"Assholes" are part of what makes the game interesting tho. It's part of the MMO experience imo. Getting other players to help defend something against team asshole? Sign me up. I'm not into the drama per se, but most mmos are so vanilla now. I actually miss "training" or having to run to zone. OR hell a class that actually crowd controls.
As a friend said to me today. "Everything has turned into run here, kill big groups of mobs (what happened to single pulls?), run there, kill some more big groups of mobs, run somewhere else, etc. with a bunch of strangers the game finds for you to play with... I miss spending hours in groups with people you know..."
The real issue is they are taking the MMO out of MMORPG games. No one talks to each other outside of a few instances or if you're lucky enough to be a in a tight knit guild in a game that still has guilds.
We're all now special snowflakes with our own AWESOME epic quest where we're the hero.
Bring back the world where you are just a spec of dust on the large map. Where you could could travel for 20+ mins and not run into a soul till you got to a heavily populated town. That was immersion. Not run to X spot kill 10 run to Y spot kill 10 move to next level/area with harder kill 10 of quests.
And even though I plan to GW2 i sense even with their new appoach to run to X and kill 10...it's still the same ole same ole.
I think people would pay/subscribe to an "old school" type of game with modern graphics, but what developer is going to take that risk?
20 minutes without seeing a soul?
Sounds like you were on an empty server or something to me..
i seriously dont recall playing any mmorpg that had big open zones that you could run for 20 minutes without seeing a soul and i wouldnt call anything described this way as an mmorpg cuz obviously theres no one else doing anything but socializing in town.
What I remember in most old games is a lot overcamping, negotiating dragon raid camps with other competitive guilds and 40 minutes for our guild to organize and buff for a raid...
All time spent in town was because there was nothing for these folks to do..
We were a small minority of gamers back then because there was not that many of us that could actually survive and thrive in the harsh realities of yesteryears games...
Do i miss it? Not really..
EQ, EQOA, Final Fantasy XI were all like this. I don't mean not seeing an actual soul but, there were areas where you felt like the world was huge and the towns (or tunnels) were the place to find grps sell goods etc etc.
The market is huge and may still be expanding. Going into a direction you do not like != dead.
In fact, i think it is becoming MORE ALIVE, solving all the old problems (like camping & finding groups with instances & LFD/LFR), while giving a large part of the games to the players for FREE.
It is getting BETTER.
Did you really put some time into that response or you did it by heart in the heat of the hour?
I honestly cant say i agree 100% with the OP, but i sure can say you are 100% wrong. How can the last years of mmorpg life make it better in any model or conception? Do you really believe in what you are saying?
If i close my eyes to GW2, a tittle that many gamers are following and expecting to bring some freash air to a genre in a decline path, what other new mmorpg launches you can name that actually brought some solid concept? rift? swtor? what...2..3..4 names? Name them plz...after you name them, open the mmorpg list in this site....start counting them, start reading community feedback....and ask yourself....
"what the heck am i talking about??"
Sorry Clerigo but he's right.
Let's take your examples, rift, swtor, etc.
More people play those games NOW after the initial excitement has worn off than any of the early games. didn't EQ have 200 or 250k? did ultima have more? How much? I can't imagine it was hundreds of thousands more. What you seem to be asserting is that the small group of people who started in the mmo genre were right and the many more who are now playing and enjoying these games are wrong.
This is not to say that your opinion of today's games is "wrong" because you like what you like. But the mmo genre has grown and it seems that the majority of people playing are into today's games.
you might rebut with "they never stay in them for more than a few months if that". And I would say "that's because today's mmo gamers are probably not looking for anything with a greater commitment.
You can't take the template of the early adopters and apply that to everyone who has become a current mmo player.
Truth of the matter is that most of these games gather way more people at launch than they rightfully should have. Some of these people are looking for something different from WoW and then start crying because the games are not WoW; some of them are just looking for something to play for a small bit and then they can hop onto the next game that comes out.
When you cut away the players who really would never be interested in some of these games you do find that they still have players.
