though.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
no mmorpg is a failure and almost everyone company knows what they are doing on how to make it easy / fast with a big bang of money the word fun is something we forgot about
Aside from the fact that each year since WoW, the frequency of 'failed' MMOs seems to grow by a geometric rate, while the amount of successes could probably be counted on one hand (if even that).
My point is that there are peaks and valleys. Yes there has been a decline, I'm not denying that fact, but such things happen. The industry is only getting better from here on out.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
So we have hit rock bottom and the only way we can go from here is up? Could be....
My theme song.
Of course, the genre was new to gamers back then. Most people shrugged MMO's off as if they were some sort of plague. MMORPG's were never popular and never had any great amount of success prior to WoW in the first place. Once WoW blew up people decided to hop on the bandwagon because it was all they knew (because it was the only mmo at the time considered popular), most people never even thought about other MMORPG's until 5 years later when they grew tired of WoW.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
You really consider this "rock bottom"? heh
Thats my point, everyone is so negative. Be patient and look at what's coming instead of dwelling on this "rock bottom" past that we've apparently hit.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
Or we could keep going down if this next batch of mmo's turn out crappy. The OP is assuming everyone is going to find their dream game by the end of this year or something.
Everyone thought WAR and AoC would be the next best thing - fail
Then came Aion, FFXIV, Fallen Earth, Champions, DC, etc.. didn't think it could get any worse than the previous years.. - fail
Maybe third times a charm, but I'm not getting my hopes up based off what i've seen of these upcoming games.
Everyone? Doubt it. More than in the last years, hopefully.
Games use to be built for the gamer, by gamers.
Now they are built to entertain the gamer and make large profits by business men who really don't have a vision or care about their game inerds. <-- This newer model wasn't realized until the mediocrity of WoW settle over the MMO space and along came millions of children. Thus, the MMO market 5 years later, is all about deriving a game (glitz, glamor), that will takes mom's money monthly, so their children will shut up.
It is no longer about the Terry Brooks adventure when u step foot in the new world, it's now about EXP, graphic and reward for paying $14/month.
"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
This must be one of the stranger conclusions of the MMO market I see flying around.
I see it like this:
- there are several places but certainly mmorpg.com among them, where disillusioned, jaded and burnout oldtime MMO players gather around, sort of a last resting house for MMO vets before a lot of them say their goodbyes to the MMO scene for good (or at least for the next few years). Naturally you'll find a lot of talk at such sites about how bad the state of MMO gaming is and how 'in the past everything was better', exactly the same talk as you hear from grumpy old men about how good things were when they were young.
- just like with those grumpy old men, the same applies to all these disillusioned, disenfranchised and burnout MMO vets: to them the past indeed may have been better because that's what they grew up with and what they're comfortable with. But things are always in motion, moving away from how things were in the past. It doesn't mean it was better or worse, in some ways it was better in some ways it was worse, but most often it was just different, but to older people and MMO vets glorifying the past, how things were back then was just something they were more comfortable with and for both groups alike it makes them unable to keep in touch and enjoy how things are in the present. They're stuck in the past, and very likely their tastes and preferences and likings will remain there, stuck in the past.
- as for MMO history, WoW caused an unprecedented rise of the MMO market, singlehandedly causing an influx of 10+ million gamers into a market that before WoW had only seen maybe 1-2 million in total tops. Of course that brought a change of the MMO scene with it. And of course a lot of MMO gamers who liked how it was before, wouldn't like those changes. But to those millions of new MMO gamers, it certainly was a time of great fun, a peak of MMO gaming. Just like the MMO scene felt like a peak to those who started playing MMO's with games like EQ, UO, AC or DAoC when they entered the MMO scene.
- as for the decline of MMO industry, utter bollocks and 'old vet resting house' talk. There's more money poured into MMO's than there ever was, more MMO's entering the scene than ever had, and with the expected releases of this and next year, more interesting MMO's arriving than we ever saw before in such a time frame. In fact, in the 12 years of MMO gaming I don't think I've seen a more exciting year or 2 of MMO releases than the period of 2011-2012.
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."
yea games were built by gamers during the pong era. Great. Games are still built by gamers but since the production value of those games aren't very high those (indie) games usually end up sucking.
Please are you really blaming games being industrialized on WoW? You act as if all these business men wouldn't have hopped on the huge gaming profit bandwagon anyway.. don't give me that.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
I think some like myself just want to see more quality mmos released. Twenty mmos can be released within a year and only 1-2 actually be any good. The gaming industry in genral needs to stop mass producting mmos like McDonald's hamburgers. Sooner or later you are gonna start feeling sick.
