1. fully automatic LFG systems = changing game into lobby
...
Nailed it on all points.
I like the signature I saw somewhere. (paraphrased) "I really like MMORPGs. I just hope that someday a developer will make another one."
THink about WHY there is such change. In fact, LFG systems are very popular. Lots of playres asked for one in TOR because it wasn't there from the start.
Yeah, MMORPGs are turning into lobby-based games .. or at least a large part of it ... this is a trend for a reason.
Lol not they are not. TSW, GW2, Repop, Archeage lots of games coming up are not lobby based. You seem to "want" them to all be but that doesn't mean they are. You were talking about SWTOR it didn't fail because it's lobby based it failed because it was a SPRG and sucked and so did Tera and to a lesser extent Rift. Don't confuse Moba's and MMO's they are not the same thing.Diablo 3 is not an MMO and nether is torchlight 2 or LOL or SMITE or TRIBES Ascend.
WOW, the biggest one, is. GW, the first one, is. DCUO is. Sure some are not, but a lot are.
DDO is.
Lot of the same people who play WOW play Diablo 3 (in fact, at least 1.2M annual pass holder, not counting those who purchase in retail). The play style is close enough. Plus, D3, Torchlight are not MMOs, but discussed here anyway.
THink about WHY there is such change. In fact, LFG systems are very popular. Lots of playres asked for one in TOR because it wasn't there from the start.
Yeah, MMORPGs are turning into lobby-based games .. or at least a large part of it ... this is a trend for a reason.
Of course there is a reason. MMORPGs don't do well as mainstream* games. The "new" MMORPGs do much better at providing gameplay for wide playerbase. That's why the trend exists, because developer / publishers are finding increased revenue streams.
However, not all players are looking for a mainstream game. Some would rather find a niche game that plays like MMORPGs used to. I call it oldschool, described as patterned after Vanilla WoW**, classic EQ, UO, or SWG.
Exactly. And there is no reason why people who like the new MMO trend, like me, cannot voice our opinions. In fact, i experienced the old way back then, and found the new way much more entertaining.
And sure, not all players are looking for a mainstream, and there are plenty of indie developers (even in MMO like DF).
But there is no reason not to discuss why *I* like the new way. There are gameplay reasons why instancing, LFG tools are popular.
1. fully automatic LFG systems = changing game into lobby
2. cross-server tools and making world / zones channels / duplicates= no separate world feel anymore
3. cash shop or rmah = ruining immersion totally + destrying barrier between mmorpg and real world - thus making it feel like strictly a game and not mmorpg. Worst offender.
4.cutscenes especially if there are more than few rare occasional ones - separating player from game world & making it feel like single player
5. single player instances and overall too much instancing = the more things like that the more game feel like single player or co-op game.
6.Auction Houses like ebay - tunneling whole trade into one centralized person-less banalized experience. Sure more conveniant, but tbh more system like that = less mmo feel for me (very subjective I know).
7. teleporting without limits or with very small limits - making open world and travelling pointless. Teleporting is needed but it need to have quite a bit of limits, otherwise it banalize experience.
8. making whole or almost whole open world content soloable - it is as bad as making most of them group only.
9. UO and SWG did it best. They haven't really forced you into grouping to progress, but there were quite a bit of group only or group preferred content. Dynamic scaling NOT solve it completly. It makes it bit better, but not solve a problem.
10. end game focused in 95% at instances / arenas - speak for itself - when you couple it with cross server automatic LFG systems then playing end-game in mmorpg's is really NO DIFFRENT than playing any lobby-like games like FPS, MOBA or RTS games like CoD, LoL or Starcraft.
Great List !!! I agree 110%
If you find a game out there that drops even half of the items you listed let me know. Until then I am stuck playing 8+ year old games to avoid the craptastic casual friendly CO OP games that DEVs are trying to pass of nowadays as MMOs.
1. fully automatic LFG systems = changing game into lobby
...
Nailed it on all points.
I like the signature I saw somewhere. (paraphrased) "I really like MMORPGs. I just hope that someday a developer will make another one."
THink about WHY there is such change. In fact, LFG systems are very popular. Lots of playres asked for one in TOR because it wasn't there from the start.
Yeah, MMORPGs are turning into lobby-based games .. or at least a large part of it ... this is a trend for a reason.
Yeah because SWTOR, AoC, and Rift were all such huge success stories that they only had to merge the majority of their servers within a few months of launch!
YOu mean way more successful than Eve, UO, DF ... yeah .. you are right on.
Instancing is taking a part of an MMO and removing it from the Massively Multiplayer to make a Single Player experience with Multi-Player capability.
There is no "opinion" here, that's what it is.
If your're immersed, you dont care or notice. Everything has it's place. Even instancing.
Immersion is king. People will remember their king.
This isn't a discussion about immersion, it's about socializing. And no, instancing is insanely immersion breaking.
In LotRO, running around, finding a cave, getting a message "You cannot enter here without the right quest." Yeah, immersion!
In a virtual world full of adventurers it makes sense for other people to be in dungeons.
Well, alt-tabbing to look at strategy site is immersion breaking. Having to click on a "WOW" icon before starting the game is immersion breaking. Having to check latency and frame per second is immersion breaking. So what?
Immersion != fun. We are playing GAMES .. of course there will be some part that take you out of the game. If it streamlilne the experience, and make the game more fun, why not?
Look at the popular WOW addons .. recount, auctioneer, .... all immersion breaking ... and you still see lots and lots of people downloading them.
Personally, I don't think immersion should be in the way of fun. Ditto for socializing. There is enough socializing with chat channels and what -not. Anyone who want to chat, can chat ... and we don't need down-time and stuff like that.
in truth there is nothing wrong with the kinds of MMOs they are creating. They are making money. They are serving an audience.
what hopefully some devs will understand is that they are only supplying content for the majority. now if that majority is 90% .. then so be it. but if that majority is 51% then there is still a lot of profit in other models.
the reality is though that those of us who arent the majority are buying their products anyway because we have no choice other than not playing online with our friends.
as a result, imo, the majority, the people that games like swtor are perfect for, is probably closer to 30% .. how can that be a majority? easy. there is no other group of people with a defined market, or niche that is greater than 30% of the population.
obviously, numbers pulled out of my backside ..
bring on repop and aa! gw2 will help, but wont change much.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity. I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
Might be just me, but instead of asking developer to take out single player in MMO, maybe you should ask developer to creat more multi player game play, and allow player to choose if they want to play single player or multi player.
In theory your suggestion seems reasonable but historically it never seems to work...
the DEVs focus on new Multiplayer / Group content...
and then the Single Player crowd screams that they are being left out.....
so after a couple months the DEVs revamp the new Multiplayer content to be accessible by Single players leaving the Multiplayer crowd with watered down easy mode content.
The constant see-sawing wears down the game over time and leaves both camps ( Traditional Multiplayer MMO players and the Single Player crowd ) dissatisfied.
Of course there is a reason. MMORPGs don't do well as mainstream* games. The "new" MMORPGs do much better at providing gameplay for wide playerbase. That's why the trend exists, because developer / publishers are finding increased revenue streams.
However, not all players are looking for a mainstream game. Some would rather find a niche game that plays like MMORPGs used to. I call it oldschool, described as patterned after Vanilla WoW**, classic EQ, UO, or SWG.
This brings me to two related observations.
First, players looking for a modern high budget game that holds to old designs is not realistic. It simply isn't economically feasible to spend that sort of money on a niche market. Oldschoolers are a minority. Sandboxers are a minority. It simply isn't going to happen coming from a major dev / publisher.
Second, if any developer / publisher is going to create an oldschool game, it's going to be an Indie who can fill that niche and still make money in the process. The clearest example I can provide is The Repopulation which can sort of be described as a SWG clone. One can't get more oldschool than that.
Yes, the King is dead. Long live the King. SP+Lobby is the new king. The developers walked away from the existing playerbase in order to gain popularity with new players. It's business, of course they did. Many love it, some don't.
* mass appeal, wide audience
** Yep, I consider Vanilla WoW as oldschool. Some might not, but it's close enough for me.
Vanilla WoW introduced all the things that more or less killed the genre. It's the opposite of old school, it founded the new school.
And its entirely possible to make a profit off hardcore MMO gamers. There's millions of them, and all of them are looking for a game. It's a marketing without competition. Moba style MMOs barely even hold onto 50k players after the first few months of launch. Launching a hardcore MMO would net millions of LONG TERM subscribers.
I think you are far exaggerating the number of "hardcore MMO gamers" (I think you mean old-school) and severely under-estimating the market for new style MMOs.
You also missed his point. He never said you couldn't make money out of old-school players. Its just that they're significantly smaller niche than the mainstream niche. Enough so that it is hard to justify making a high budget game targeted to that audience. These smaller niches are naturally filled by indies because big developers are not interesed. Its their only way to survive because they can't compete in the mainstream niche.
If you can't outdo your competition, specialize.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Vanilla WoW introduced all the things that more or less killed the genre. It's the opposite of old school, it founded the new school.
If by 'killed the genre' you mean 'expanded it tenfold' then you are correct. WOW killed MMOs in the same way that Star Wars killed special effects in movies.
And its entirely possible to make a profit off hardcore MMO gamers. There's millions of them, and all of them are looking for a game.
You keep saying there are millions of them but you have yet to provide proof of that. You also say all of them are looking for a game, which is incorrect in two ways
1) many already have found a game
2) they are not all necessarily looking for the same game, which is a key point here.
It's a marketing without competition. Moba style MMOs barely even hold onto 50k players after the first few months of launch.
Launching a hardcore MMO would net millions of LONG TERM subscribers.
There is no data to support that claim. Actually, all historical data points to the exact opposite.
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
1. fully automatic LFG systems = changing game into lobby
2. cross-server tools and making world / zones channels / duplicates= no separate world feel anymore
3. cash shop or rmah = ruining immersion totally + destrying barrier between mmorpg and real world - thus making it feel like strictly a game and not mmorpg. Worst offender.
4.cutscenes especially if there are more than few rare occasional ones - separating player from game world & making it feel like single player
5. single player instances and overall too much instancing = the more things like that the more game feel like single player or co-op game.
6.Auction Houses like ebay - tunneling whole trade into one centralized person-less banalized experience. Sure more conveniant, but tbh more system like that = less mmo feel for me (very subjective I know).
7. teleporting without limits or with very small limits - making open world and travelling pointless. Teleporting is needed but it need to have quite a bit of limits, otherwise it banalize experience.
8. making whole or almost whole open world content soloable - it is as bad as making most of them group only.
9. UO and SWG did it best. They haven't really forced you into grouping to progress, but there were quite a bit of group only or group preferred content. Dynamic scaling NOT solve it completly. It makes it bit better, but not solve a problem.
10. end game focused in 95% at instances / arenas - speak for itself - when you couple it with cross server automatic LFG systems then playing end-game in mmorpg's is really NO DIFFRENT than playing any lobby-like games like FPS, MOBA or RTS games like CoD, LoL or Starcraft.
Nice list.
The only one I think can be salvaged is #6. Localized auction houses work very nicely (think Eve).
One more thing I'd like to add is the damn global banking system. The logistics of moving can add a lot to a game.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own. -- Herman Melville
I think the biggest one for me is cutscenes....They jsut have no place in a MMO....THey make me feel like the story is already written and my character isn't really a part of it.......Cutscenes are fine in a game like Dragon Age, especially where your choices do matter....In a game like TSW though, it absolutely destroys any immersion right off the bat.
The problem is that they overuse them. Cutscenes are not really a problem in Guildwars but are really annoying in TOR.
The perfect number of cutscenes a player in a MMO see during the time she plays a single character is 5-20, and that is totally, not each day.
Cutscenes is a powerful tool that can set the mode if you use them sparsly. If overused they are just something annoying.
In the light of the topic of MMOs that feel like singplayer games. What features do you feel are unproductive or even detrimental to making an MMO or MMORPG what it is or should be in your opinion? MMO design seems to have gotten off track somewhat and I wish devs would take notice to what they are doing compared to what players want (or based on what they don't want?). What is happening can't possibly be the result of not knowing what players want.
I'm not explicitly speaking to just your layman dev but mostly to those responsible for the direction of it's entirety.
let's see here.
1: no exploration is a big bad one for me.
2: competative or "tagging" mobs for xp or loot.
3: artificial experience inflation, normal white mob trash with resistances (other then obvious ones like elementals being immune to their elemental type), dailies for reputation basically anything to artificially slow the leveling or progression down.
4: enormous fees for anything to change a character, like transfers (does it really cost $25 to have bob take the usb drive downstairs three stories and plug it into the other server?) character name changes, race changes, cosmetic changes.
5: single player-esque dialogs between npcs and the player (does it really take ten minutes to explain why you want me to kill ten womprats? and how many questions do i REALLY need to answer about it before i actually DO the quest?)
6: no rubber band keeping mobs from chasing you across the entire planet before they finally kill you with torches and pitchforks. (i get enough torches and pitchforks in RL thanks)
Vanilla WoW introduced all the things that more or less killed the genre. It's the opposite of old school, it founded the new school.
If by 'killed the genre' you mean 'expanded it tenfold' then you are correct. WOW killed MMOs in the same way that Star Wars killed special effects in movies.
Except that it didn't... it expanded WoW 10 fold, but we now get LESS different types of MMOs, with LESS features, and they have LESS subscribers than pre WoW MMOs did. But yeah, having more people is all that matters, who cares if the games are garbage.
And its entirely possible to make a profit off hardcore MMO gamers. There's millions of them, and all of them are looking for a game.
You keep saying there are millions of them but you have yet to provide proof of that. You also say all of them are looking for a game, which is incorrect in two ways
1) many already have found a game
2) they are not all necessarily looking for the same game, which is a key point here.
There were at least 3 million players just in the US alone spread out across about 8 MMOs before 2003. The majority of them aren't happy with modern "MMOs". Vanguard's initial sales proved that there's a huge market for a hardcore MMO, it just have to be made well. And when there's no other competition it doesn't matter if they're not all looking for the same game, they'll give it a try and the majority will stick if its a good game. Pretty simple. And its not like it has to sustain itself off the pre WoW MMOers, there's plenty of new MMO gamers that ache for something a bit less... moronic as modern WoW clones.
It's a marketing without competition. Moba style MMOs barely even hold onto 50k players after the first few months of launch.
I said Moba style MMOs (WoW, SWTOR, TSW, DDO). Not MOBAs. Reading comprehension is important.
Launching a hardcore MMO would net millions of LONG TERM subscribers.
There is no data to support that claim. Actually, all historical data points to the exact opposite.
Uh, what data points to the opposite? