In games with recurring fees, developer greed is the force most interested in diluting content (reducing instant gratification in order to keep players playing longer.)
Well actually in almost all business models , developers are interested in "forcing" players to play longer. Not only games with recurring subs.
In pure F2P games it is to sell xp and other boosts, and /or direct selling things in store that can be also achieved though hard grind in game.
In Freemium games it is simillar. Since many players have subscriptions devs want them to play long AND since sub players and f2p players can speed up , avoid or just buy themself a reward , the in-game way to get this reward have to be grindy time-sink to encourage store usage.
Actually business model which care least about how long player stay in game is GW1 B2P model.
We'll see how it is done in GW2.
EDIT:
One more thing. Saying that old games were "terrible time-sinks" and new ones aren't is kinda silly imho.
Time sinks are just in diffrent places. In older games time sinks (like death penalty , corpse run ,etc) were from the start of the game and during levelling , in new games time-sinks are in "end game".
You have to do instances A , then Tier 1 , Then Tier 2, etc , - you have to earn gold to buy all consumeables for raiding.
Then there are alot of daily quests (typical time sinks) , and barter systems where you have to "win" dozens or even hundreads or thusands (see last Lotro raid armor reuqirements) "medalions" "trinkets" etc to barter it for armors ,weapons , etc
New games are also grindy and with alot of time-sinks , those are just in diffrent places a game and made in diffrent forms.
Well I'm not sure I'd agree with some of those things:
Communities: When you imply current MMORPGs don't have good communities, it's a lot like admitting you're bad at finding guilds. Guilds *are* the community in most games (because let's face it, we're all going to call everyone outside our Monkeysphere jerks, noobs, and trolls because our brains are inferior like that.) This limitation of our minds is responsible for perceptions about community quality more than anything else. (Although you do have a few genuine mistakes being made: like cross-server dungeons without cross-server friending/chat/etc)
'Meaningful quests': sounds a little BS. I'm curious what game you consider to have superior quest design and reward structure (both of which add meaning) to WOW's quests.
Quick Leveling: Calling quick leveling poorly balanced and labelling them "race to cap" MMOs really paints a rather obsessive view of the role of level in MMORPGs. In games with quick leveling, leveling is merely the first step of the journey and not the end.
Content throughout the game: Again, content can't actually exist at the "end". If it does, it's not the end.
Crafting/exploration: It's fair to want more/deeper versions of these in games.
Nobody said modern MMORPGs don't have repetitive content. But dungeon+variedMobs+bosses is incrementally superior to dungeon+variedMobs. (And this is being overly kind to early MMORPGs, since many of them lacked mob variety and had all these mobs which played out identically.)
As for instant gratification, there is no magical "limit" to how much entertainment a product can provide. If a game provides more fun, it's better and it will sell better. In games with recurring fees, developer greed is the force most interested in diluting content (reducing instant gratification in order to keep players playing longer.)
Wow....
No, you are ASSUMING that I am bad at finding Guilds. Sadly though...most Guilds exist to do raids at "end game" and that is pretty much it. Been in many Guilds in many modern MMO's where they were top Guilds...but no one talked to one another, and helped one another very little. Only certain "cliques" in the Guilds help each other. Didn't matter if it was a large Guild, or small Guild. People barely talk either. Now if you are in a rush to be 1337 and willing to be a toolbag to most people...as well as unhelpful and selfish to get it, then sure...you can find plenty of those types of Guilds pretty quick to be part of.
If you want to find a family friendly Guild where people are somewhat helpful and chat...you can find those too. Just that you won't see all the content in such a Guild because they rarely can get big without becoming the above described.
Most MMO communities now are cesspools. And speak for yourself as far as inferior minds and calling others noobs, jerks, etc outside your Monkeysphere. Just isn't true. I NEVER call people noobs or purposely be an ass to any player unless they are projecting it on others. I always offer info, or help, and am all around friendly to everyone I come across unless they the give me reason not to. Most players now (Not all, but most) are quick to call names and be all around rude at the drop of a hat. It's MUCH harder to find friendly people now compared to the sheer amount of immature and all around rude people you come across.
By meaningful quests, I mean a quest with a good/interesting story and equally interesting mission connected to it. Actually had one in Rift when I did the beta that is an example of what I mean. I had to go see a certain NPC (Can't recall his name) in town and get some info out of him...it was up the ramp of a high tower, but I had to get past all of his guards that spawned and attacked along the way. Once at the top, it switched to an over the shoulder shot and zoomed in while it proceeded to make me kick the burning door in and scare the NPC in question. May sound lame..had to be there, but it was different, and entertaining. had rather dramatic music during the whole thing too. Unlike most quests of "Kill/Collect X from Y" that is marked via map GPS that is within 30 paces from where you got the quest most times. or simply go talk to "X" NPC and that is pretty much the gist of it.
