In terms of performance, polish, game design, features, fun factor etc, yes. Devs should no longer be inflicting half finished MMO's on us and if they do they deserve to fail.
Not really. MMOs are like anything, they are of a time. Players look for different things at different times in history. In this its no different than clothing, hairstyles, movies, etc. At that moment in time, its what people liked. To compare them to current likes/dislikes is not a workable solution. Everyone likes to bring up the era of UO, EQ as a sort of golden era, but the truth is, it wasn't. It was a sort of beginning for modern MMOs, but the people back then wanted and expected different things than 10 years later, 20 years later, 30 years later, etc. If people did want the same things, the market would produce those things. But the market doesn't, so they don't.
No because the "New" game has just released and has not had years to develope.
Yes Because despite it being a "New" MMO it still NEEDS TO BE MORE FUN THAN THE OLD ONE.
Really in my mind it comes down to end-game content. If a new MMO doesn't offer enough variety for the end-game players they will get bored and unsub. Personally that is why I would love to see more sandbox games done with decent budgets. Give the players the ability to create the content through player interaction / clan wars. The only thing a themepark game could do is have a competitive PvP system... at least that would keep me subbed.
When you have so many MMORPGs that are so similar to one another, you have to look at how each game is at the present point in time. So when SW:TOR begins early access tomorrow, it should be compared to 2011 World of Warcraft and 2011 Rift. If so many MMORPGs are going to try to be so similar to World of Warcraft, they're going to have to do WoW better than Blizzard in some fashion, and that's damn hard to do when Blizzard has 7 years of experience working on their game versus not even a full year for some developers. This is why so many MMORPGs either fail or become niche games rather than hugely popular alternatives, none of their core features (questing, dungeon running, raiding) are done as well as they are in WoW.
I think the lack of content a new game might have, comparitively speaking, is offset by the fact that it's new. That can be a huge advantage, if the game is actually done well enough.
If the old game is WoW, though, it's not just that it has more content. If that were all that set it apart, all sorts of games would be doing similarly well, but WoW was new once too, competing with games like DAOC and EQ, which both had years of content. Yet WoW still achieved the success that it did, blowing the competition out of the water.
I think the content comparison is just an excuse. If the content a game launches with is good enough, it doesn't need that much, the way an old fading game does.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Sure it is. If the games cost about the same, and cost about the same sub wise. Then why in the world would the average gamer care to play a game that will not give them the most fun for their dollars?
From the point of view of someone new to gaming. Thats about the total of their reasoning.
Once you get into the vets that play everything, of course their reasons will change.
Short answer is it is not "fair". But you should do it anyways because that is how the market functions. Like someone mentioned earlier, what would be "fair" would be comparing the launch of two games, but clearly comparing launch of one game to the current state of another game is not "fair".
Unfortunately regardless of how much debate there is regarding this, the fact is that the amount of content in a new game is going to be compared to an established product. MMOs are one of the only genres that have this issue because of the amount of time people invest in them and their ability to consistantly draw money with subscriptions and expansions. If you're not blowing your established competition completely out of the water in other aspects besides content(which is an unrealistic goal depending on when you launch your game), the amount of content is going to be compared.
When WoW debuted, EverQuest(which was probably the subscription-based MMO with the most numbers at the time) already had 8 expansions released... there's no doubt that EverQuest had more content at the time. World of Warcraft's debut was fairly lucky however, because #1 the game itself was rock solid and blew EQ out of the water in terms of gameplay. You could make the same argument about graphics too but everyone likes to rag on WoW for its graphics. That wasn't the luck part of it though.
#2 about WoW's debut is that it came out just after EQ2 did. EQ2 divided the established EQ audience, and across the board people thought it wasn't as good as EQ1. So people that quit EQ2 did one of two things, either they returned to EQ1 or they said screw EQ entirely and went to WoW. Just a year later the NGE came out for Star Wars Galaxies and pissed a lot of their established audience off that were still playing, at which point those that left SWG likely went to WoW which was either the top dog at this point or at least fairly close to it.
Any MMO that comes out right now unfortunately has to deal with WoW's incredible amount of content. Just like WoW did before to EQ, WoW is going to have to be blown out of the water in other areas besides content for a new MMO to really take the throne. It's pretty clear that WoW's prime has passed but they're still millions strong. RIFT couldn't succeed because at its core it has the same gameplay as WoW, and I'd go as far as saying that it's just a hair under WoW's gameplay as a whole. It certainly looks better but it doesn't play better... plays comparitively at best but not better. TOR seems like it has the same sort of gameplay as well, so I'm not expecting it to become the new top dog. As much as I love BioWare, it's going to take more than dialogue options to knock the king off of his throne.
Guild Wars 2 is probably a more likely candidate in terms of gameplay but GW2 doesn't have nearly as much hype and media coverage at this point. The brand name means absolutely nothing(comparitively to WoW which had 3 RTS games of lore behind it and Star Wars that has movies that refuse to die even though they badly need it). People won't know anything about the story in the previous game or who any of the characters are. If they can introduce that stuff in an interesting way to complement the gameplay then it's got a good shot but I think the brand awareness is really going to hurt it out of the gates.
I think there's a missed opportunity in console MMOs. Yeah there's FFXI and EQ Adventures but they were never pushed mass market. With Xbox Live points cards and PSN points cards at all major retailers, not having a credit card wouldn't really be an excuse. Also when FFXI and EQ Adventures came out(same thing with Phantasy Star Online), not many people were gaming online with consoles. Online gaming via consoles has really boomed over the last 5 years or so... it really is a market ripe for the picking right now.
Now Playing: Mission Against Terror, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Dark Souls, League of Legends, Minecraft, and the piano. =3
People aren't going to coddle a game with little content just because it's new. Either a game is more fun than existing games (content and all), or it fails.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It may not be "fair", but it's going to happen. It's probably also not smart, as you're just setting yourself up for dissapointment. I tend to see this mostly from people who are already determined to hate game.
If we ever expect developers to innovate, however, we're going to have to back off on all of the negative criticisms. If all they see are complaints because they're game doesn't have all of the features of game X, then we're bound to see the same thing over and over.
Originally posted by sanosukex Found this article http://www.mmocrunch.com/2011/12/05/is-it-fair-to-compare-new-mmos-to-old-and-established-ones/ I have been trying to find a good example to give people who always say "well you can't compare this game to others because they have been out for years" the example given in this article about the car is a great one. However you feel about it the article makes some good points for both sides.
Fair has nothing to do with it. New games aren't competing against the other games in the market as they were 7 years ago, they are competing against games as they are now. They must be better than the games that are in the market when they release to do well, so comparing them to games that are in the market when they release makes perfect sense. How other games were a year ago or seven years ago really doesn't matter.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think it's fair. This is economics. If you want to compete in a market you have to stack up to established competition. That's how it's always been in America.
The car example is one I've also used many times because it's a great example. One has to offer equal to or better than the existing offerings or they need to charge less. Well, unless you're selling to MMO gamers. I specifically state MMO gamers, because the rest of the gaming world would undeniably reject a $60 game if it didn't offer at least what today's $60 games offer, if not more. That doesn't mean that a new game is a bad game because it isn't the next Skyrim or MW3, but that no one in their right mind will pay $60 for Terraria or Minecraft, but they will gladly pay a lower price for it. However, MMO gamers, myself included, will pay $15 a month for a fraction of the experience we can get from an existing MMO.
*heads off to the Gamestop site to see if his $124 retail box has shipped yet*
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
Comments
Lets say i want to start to play some MMO.
Lets say I like themeparks so i have:
WoW, LOTRO, Rift and SWTOR to choose from more popular ones (a bit fast forward to 2012)
How do you think i should compare them - WoW of 2004/LOTRO of 2007/Rift of 4/2011/SWTOR of 2012
OR
WoW/LOTRO/Rift/SWTOR of 2012?