Rift has players. SWToR has players. AoC has players. Star Trek online has playres. And who do I listen to? The jaded and unhappy mmo gamres who decry the current set of games; where everything is shit, or the guy at work who isn't an mmo gamer but he tried Star Trek online and then says to me "I don't know why some people dont' like this game, it's really fun".
Do I listen to post after post of angry, angry forum goers or the father who plays SWToR with his daughter and I see them going on about how much they enjoy it and how much fun they are having?
Have you ever heard the expression "water finds its own level"? Many of these games had/have issues, true, but they still have an audience playing them. They still have fans.
Heck, I remember one woman at work who, to my surprise, was in a WoW raiding guild and she was applauding the changes that were being made to WoW because it meant that she would have more time to play. Essentially she liked the more casual aspect that was being added.
The mmo genre is growing and like any media, it has gathered greater fans but fans who are not as hardcore or who do not have the desire to play games that are "virtual worlds". Heck, even another guy at work, who I would say is a "gamer" told me last month that he preferred his games to be more like games and less like "worlds".
And the current mmos' are just up his alley.
The only growth the MMORPG market has seen is in Asia.
Compare new growth in the MMORPG market vs new growth in other gaming markets like mobile and console gaming I'd safely bet it's been dismal in comparison.
I mean 10-12 million users of something isn't a number to sneeze at, but that's the MMORPG market. You draw from there.
There's been nothing worthwhile (game world or virtual world) to come along in 8 years to really expand on that idea. I mean 2006-2008 sure it was an exciting time to talk about growth.
If anything I think since 2010 the market has fallen.
With multiplayer games mostly being led by games like League of Legends or Call of Duty online titles.
MMOs are on their way to something, probably not death, but looking at the genre and what it has to offer it's on a short bus.
Your way of base here. Number of subers in the market is over 21m and thats not counting the players that play ftp which has seen an increased rise.
MMORPGS are not as small demographic as some of you think.
That counts multiple / farm subs if that.
Plus a lot of the games "in the market" really aren't.
"Assholes" are part of what makes the game interesting tho. It's part of the MMO experience imo. Getting other players to help defend something against team asshole? Sign me up. I'm not into the drama per se, but most mmos are so vanilla now. I actually miss "training" or having to run to zone. OR hell a class that actually crowd controls.
As a friend said to me today. "Everything has turned into run here, kill big groups of mobs (what happened to single pulls?), run there, kill some more big groups of mobs, run somewhere else, etc. with a bunch of strangers the game finds for you to play with... I miss spending hours in groups with people you know..."
Of course it can be fun to be an asshole or hunt them, but we were looking at noncombat ways to build a sandbox and I couldn't get past the ability to plant and chop down trees before running into problems.
While they have been some failures the vast majority of themeparks are bringing loads of money to developers, even the worst ones. And have big populations.
You are the only one living on a bubble.
Most themeparks end up being F2P because not even a monkey can play one for more than a couple of months without getting bored.
Care to show some links where it says that FTP games generate more revenue than EvE?
Really, show me one.
The fact still remains, EvE has more subs than pretty much every themepark MMO except WOW.
And we are talking about a FFA PVP with full loot niche game where you are a ship, not a character.
Oh and nobody cares about F2P games, they are all shit anyway,
It's just funny when people say that the market for sandbox games is small when EvE, a sandbox MMO, has more subs than almost every half assed wow clone in the market.
They can suck beyond belief for all i care, they make more money that the majority of subs, that includes eve
The market of ftp games while not the same as p2p is dominated by a few of them too.
Maplestory, Runes of magic and others like that. If i remember correctly there was somewhere they mentioned runes of magic generating revenue that was equal to 2m wow subs.
The market is huge and may still be expanding. Going into a direction you do not like != dead.
In fact, i think it is becoming MORE ALIVE, solving all the old problems (like camping & finding groups with instances & LFD/LFR), while giving a large part of the games to the players for FREE.
It is getting BETTER.
Did you really put some time into that response or you did it by heart in the heat of the hour?
I honestly cant say i agree 100% with the OP, but i sure can say you are 100% wrong. How can the last years of mmorpg life make it better in any model or conception? Do you really believe in what you are saying?
If i close my eyes to GW2, a tittle that many gamers are following and expecting to bring some freash air to a genre in a decline path, what other new mmorpg launches you can name that actually brought some solid concept? rift? swtor? what...2..3..4 names? Name them plz...after you name them, open the mmorpg list in this site....start counting them, start reading community feedback....and ask yourself....
"what the heck am i talking about??"
Sorry Clerigo but he's right.
Let's take your examples, rift, swtor, etc.
More people play those games NOW after the initial excitement has worn off than any of the early games. didn't EQ have 200 or 250k? did ultima have more? How much? I can't imagine it was hundreds of thousands more. What you seem to be asserting is that the small group of people who started in the mmo genre were right and the many more who are now playing and enjoying these games are wrong.
This is not to say that your opinion of today's games is "wrong" because you like what you like. But the mmo genre has grown and it seems that the majority of people playing are into today's games.
you might rebut with "they never stay in them for more than a few months if that". And I would say "that's because today's mmo gamers are probably not looking for anything with a greater commitment.
You can't take the template of the early adopters and apply that to everyone who has become a current mmo player.
Truth of the matter is that most of these games gather way more people at launch than they rightfully should have. Some of these people are looking for something different from WoW and then start crying because the games are not WoW; some of them are just looking for something to play for a small bit and then they can hop onto the next game that comes out.
When you cut away the players who really would never be interested in some of these games you do find that they still have players.
Rift has players. SWToR has players. AoC has players. Star Trek online has playres. And who do I listen to? The jaded and unhappy mmo gamres who decry the current set of games; where everything is shit, or the guy at work who isn't an mmo gamer but he tried Star Trek online and then says to me "I don't know why some people dont' like this game, it's really fun".
Do I listen to post after post of angry, angry forum goers or the father who plays SWToR with his daughter and I see them going on about how much they enjoy it and how much fun they are having?
Have you ever heard the expression "water finds its own level"? Many of these games had/have issues, true, but they still have an audience playing them. They still have fans.
Heck, I remember one woman at work who, to my surprise, was in a WoW raiding guild and she was applauding the changes that were being made to WoW because it meant that she would have more time to play. Essentially she liked the more casual aspect that was being added.
The mmo genre is growing and like any media, it has gathered greater fans but fans who are not as hardcore or who do not have the desire to play games that are "virtual worlds". Heck, even another guy at work, who I would say is a "gamer" told me last month that he preferred his games to be more like games and less like "worlds".
And the current mmos' are just up his alley.
The only growth the MMORPG market has seen is in Asia.
Compare new growth in the MMORPG market vs new growth in other gaming markets like mobile and console gaming I'd safely bet it's been dismal in comparison.
I mean 10-12 million users of something isn't a number to sneeze at, but that's the MMORPG market. You draw from there.
There's been nothing worthwhile (game world or virtual world) to come along in 8 years to really expand on that idea. I mean 2006-2008 sure it was an exciting time to talk about growth.
If anything I think since 2010 the market has fallen.
With multiplayer games mostly being led by games like League of Legends or Call of Duty online titles.
MMOs are on their way to something, probably not death, but looking at the genre and what it has to offer it's on a short bus.
Your way of base here. Number of subers in the market is over 21m and thats not counting the players that play ftp which has seen an increased rise.
MMORPGS are not as small demographic as some of you think.
That counts multiple / farm subs if that.
Plus a lot of the games "in the market" really aren't.
According to this site i found recently there are over 50m MMoers in USA alone so i also am way of base.
I know some of you guys are having a hard time grasping this. It seems you are hard wired to believe virtual world=sandbox=ffa gankfest.
A virtual world is when the developers create game systems dedicated to other things besides killing stuff. When the only reason crafting is in your game is so you can say "yeah we got crafting", that is a fail in virtual world design. When all your non combat activities are the equivalent of mobile flash games, that is a fail in virtual world design.
Try to think about games you played and enjoyed that didnt involve killing things. Then apply that to a virtual world mmo and you can start to see how lacking these whack-a-mole themeparks are. Some of you are preaching about virtual worlds within the context of combat only. And from my perspective, you seem conditioned to think this is as good as it gets. And that is sad because this genre is suckin major ass right now as far as staying true to its roots.
The real issue is they are taking the MMO out of MMORPG games. No one talks to each other outside of a few instances or if you're lucky enough to be a in a tight knit guild in a game that still has guilds.
We're all now special snowflakes with our own AWESOME epic quest where we're the hero.
Bring back the world where you are just a spec of dust on the large map. Where you could could travel for 20+ mins and not run into a soul till you got to a heavily populated town. That was immersion. Not run to X spot kill 10 run to Y spot kill 10 move to next level/area with harder kill 10 of quests.
And even though I plan to GW2 i sense even with their new appoach to run to X and kill 10...it's still the same ole same ole.
I think people would pay/subscribe to an "old school" type of game with modern graphics, but what developer is going to take that risk?
20 minutes without seeing a soul?
Sounds like you were on an empty server or something to me..
i seriously dont recall playing any mmorpg that had big open zones that you could run for 20 minutes without seeing a soul and i wouldnt call anything described this way as an mmorpg cuz obviously theres no one else doing anything but socializing in town.
What I remember in most old games is a lot overcamping, negotiating dragon raid camps with other competitive guilds and 40 minutes for our guild to organize and buff for a raid...
All time spent in town was because there was nothing for these folks to do..
We were a small minority of gamers back then because there was not that many of us that could actually survive and thrive in the harsh realities of yesteryears games...
Do i miss it? Not really..
EQ, EQOA, Final Fantasy XI were all like this. I don't mean not seeing an actual soul but, there were areas where you felt like the world was huge and the towns (or tunnels) were the place to find grps sell goods etc etc.
I agree with the OP of this thread and his reasoning. Having played EQ and XI, I can honestly say that this genre's future does not look promising.
I know some of you guys are having a hard time grasping this. It seems you are hard wired to believe virtual world=sandbox=ffa gankfest.
A virtual world is when the developers create game systems dedicated to other things besides killing stuff. When the only reason crafting is in your game is so you can say "yeah we got crafting", that is a fail in virtual world design. When all your non combat activities are the equivalent of mobile flash games, that is a fail in virtual world design.
Try to think about games you played and enjoyed that didnt involve killing things. Then apply that to a virtual world mmo and you can start to see how lacking these whack-a-mole themeparks are. Some of you are preaching about virtual worlds within the context of combat only. And from my perspective, you seem conditioned to think this is as good as it gets. And that is sad because this genre is suckin major ass right now as far as staying true to its roots.
I get what you want but I don't think you realize how impossible it is to code into a game with good results.
You can have sandbox elements in single player and small group games because you're not up against "the asshole". Once you try to move these same elements that work for single player and coop games into a MMO "the asshole" takes over and becomes a serious design problem.
Try to think of one detailed example of what you want to see in a MMO and then put it up to "the asshole" challenge to see if it can work without adding restrictions.
Originally posted by OldManFunk Try to think of one detailed example of what you want to see in a MMO and then put it up to "the asshole" challenge to see if it can work without adding restrictions.
Why can't we street skate/hover board/parkour and have competitions in the hub cities? Why aren't there race tracks? Why aren't there competitive team sports that don't involve killing? Why can't we have a turntablist profession? Or for that matter, a rock band/ddr clubscene with player mixed music? How about Cyberball and a profession that can build the bots and players manage the teams? Player housing that is part of a city such as a condo skyscraper. Able to gather seeds and small plants from the forest and create gardens How about instead of dev made kill quests, crafters can hire combat classes to defend their crops/livestock whatever from raiding npcs. The crafter gets a bonus to their yield if they hire real players and the combatants get paid by the crafter.
the list goes on. All of these things can be regulated and optimized for the least amount of griefing. Sure some may slip by, but that that is going to happen in any game worth a damn. Some devs try to make this perfect little canned mmo where nobody can get hurt or hurt themselves. They treat their player base like a bunch of bubble boys.