I miss epic quests from EQ. They were actually quests. They took you to different zones and different NPC's, and took a long time (For 1 quest). Just some imagination and creativity would be nice beyond collection and killing 50+ of a certain mob types of quests.
At "end game", it IS content...just the repeditive kind that is limited...a.k.a raiding/PvP. If your doing it, it is content. Just not the progressive type is all.
Anyways, I am not going to continue to argue with you Axehilt. It is obvious you are seriously of the pro-WoW era and we are not going to see eye to eye. If you like the fast paced IG types of MMO's...more power to ya. I will just continue to follow the production of a certain MMO (Not naming it for the sake of trouble heading there just to make a stink for their own sad entertainment) and HOPE they stay on track with their vision to make it more like old school MMO's and don't listen to the majority of "I want it Now NOW NOW!!!11!" whiners. Which is sad too if you think about it...and selfish. SO MANY bash old schoolers for wanting just one MMO to cater to them...when there are TONS that already cater to the casual/IG crowd already.
At least one company has the beanbags to take a shot at it.
I think they need to stop designing systems to be time sinks to keep us playing and start giving us good content. They need to get a team of writers and devs that just produce amazing story arcs with challenging content. The story arcs need to be on par with, lets say, Game of Thrones. After every quest we should be feeling "That was frigging awesome! I gotta know what happens next!" instead of meh. At the end of the story arc you feel a sense of accomplishment and then it ties into the next arc.
Empire Earth I is better then Empire Earth II, and Empire Earth II is better then Empire Earth III. I fired up Empire Earth I a couple days ago and it's fun. If only the graphics were upgraded and everything else was left alone, oh well.
It seems to me that all games, MMORPG, single player, FPS, are getting crappier as time marches on. Maybe the problem is taking the game making away from certain talented designers with a "vision" who dictate, and putting it in the hands of focus groups, corporate yes men, and democratizing the entire process of development.
Another good example is Master of Orion III, yuck.
I think they need to stop designing systems to be time sinks to keep us playing and start giving us good content. They need to get a team of writers and devs that just produce amazing story arcs with challenging content. The story arcs need to be on par with, lets say, Game of Thrones. After every quest we should be feeling "That was frigging awesome! I gotta know what happens next!" instead of meh. At the end of the story arc you feel a sense of accomplishment and then it ties into the next arc.
Well I agree with some points. Good story and challenging combat will help surely BUT time sinks will be always in mmorpg's.
It is impossible to produce enough content at a pace so you can satisfy consumer. For example in dungeons to get certain drop , you either have to do it over and over to get enough medalions / tokens or do it over and over for certain things to drop directly becasue of it % chance to drop. This IS time sink.
Of course from logical and story point of view , if for beat certain boss he should always drop same things. So there should be 100% drop rate. After all he is owner of this ring you want to get or not. If he is owner so you kill it and take it, so you kill him once and get all he has.
But well that would mean that you need to have hundreads of dungeons released every year. Well you can make them SO HARD that people will beat all dungeons first time after hundreads of tries, but I doubt many people would like to play this. That would have to be based on pure luck or on very complicated things players have to do (like in some raids, stand here , then go here , then do this and that , if one person fail then whole group wipe ).
Besides most people WANT time-sinks , question is what kind of time sink should be there , how severe , how they should be distribued through game.
What most current games suffer is that after fast-forwarding in max. few weeks to "end game" , you're exposed to severe time sinks of 3 types: a) running dungeons & raids for loot/medalions b) running instanced BG to grind for rank c) running daily-quests and grining gold for consumeables to use in instances.
All of them are combat related , very repetetive and thus many people get very bored. Of course there is alot of people that enjoy that and view mmorpg's as a game that main purpose is just to run instances in small groups.
I think that is only ONE PART of what mmorpg should be. But nowadays it is all what mmorpg's are.
So what we need in DIVERSITY.
Make open world content more interesting and long-lasting.
Make crafting more interesting , rewarding and more important in game economy.
Make world much bigger , open and interesting & rewarding to explore.
Players should have some permanent impact on game world. So ELEMENTS of sandbox should be inserted in themeparks. Like open world housing , more than it is currently player-made economy , encouraging of the social-interaction (some things very hard and long to do on your own).
But I think what we really NEED is DIVERSITY among mmorpg's. Mmorpg market is so big that there should be diffrent types of games adressed to diffrent crowds, yet 99% AAA mmorgp's and almost all other mmorpg's are following ONE scheme , set by WoW.
Yet almost all of them fail miserably to get even small % of WoW playerbse and profits.
Most succeful game since WoW , was AION yes , it was not very succesful in west (thought it is alive , servers have ok population and patches and content updates are frequent) but when you look worldwide. There is WoW with 11 mln , AION with 3 mln (peaked at 4 mln) , and then long long nothing with Rift beign 3 rd possibly, having around 500 k?
