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dying MMOs should be sold as standalone single player games
pupurun
Member UncommonPosts: 561
I always wondered why haven't they thought of this. Why should an mmo go from low population to extinction? Take for example SWG. There are hundreds of players still loving this game. You take it away from them is like you take away a part of their life. Why not give them a small kind of "retribution" at a small cost(which will profit SOE).
I trully believe that most mmos can turn into a single non-online game. Allow freedom in crafting skills, lower the difficulty of bosses etc. Of course the experience won;t be the same and the gameplay value will be nearly diminished for some games. But for those who loved those games this will be comforting and fun.Just to know they can enter the same virtual world, their custom houses etc.
Call me romantic but i know that a lot would love this idea.
Lets hear your opinions
Comments
How much are you talking?
And if the game is dying, I'd imagine to go back and tune the game for a more-or-less singleplayer experience would still cost a bit of money.
because you probably dont know how mmorpgs works?
in most of the cases you would need to have at home A LOT of REALLY STRONG networked computers to be able to run it.
edit: to change the mmorpg into singleplayer game would mean more or less rewrite whole base code
I guess you dont know the amount of code needed to do that, the hours and hours of developing to turn an mmo into a single player probably is not worth the money you are going to earn. I get your idea and I share it, but it's it can't be done without a good amount of money and time.
If a game dies, the company needs to let people have legal, free servers of their own.
Yes, yes and yes.
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why would they do that? they usually heavilly invested into the development of the game, why would they give it away for free? not to mention that it would be giving away know-how and strenghtening the competition.
Because they have a responsibillity to their customers that ones bought the game, either they leave their servers up, or they give their customers another way to play the game..... like publishing the server software... so customers can host their own games...
Best MMO experiences : EQ(PvE), DAoC(PvP), WoW(total package) LOTRO (worldfeel) GW2 (Artstyle and animations and worlddesign) SWTOR (Story immersion) TSW (story) ESO (character advancement)
thats like saying that car company has responsibility to keep forever making spare parts for all cars they ever made
what dream world are you living in, guys?
Why not sell the right for a legal free server? .Besides when an mmo dies , all of its technological components are already well known and old to the market and there isn't much of know-how to give away.
I guess all mmorpg companies don't want us to be playing THEIR games under OUR rules and maintenance cause that would only prove how wrongly they have been treating us as customers(SOE with SWG for example)
Sorry they have no such responsibility. They can shut down the servers when ever they desire and after that owe nothing to players.
why would they do that? they usually heavilly invested into the development of the game, why would they give it away for free? not to mention that it would be giving away know-how and strenghtening the competition.
Maybe because the company would be dead, therefore their investment wouldn't matter?
Nah, I completely disagree. Benedikt is correct.
They have invested money into the IP and they would want the rights to use that IP in any way at some future date. Allowing players to spin the game off and do whatever they want with it would dlute their IP and essentially remove it from their control.
Their responsibility to their customers goes as far as the agreement the customers "agreed to".
Players buy access to the game, nothing more. Now, if a company was willing to license the game for servers with the idea that they were not obligated to renew that license if they wanted to do something with the IP, I could see that as a possibility.
Once again this just shows the schism between some players and the business side of things, where players feel entitled to things they never were entitled to and for some reason feel that developers owe them something.
They don't.
You buy the product and pay the fees (wherever applicable) and if you dont' like the product or service you don't pay them and let the company deal with the repercussions.
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Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
HAHAHAHAHAHA !
Now this thread is most hillarious.
A large application that runs most likely on proprietary unix software and very likely uses proprietary database code is supposed to be published if a MMO is dying.
What for ?
Or do YOU have an expensive proprietary unix server at home ?
MMOs are very special games that are designed to be able to run on massively parallel hardware, and they use the best and fastest propietary databases available in order to assert maximum performance. So yeah, the server code of a MMO will be very useless to the average user.
Granted, the developers could have used a linux system instead of, say, a Solaris system. They could have used MySQL instead of, say, Oracle. But there is no guarantee for that. And you would still need a Linux system to run this thing.
Also granted, the company could publish the whole code, and then maybe there could be programmers around who pick the whole thing up and port it to Linux and/or Windows and/or MacOS, and to a free databases. In fact I remember people writing java versions of the still running Lineage 2 server in order to do just that, run L2 servers on private hosts.
Either way, its far from as simple as the OP thinks.
Err ... that would require rewriting the whole game. Yes, that would cost a LOT of money and time indeed.
I'm not a coder, nor a coder's son. However, I would imagine that its not as simple as it sounds to change a MMO into a single player game. The mechanics and dynamics are totally different.
As to the question of giving it away free is nonsensical. Why would a company give away something like this. The coding alone is proprietary and would tell much about the developers methods and coding styles. In addition, the company has no responsibility once a game goes belly up. Obviously there weren't that many customers to begin with, otherwise it would have survived. The best we could hope for is that they sell the game to another company that may be able to improve the game and relaunch it. Although this solution doesn't seem to happen that often. Most games when they go kaput, go kaput for a reason, and many a company wouldn't want to run the risk of trying to fix a failed game unless they see a signifcant potential for a large investment to be worth it. One example would be .... damn, I forgot the name of the bloody game.... APB or something. I think thats one where someone saw the potential for profit and took up the cause (I think, I don't know to much about it). But rare indeed is this animal.
I self identify as a monkey.
If a game was doing so poorly as to result in a loss in its current state, why would they spend the extra development time and manhours to change it to another type of game that will be a diluted version of the genre it is being retrofitted for?
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
You are joking right?
"Come and have a look at what you could have won."
If we were talking about aproduct, not a service then you'd be on to something there. However, you never bought a product nor had any entitlement to anything in the existing service.
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
if you want to keep playing just type "SWG emulator" into google, problem solved.
Godz of War I call Thee
I never said anyone was entitled to anything. I am saying they should do it, not that they have to do it or that there is any basis in needing to do it based on property ownership. They can always retain the right to discontinue allowing the free servers in the future.
Again, I'm not saying any customer or player is entitled to anything here.
"If a game dies, the company needs to..."
"I am saying they should do it, not that they have to..."
My mistake.
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
I have no idea if you are being genuine when you typed "My mistake" or if you think those quotes somehow support you.
Most MMO's now a days ARE single non-online (Basically) single player games! Where have you been. Fast paced and devoid of community, etc.
Best thing I have read all day. I lol'd.
Thank you good Sir for the smile.