Most people who have been playing MMORPG's for 14 years have seen the entire genra dwindle. None of these games today provide any kind of challange for the adult. They are mostly children's games.
Everquest, Ashron's Call & DAOC were not children games. So us "Oldtimers" are not disgruntled, were stupified why these kids keep paying for games that suck... only to see them go Free to Play, etc. Because their business model won't support their COE's vision of millions.
"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
Wow someone who see's beyond this negative mmorpg.com elitists attitude. Thank you for these facts sir.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
Did you ever read the thread that asked what made older games more challenging? Most of the answers as to why they were more challenging boiled down to tedium and poor design.
People set bars too high. It seems you are either WOW numbers or you're a failure. I don't see those as failures. If a game can make enough to break even and keep operating that is a sucess. It keeps people in jobs and the players playing the game are happy. And going F2P doesnt mean a failure.
I had a lot of fun in AOC before I quit. Same with WAR if not for that long. The best times for games for me is launches. Interacting with other people at that time is the best.
Aion and Fallen Earth are doing fine I believe.
I personally am loving DC, until the PSN outage that is, and will continue to play for now. I think DC did a ton of stuff good and are improving a lot of the bad stuff. First MMO on the new gen of consoles is good for the industry.
And Rift is doing very well from what it seems. So far this is a good year already.
Yes but this is the cost of popularity. This is the problem. All these veteran old timie gamers aren't used to the popularity that MMO's have gained. There used to be a time when PvP didn't have to be balanced, death penalties were harsh and all mainly because the developers didn't have to worry about pleasing millions of people. Well now MMO's rake in a much higher playerbase than they ever have before so what these "veterans" don't understand is that it's not as simple as it used to be.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
In 2002 there were 3 top MMOs in America. Everquest, DAoC, and a distant, but not embarassingly so, thrird Asheron's Call.
By contrast today we have one MMO that completely and utterly embarrasses the rest of the genre. WoW is so in control that they could lose half their subscribers and still be number one by 10 miles. Why is it 7 years after WoW released no MMO has even come close to taking the top spot?
Developers should be embarassed by this. Gamers should be dismayed. We've been stuck in this pathetic rut for too long. Players that have been around are leaving, if not already gone, and newcomers are seeing a genre whose quality has gone backwards.
I think we'd be hard-pressed to find another industry that has seen a total lack of innovation with an erosion in quality. I'd love to see the retention of players that the genre is experiencing. My gut tells me everyday more and more people get sick of the nickle and diming fed-ex quest-a-thons, and fewer people are jumping in.
The industry may being doing fine monetarily due to the only innovation this genre has seen, which is the cash shop(Hey buy your items instead of playing to earn them!). But sometimes victory is fleeting.
How about because WoW has 7 years of playerbase and fans under their belt? 12 Million subscribers didn't happen over night. It took years to gain the massive population of loyal fans that they have. WoW is like microsoft, it's really not that great (actually it's terrible) but it's timing was perfect and it's popularity is viral.
Most people go through life pretending to be a boss. I go through life pretending I'm not.
MMORPGs are dead, we're in the era of MMOGs.
Somewhere between now and a decade ago we lost the RP aspect of MMOs, and it looks to have happened shortly after WoW's freak success luring in the masses.
Wouldn't say terrible, more like, more accessible, just like windows, as opposed to linux(hardcore sandbox full loot pvp) and mac(a mmo that would cost 200 dollars).
I'm sorry, but if you can't see that games like Rift, SWTOR, GW2, TSW, Firefall, ArcheAge and WoD, can offer a quality gameplay experience then I fear that you've lost touch with MMO's and they you might have grown out of it.
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."
Exactly. I just don't understand why all the time on this site, I see threads like "The MMO genre is dead" and "WoW ruined the MMO genre". If these pointless threads from disgruntled, oldt-ime MMO players are any true; then why is it that me and my firends who have never played MMOs before or just started recently, are looking forward to what the MMO industry has to offer? And we aren't the only ones; not by a longshot.
It's pretty evident that the MMO industry will pick up after that last abysmal year, with such titles like: Star Wars: TOR, Guild Wars 2, Tera & The Secret World on the horizon. So it's quite pathetic having to constantly see disgruntled MMO players screaming "The End is Nigh!".
A huge part of it is the Blizzard brand and Warcraft franchise, and the B.net fanboys attached at the hip to them.
Were Wow created exactly the same under a different name by a different development house, it would be nowhere near as successful as it is today.
That's why I think TOR is going to be very successful. Bioware has it's own legion of fanboys to both inflate it's playerbase, and to also sing it's supposide perfection to others.