Note : While Aion is themepark , it is quite diffrent than WoW. I am not saying better or worse, but it is not follwing wow scheme in making quick level , heavy PvE focused very solo friendly game.
Mmorpg's have to start to cater to diffrent kind of players. Success like WoW that ONE game will crush all others and dominate for 7 + years , won't happen again IMHO.
In games with recurring fees, developer greed is the force most interested in diluting content (reducing instant gratification in order to keep players playing longer.)
Well actually in almost all business models , developers are interested in "forcing" players to play longer. Not only games with recurring subs.
One more thing. Saying that old games were "terrible time-sinks" and new ones aren't is kinda silly imho.
Time sinks are just in diffrent places.
Yeah, hence the term "recurring fees".
As for time sinks, yes they exist, yes they're in different places. Being in different places makes a big difference. In older games time sinks occurred for things like travel or death penalty -- game systems with some of the least effort spent on being fun or tactical. Conversely in new games the time sinks focus more on systems with the most effort spent on them. They min-max for fun.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Comments
Well actually in almost all business models , developers are interested in "forcing" players to play longer. Not only games with recurring subs.
In pure F2P games it is to sell xp and other boosts, and /or direct selling things in store that can be also achieved though hard grind in game.
In Freemium games it is simillar. Since many players have subscriptions devs want them to play long AND since sub players and f2p players can speed up , avoid or just buy themself a reward , the in-game way to get this reward have to be grindy time-sink to encourage store usage.
Actually business model which care least about how long player stay in game is GW1 B2P model.
We'll see how it is done in GW2.
EDIT:
One more thing. Saying that old games were "terrible time-sinks" and new ones aren't is kinda silly imho.
Time sinks are just in diffrent places. In older games time sinks (like death penalty , corpse run ,etc) were from the start of the game and during levelling , in new games time-sinks are in "end game".
You have to do instances A , then Tier 1 , Then Tier 2, etc , - you have to earn gold to buy all consumeables for raiding.
Then there are alot of daily quests (typical time sinks) , and barter systems where you have to "win" dozens or even hundreads or thusands (see last Lotro raid armor reuqirements) "medalions" "trinkets" etc to barter it for armors ,weapons , etc
New games are also grindy and with alot of time-sinks , those are just in diffrent places a game and made in diffrent forms.
Wow....
No, you are ASSUMING that I am bad at finding Guilds. Sadly though...most Guilds exist to do raids at "end game" and that is pretty much it. Been in many Guilds in many modern MMO's where they were top Guilds...but no one talked to one another, and helped one another very little. Only certain "cliques" in the Guilds help each other. Didn't matter if it was a large Guild, or small Guild. People barely talk either. Now if you are in a rush to be 1337 and willing to be a toolbag to most people...as well as unhelpful and selfish to get it, then sure...you can find plenty of those types of Guilds pretty quick to be part of.
If you want to find a family friendly Guild where people are somewhat helpful and chat...you can find those too. Just that you won't see all the content in such a Guild because they rarely can get big without becoming the above described.
Most MMO communities now are cesspools. And speak for yourself as far as inferior minds and calling others noobs, jerks, etc outside your Monkeysphere. Just isn't true. I NEVER call people noobs or purposely be an ass to any player unless they are projecting it on others. I always offer info, or help, and am all around friendly to everyone I come across unless they the give me reason not to. Most players now (Not all, but most) are quick to call names and be all around rude at the drop of a hat. It's MUCH harder to find friendly people now compared to the sheer amount of immature and all around rude people you come across.
By meaningful quests, I mean a quest with a good/interesting story and equally interesting mission connected to it. Actually had one in Rift when I did the beta that is an example of what I mean. I had to go see a certain NPC (Can't recall his name) in town and get some info out of him...it was up the ramp of a high tower, but I had to get past all of his guards that spawned and attacked along the way. Once at the top, it switched to an over the shoulder shot and zoomed in while it proceeded to make me kick the burning door in and scare the NPC in question. May sound lame..had to be there, but it was different, and entertaining. had rather dramatic music during the whole thing too. Unlike most quests of "Kill/Collect X from Y" that is marked via map GPS that is within 30 paces from where you got the quest most times. or simply go talk to "X" NPC and that is pretty much the gist of it.
I miss epic quests from EQ. They were actually quests. They took you to different zones and different NPC's, and took a long time (For 1 quest). Just some imagination and creativity would be nice beyond collection and killing 50+ of a certain mob types of quests.
At "end game", it IS content...just the repeditive kind that is limited...a.k.a raiding/PvP. If your doing it, it is content. Just not the progressive type is all.