Originally posted by deamian Computer Keyboard You enter a command or input, and something happens on screen.. What.... the ever loving hell do you want from an mmo? Until we live with the Jetsons there are going to be some limitations.
I want it to continue in the direction it was heading 9 years ago. This isnt some unimaginable dream. It was taking shape in mmos like FFXI, SWG and AC and it has all but vanished. MMOrpgs are barely a shadow of what they once were. We have refined multiplayer action games. That is the definition of an mmorpg these days. Its so bad that people cant even grasp the concept of doing something else in an mmo anymore besides bashing stuff with a sword.
Originally posted by OldManFunk Try to think of one detailed example of what you want to see in a MMO and then put it up to "the asshole" challenge to see if it can work without adding restrictions.
Why can't we street skate/hover board/parkour and have competitions in the hub cities? Developer resources Why aren't there race tracks? Developer resources Why aren't there competitive team sports that don't involve killing? Not enough demand Why can't we have a turntablist profession? Or for that matter, a rock band/ddr clubscene with player mixed music? Not enough demand How about Cyberball and a profession that can build the bots and players manage the teams? Cool, why not. Developer resources yet again, though. Player housing that is part of a city such as a condo skyscraper. Cool. Find the devs with time and funds to add this. Good luck. Able to gather seeds and small plants from the forest and create gardens. Look! Something feasilble. How about instead of dev made kill quests, crafters can hire combat classes to defend their crops/livestock whatever from raiding npcs. The crafter gets a bonus to their yield if they hire real players and the combatants get paid by the crafter. Not enough demand
The simple fact is, the market for this stuff is tiny. And when you have a tiny market, you have a tiny amount of potential income. And when you have a tiny amount of potential income, you can't pay for developers or resources. And when you don't have those, you don't have a functioning game.
You're right; we could have these games, if we sacrificed graphics, world size, textures, compatibility, optimization, updates, etc. The amount of content required for a gigantic virtual world is unachievable based on the current size of the market of people who actually want these games in the first place.
100% combat oriented online games. Cash shops come standard. Purely developer driven content. Esport is the name of the game for pvp. Socialization has become automatized.
If you were to tell me ten years ago that this is what MMORPGS would be like, I would have never even bothered to get involved.
MMO versions of old console games from a decade ago. Thats what we have right now. The irony is that console games today are actually more open and diverse than these so called mmorpgs.
Its a shame. I have faith in indie devs, as always. But the AAA mmo devs have really led the genre astray as of late. I wonder if it will ever get back on track.
Your pretty much right.. i guess the instant gratification crowd started it all off ow we have instant leveling for pvp.. instant revives and so on.. its a shame really..
but at least we can look at the idie devs, the next game im looknig forward to is the Repopulation.. cant bloody wait to get my hnds on that
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
I know some of you guys are having a hard time grasping this. It seems you are hard wired to believe virtual world=sandbox=ffa gankfest.
A virtual world is when the developers create game systems dedicated to other things besides killing stuff. When the only reason crafting is in your game is so you can say "yeah we got crafting", that is a fail in virtual world design. When all your non combat activities are the equivalent of mobile flash games, that is a fail in virtual world design.
Try to think about games you played and enjoyed that didnt involve killing things. Then apply that to a virtual world mmo and you can start to see how lacking these whack-a-mole themeparks are. Some of you are preaching about virtual worlds within the context of combat only. And from my perspective, you seem conditioned to think this is as good as it gets. And that is sad because this genre is suckin major ass right now as far as staying true to its roots.
And when they aren't, like the keg brawler, lets ignore it just because.
When you have jumping puzzles, that have lightning and gusting winds that you need to avoid while jumping, lets also ignore it.
Currently playing: GW2 Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
100% combat oriented online games. Cash shops come standard. Purely developer driven content. Esport is the name of the game for pvp. Socialization has become automatized.
If you were to tell me ten years ago that this is what MMORPGS would be like, I would have never even bothered to get involved.
MMO versions of old console games from a decade ago. Thats what we have right now. The irony is that console games today are actually more open and diverse than these so called mmorpgs.
Its a shame. I have faith in indie devs, as always. But the AAA mmo devs have really led the genre astray as of late. I wonder if it will ever get back on track.
Genre is currrently dead yes. But it will revive on 28th of August hehehehe.
op is right but there are 10:1 newbs who prefer the new games over the old ones. Obviously. MMO developers are not failing at their goal which is to make money. Do you think any of them give a rat's ass about imersion or true sandbox?
They are looking for the ape that will click on the button in the item shop everything else is just sheep's clothing. The original game makers had profit in mind but they hadn't refined it to a science.
All the modern games have MASS APPEAL which means for every 1 of us old timers who know what we're talking about from the old days there are 10 newbs who simply LOVE the way things are unfolding.
The problem is not with the games I'm afraid. 1 you got too old, 2 society frankly, is too stupid on the whole.
But if this is true then why do all (western) AAA games released lately fail?
WAR, Conan, SWTOR, etc. Besides Vanguard there hasn't been an AAA sandbox mmorpg in years.
And looking at the succes of Minecrat and Dayz, people like and want a game where the players can create the content themselves.
It would be great if someone came out with a cheap engine that is easy to manipulate so indie developers can really flourish. MMOs just take to much damn money to make for anyone with some testicular fortitude to really try to innovate. In the past year some of the best games I've played have been indie developed. Minecraft would be an example. Just look at what people have done with that game. A successful indie game could really change the genre.
I suggest you check out the Hero website and forget all that crap about the Bioware raped version with which they caused there own downfall,also many people fail to realise Hero gives the whole package from support from Idea Fabrik to server side management and it is also always updateing and adjusting to new technologies.
In a way you are miss leading the poster here because you don’t understand that the engine will deliver exactly what TOR delivered and to top it off even if they have everything and I mean everything handed to them except the game they will still fail because it either takes lots of money or lots and lots of time.
Getting people to be motivated to work on a virtual world simulation or MMO is like pulling hens teeth because it requires that nasty four letter word call ‘work’. It is not as fun as a game one can make where they can place a couple mobs and press play button although many relesased indie MMOs are just that. MMO and VR require a lot of planning and design time, a great number of artists, writers, engineers and the list goes on and on here.
Teams fall apart fast if there is any problems unless you PAY everyone to like and work on it and the core team will suffer loss of personal time to the nth degree which makes passion for developing commercial released content less appealing. It is one of the reasons that MANY a team over the last decade, including open source, has moved on to the fast turn around developing of ‘small’ Facebook games and or IPhone games.
Again if a MMO is so easy to make and cheap, why is repop asking for donations with kickstarter? Is it not because they don’t have the time to build the content and people are not working on it for free? (see above) Why not point the real answers to the poster. Great for them that they got kickstarted but even with $1,000,000 of additional content most will burn it in a matter of days and be bored to death because there will be nothing to do unless the team has put in extreme time sinks to deter the ending. I do wish them well and hope they can do better than DF or MO.
Another thing is that Hero Engine can NOT build virtual worlds with six degrees of freedom unless they are packed into very small simulation areas. These areas need to be extremely small because as you enter them the simulations have to load as well as the objects. If the areas are larger than a half kilometer squared there will be enormous lagg while the player crosses the world area.
This means that having areas large and spread out is not possible because you have no room to put the FOV greater than, at most 500 meters. The engine is not capable of building gridded worlds unless these worlds are VERY small because they will require again the 500 meters of simulation per area and you have to hand connect them together which takes enormous amounts of time. They can’t be entirely free of seams so there is holes in the terrain in places. Even repop developers suggested that I build my world with cannons and impassable barriers so that the player would not be able to notice it. This is NOT a true simulated world!
Sorry, but this engine will never produce a real virtual world unless it has millions of dollars of development support for the team using it and further more the release will end up being another ‘running the gauntlet’ type game and not a simulation because that is what sells.
I want it to continue in the direction it was heading 9 years ago. This isnt some unimaginable dream. It was taking shape in mmos like FFXI, SWG and AC and it has all but vanished. MMOrpgs are barely a shadow of what they once were. We have refined multiplayer action games. That is the definition of an mmorpg these days. Its so bad that people cant even grasp the concept of doing something else in an mmo anymore besides bashing stuff with a sword.
The 3 gameas you just listed, how commercially successful are they compared to other games?
I don't see much music in the top10 sales chart that I like, that doesn't mean the music industry is dead.
This genre might be dead to you but for me, it is more exciting than ever before.
Gdemami - Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Nowadays mmo's and mmorpg's aside from few very niche and poor production quality or few incredibly specific titles are closer to lobby co-op games and console games than to what mmorpg's originally were.
So lobby co-op multiplayer online games with few basic technical mmo features are alive.
Virtual worlds - what orginally was mmorpg's differentiation and unique feature, also embraced to some degree by early themeparks are atm dead.
Comments
"Assholes" are part of what makes the game interesting tho. It's part of the MMO experience imo. Getting other players to help defend something against team asshole? Sign me up. I'm not into the drama per se, but most mmos are so vanilla now. I actually miss "training" or having to run to zone. OR hell a class that actually crowd controls.
As a friend said to me today. "Everything has turned into run here, kill big groups of mobs (what happened to single pulls?), run there, kill some more big groups of mobs, run somewhere else, etc. with a bunch of strangers the game finds for you to play with... I miss spending hours in groups with people you know..."
EQ, EQOA, Final Fantasy XI were all like this. I don't mean not seeing an actual soul but, there were areas where you felt like the world was huge and the towns (or tunnels) were the place to find grps sell goods etc etc.
That counts multiple / farm subs if that.
Plus a lot of the games "in the market" really aren't.
a yo ho ho
Of course it can be fun to be an asshole or hunt them, but we were looking at noncombat ways to build a sandbox and I couldn't get past the ability to plant and chop down trees before running into problems.
Seriously get out of your ficking bubble http://www.superdataresearch.com/why-your-game-should-be-f2p/
They can suck beyond belief for all i care, they make more money that the majority of subs, that includes eve
The market of ftp games while not the same as p2p is dominated by a few of them too.
Maplestory, Runes of magic and others like that. If i remember correctly there was somewhere they mentioned runes of magic generating revenue that was equal to 2m wow subs.
According to this site i found recently there are over 50m MMoers in USA alone so i also am way of base.
http://www.superdataresearch.com/global-mmo-games-spending-exceeds-12bn/
Now i dont know how accurate it is but it seems legit.
I know some of you guys are having a hard time grasping this. It seems you are hard wired to believe virtual world=sandbox=ffa gankfest.
A virtual world is when the developers create game systems dedicated to other things besides killing stuff. When the only reason crafting is in your game is so you can say "yeah we got crafting", that is a fail in virtual world design. When all your non combat activities are the equivalent of mobile flash games, that is a fail in virtual world design.
Try to think about games you played and enjoyed that didnt involve killing things. Then apply that to a virtual world mmo and you can start to see how lacking these whack-a-mole themeparks are. Some of you are preaching about virtual worlds within the context of combat only. And from my perspective, you seem conditioned to think this is as good as it gets. And that is sad because this genre is suckin major ass right now as far as staying true to its roots.
I agree with the OP of this thread and his reasoning. Having played EQ and XI, I can honestly say that this genre's future does not look promising.
Maybe the pure mmorpg genre is too small. So developer have to get their gamers else where, from single player, or esports pvper etc.
There are just so much more mmorpg players compare to 10 years ago. They have to come from some where.
I get what you want but I don't think you realize how impossible it is to code into a game with good results.
You can have sandbox elements in single player and small group games because you're not up against "the asshole". Once you try to move these same elements that work for single player and coop games into a MMO "the asshole" takes over and becomes a serious design problem.
Try to think of one detailed example of what you want to see in a MMO and then put it up to "the asshole" challenge to see if it can work without adding restrictions.
Why can't we street skate/hover board/parkour and have competitions in the hub cities?
Why aren't there race tracks?
Why aren't there competitive team sports that don't involve killing?
Why can't we have a turntablist profession? Or for that matter, a rock band/ddr clubscene with player mixed music?
How about Cyberball and a profession that can build the bots and players manage the teams?
Player housing that is part of a city such as a condo skyscraper.
Able to gather seeds and small plants from the forest and create gardens
How about instead of dev made kill quests, crafters can hire combat classes to defend their crops/livestock whatever from raiding npcs. The crafter gets a bonus to their yield if they hire real players and the combatants get paid by the crafter.
the list goes on. All of these things can be regulated and optimized for the least amount of griefing. Sure some may slip by, but that that is going to happen in any game worth a damn. Some devs try to make this perfect little canned mmo where nobody can get hurt or hurt themselves. They treat their player base like a bunch of bubble boys.
Computer
Keyboard
You enter a command or input, and something happens on screen.. What.... the ever loving hell do you want from an mmo?
Until we live with the Jetsons there are going to be some limitations.
I want it to continue in the direction it was heading 9 years ago. This isnt some unimaginable dream. It was taking shape in mmos like FFXI, SWG and AC and it has all but vanished. MMOrpgs are barely a shadow of what they once were. We have refined multiplayer action games. That is the definition of an mmorpg these days. Its so bad that people cant even grasp the concept of doing something else in an mmo anymore besides bashing stuff with a sword.
The simple fact is, the market for this stuff is tiny. And when you have a tiny market, you have a tiny amount of potential income. And when you have a tiny amount of potential income, you can't pay for developers or resources. And when you don't have those, you don't have a functioning game.
You're right; we could have these games, if we sacrificed graphics, world size, textures, compatibility, optimization, updates, etc. The amount of content required for a gigantic virtual world is unachievable based on the current size of the market of people who actually want these games in the first place.
This is why we need a sticky thread from this topic so we don't need to see new threads pop up.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Your pretty much right.. i guess the instant gratification crowd started it all off
ow we have instant leveling for pvp.. instant revives and so on..
its a shame really..
but at least we can look at the idie devs, the next game im looknig forward to is the Repopulation.. cant bloody wait to get my hnds on that
Someone else might say if it's not broke don't fix it. And before anyone pipes in remember, different tastes.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
And when they aren't, like the keg brawler, lets ignore it just because.
When you have jumping puzzles, that have lightning and gusting winds that you need to avoid while jumping, lets also ignore it.
Currently playing: GW2
Going cardboard starter kit: Ticket to ride, Pandemic, Carcassonne, Dominion, 7 Wonders
Genre is currrently dead yes. But it will revive on 28th of August hehehehe.
Sorry couldn't help it >.<. :P
Looking forward to EQL and EQN.
But if this is true then why do all (western) AAA games released lately fail?
WAR, Conan, SWTOR, etc. Besides Vanguard there hasn't been an AAA sandbox mmorpg in years.
And looking at the succes of Minecrat and Dayz, people like and want a game where the players can create the content themselves.
If you are interested in making a MMO maybe visit my page to get a free open source engine.
The 3 gameas you just listed, how commercially successful are they compared to other games?
I don't see much music in the top10 sales chart that I like, that doesn't mean the music industry is dead.
This genre might be dead to you but for me, it is more exciting than ever before.
Gdemami -
Informing people about your thoughts and impressions is not a review, it's a blog.
Sounds more like it's dead...
...in your heart.
Perhaps this thread is better entitled, This genre is "UNdead"?
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Nowadays mmo's and mmorpg's aside from few very niche and poor production quality or few incredibly specific titles are closer to lobby co-op games and console games than to what mmorpg's originally were.
So lobby co-op multiplayer online games with few basic technical mmo features are alive.
Virtual worlds - what orginally was mmorpg's differentiation and unique feature, also embraced to some degree by early themeparks are atm dead.
Sorry state of affairs.