There are some other factors involved, but those are minor to above ones.
In terms of content, no.
In terms of performance, polish, game design, features, fun factor etc, yes. Devs should no longer be inflicting half finished MMO's on us and if they do they deserve to fail.
Not really. MMOs are like anything, they are of a time. Players look for different things at different times in history. In this its no different than clothing, hairstyles, movies, etc. At that moment in time, its what people liked. To compare them to current likes/dislikes is not a workable solution. Everyone likes to bring up the era of UO, EQ as a sort of golden era, but the truth is, it wasn't. It was a sort of beginning for modern MMOs, but the people back then wanted and expected different things than 10 years later, 20 years later, 30 years later, etc. If people did want the same things, the market would produce those things. But the market doesn't, so they don't.
I self identify as a monkey.
Yes and No
No because the "New" game has just released and has not had years to develope.
Yes Because despite it being a "New" MMO it still NEEDS TO BE MORE FUN THAN THE OLD ONE.
Really in my mind it comes down to end-game content. If a new MMO doesn't offer enough variety for the end-game players they will get bored and unsub. Personally that is why I would love to see more sandbox games done with decent budgets. Give the players the ability to create the content through player interaction / clan wars. The only thing a themepark game could do is have a competitive PvP system... at least that would keep me subbed.
Full Sail University - Game Design
When you have so many MMORPGs that are so similar to one another, you have to look at how each game is at the present point in time. So when SW:TOR begins early access tomorrow, it should be compared to 2011 World of Warcraft and 2011 Rift. If so many MMORPGs are going to try to be so similar to World of Warcraft, they're going to have to do WoW better than Blizzard in some fashion, and that's damn hard to do when Blizzard has 7 years of experience working on their game versus not even a full year for some developers. This is why so many MMORPGs either fail or become niche games rather than hugely popular alternatives, none of their core features (questing, dungeon running, raiding) are done as well as they are in WoW.
I think the lack of content a new game might have, comparitively speaking, is offset by the fact that it's new. That can be a huge advantage, if the game is actually done well enough.
If the old game is WoW, though, it's not just that it has more content. If that were all that set it apart, all sorts of games would be doing similarly well, but WoW was new once too, competing with games like DAOC and EQ, which both had years of content. Yet WoW still achieved the success that it did, blowing the competition out of the water.
I think the content comparison is just an excuse. If the content a game launches with is good enough, it doesn't need that much, the way an old fading game does.
When I want a single-player story, I'll play a single-player game. When I play an MMO, I want a massively multiplayer world.
Sure it is. If the games cost about the same, and cost about the same sub wise. Then why in the world would the average gamer care to play a game that will not give them the most fun for their dollars?
From the point of view of someone new to gaming. Thats about the total of their reasoning.
Once you get into the vets that play everything, of course their reasons will change.
Short answer is it is not "fair". But you should do it anyways because that is how the market functions. Like someone mentioned earlier, what would be "fair" would be comparing the launch of two games, but clearly comparing launch of one game to the current state of another game is not "fair".
Unfortunately regardless of how much debate there is regarding this, the fact is that the amount of content in a new game is going to be compared to an established product. MMOs are one of the only genres that have this issue because of the amount of time people invest in them and their ability to consistantly draw money with subscriptions and expansions. If you're not blowing your established competition completely out of the water in other aspects besides content(which is an unrealistic goal depending on when you launch your game), the amount of content is going to be compared.
When WoW debuted, EverQuest(which was probably the subscription-based MMO with the most numbers at the time) already had 8 expansions released... there's no doubt that EverQuest had more content at the time. World of Warcraft's debut was fairly lucky however, because #1 the game itself was rock solid and blew EQ out of the water in terms of gameplay. You could make the same argument about graphics too but everyone likes to rag on WoW for its graphics. That wasn't the luck part of it though.
#2 about WoW's debut is that it came out just after EQ2 did. EQ2 divided the established EQ audience, and across the board people thought it wasn't as good as EQ1. So people that quit EQ2 did one of two things, either they returned to EQ1 or they said screw EQ entirely and went to WoW. Just a year later the NGE came out for Star Wars Galaxies and pissed a lot of their established audience off that were still playing, at which point those that left SWG likely went to WoW which was either the top dog at this point or at least fairly close to it.
Any MMO that comes out right now unfortunately has to deal with WoW's incredible amount of content. Just like WoW did before to EQ, WoW is going to have to be blown out of the water in other areas besides content for a new MMO to really take the throne. It's pretty clear that WoW's prime has passed but they're still millions strong. RIFT couldn't succeed because at its core it has the same gameplay as WoW, and I'd go as far as saying that it's just a hair under WoW's gameplay as a whole. It certainly looks better but it doesn't play better... plays comparitively at best but not better. TOR seems like it has the same sort of gameplay as well, so I'm not expecting it to become the new top dog. As much as I love BioWare, it's going to take more than dialogue options to knock the king off of his throne.
Guild Wars 2 is probably a more likely candidate in terms of gameplay but GW2 doesn't have nearly as much hype and media coverage at this point. The brand name means absolutely nothing(comparitively to WoW which had 3 RTS games of lore behind it and Star Wars that has movies that refuse to die even though they badly need it). People won't know anything about the story in the previous game or who any of the characters are. If they can introduce that stuff in an interesting way to complement the gameplay then it's got a good shot but I think the brand awareness is really going to hurt it out of the gates.
I think there's a missed opportunity in console MMOs. Yeah there's FFXI and EQ Adventures but they were never pushed mass market. With Xbox Live points cards and PSN points cards at all major retailers, not having a credit card wouldn't really be an excuse. Also when FFXI and EQ Adventures came out(same thing with Phantasy Star Online), not many people were gaming online with consoles. Online gaming via consoles has really boomed over the last 5 years or so... it really is a market ripe for the picking right now.
Now Playing: Mission Against Terror, Battlefield 3, Skyrim, Dark Souls, League of Legends, Minecraft, and the piano. =3
Visit my fail Youtube channel(don't leave me nasty messages!): http://www.youtube.com/user/Mirii471
Creslin and LowFlyingHam pretty much nailed it.
People aren't going to coddle a game with little content just because it's new. Either a game is more fun than existing games (content and all), or it fails.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It may not be "fair", but it's going to happen. It's probably also not smart, as you're just setting yourself up for dissapointment. I tend to see this mostly from people who are already determined to hate game.
If we ever expect developers to innovate, however, we're going to have to back off on all of the negative criticisms. If all they see are complaints because they're game doesn't have all of the features of game X, then we're bound to see the same thing over and over.
if someone comes out with "it's like wow, just better" i want them to be better than wow now.
if someone comes out with entirely new concept, i want them be as good as wow at launch.
Fair has nothing to do with it. New games aren't competing against the other games in the market as they were 7 years ago, they are competing against games as they are now. They must be better than the games that are in the market when they release to do well, so comparing them to games that are in the market when they release makes perfect sense. How other games were a year ago or seven years ago really doesn't matter.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
I think it's fair. This is economics. If you want to compete in a market you have to stack up to established competition. That's how it's always been in America.
The car example is one I've also used many times because it's a great example. One has to offer equal to or better than the existing offerings or they need to charge less. Well, unless you're selling to MMO gamers. I specifically state MMO gamers, because the rest of the gaming world would undeniably reject a $60 game if it didn't offer at least what today's $60 games offer, if not more. That doesn't mean that a new game is a bad game because it isn't the next Skyrim or MW3, but that no one in their right mind will pay $60 for Terraria or Minecraft, but they will gladly pay a lower price for it. However, MMO gamers, myself included, will pay $15 a month for a fraction of the experience we can get from an existing MMO.
*heads off to the Gamestop site to see if his $124 retail box has shipped yet*
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