Anyways, I am not going to continue to argue with you Axehilt. It is obvious you are seriously of the pro-WoW era and we are not going to see eye to eye. If you like the fast paced IG types of MMO's...more power to ya. I will just continue to follow the production of a certain MMO (Not naming it for the sake of trouble heading there just to make a stink for their own sad entertainment) and HOPE they stay on track with their vision to make it more like old school MMO's and don't listen to the majority of "I want it Now NOW NOW!!!11!" whiners. Which is sad too if you think about it...and selfish. SO MANY bash old schoolers for wanting just one MMO to cater to them...when there are TONS that already cater to the casual/IG crowd already.
At least one company has the beanbags to take a shot at it.
I think they need to stop designing systems to be time sinks to keep us playing and start giving us good content. They need to get a team of writers and devs that just produce amazing story arcs with challenging content. The story arcs need to be on par with, lets say, Game of Thrones. After every quest we should be feeling "That was frigging awesome! I gotta know what happens next!" instead of meh. At the end of the story arc you feel a sense of accomplishment and then it ties into the next arc.
My theme song.
Empire Earth I is better then Empire Earth II, and Empire Earth II is better then Empire Earth III. I fired up Empire Earth I a couple days ago and it's fun. If only the graphics were upgraded and everything else was left alone, oh well.
It seems to me that all games, MMORPG, single player, FPS, are getting crappier as time marches on. Maybe the problem is taking the game making away from certain talented designers with a "vision" who dictate, and putting it in the hands of focus groups, corporate yes men, and democratizing the entire process of development.
Another good example is Master of Orion III, yuck.
Well I agree with some points. Good story and challenging combat will help surely BUT time sinks will be always in mmorpg's.
It is impossible to produce enough content at a pace so you can satisfy consumer. For example in dungeons to get certain drop , you either have to do it over and over to get enough medalions / tokens or do it over and over for certain things to drop directly becasue of it % chance to drop. This IS time sink.
Of course from logical and story point of view , if for beat certain boss he should always drop same things. So there should be 100% drop rate. After all he is owner of this ring you want to get or not. If he is owner so you kill it and take it, so you kill him once and get all he has.
But well that would mean that you need to have hundreads of dungeons released every year. Well you can make them SO HARD that people will beat all dungeons first time after hundreads of tries, but I doubt many people would like to play this. That would have to be based on pure luck or on very complicated things players have to do (like in some raids, stand here , then go here , then do this and that , if one person fail then whole group wipe ).
Besides most people WANT time-sinks , question is what kind of time sink should be there , how severe , how they should be distribued through game.
What most current games suffer is that after fast-forwarding in max. few weeks to "end game" , you're exposed to severe time sinks of 3 types: a) running dungeons & raids for loot/medalions b) running instanced BG to grind for rank c) running daily-quests and grining gold for consumeables to use in instances.
All of them are combat related , very repetetive and thus many people get very bored. Of course there is alot of people that enjoy that and view mmorpg's as a game that main purpose is just to run instances in small groups.
I think that is only ONE PART of what mmorpg should be. But nowadays it is all what mmorpg's are.
So what we need in DIVERSITY.
Make open world content more interesting and long-lasting.
Make crafting more interesting , rewarding and more important in game economy.
Make world much bigger , open and interesting & rewarding to explore.
Players should have some permanent impact on game world. So ELEMENTS of sandbox should be inserted in themeparks. Like open world housing , more than it is currently player-made economy , encouraging of the social-interaction (some things very hard and long to do on your own).
But I think what we really NEED is DIVERSITY among mmorpg's. Mmorpg market is so big that there should be diffrent types of games adressed to diffrent crowds, yet 99% AAA mmorgp's and almost all other mmorpg's are following ONE scheme , set by WoW.
Yet almost all of them fail miserably to get even small % of WoW playerbse and profits.
Most succeful game since WoW , was AION yes , it was not very succesful in west (thought it is alive , servers have ok population and patches and content updates are frequent) but when you look worldwide. There is WoW with 11 mln , AION with 3 mln (peaked at 4 mln) , and then long long nothing with Rift beign 3 rd possibly, having around 500 k?
Note : While Aion is themepark , it is quite diffrent than WoW. I am not saying better or worse, but it is not follwing wow scheme in making quick level , heavy PvE focused very solo friendly game.
Mmorpg's have to start to cater to diffrent kind of players. Success like WoW that ONE game will crush all others and dominate for 7 + years , won't happen again IMHO.
Yeah, hence the term "recurring fees".
As for time sinks, yes they exist, yes they're in different places. Being in different places makes a big difference. In older games time sinks occurred for things like travel or death penalty -- game systems with some of the least effort spent on being fun or tactical. Conversely in new games the time sinks focus more on systems with the most effort spent on them. They min-max for fun.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver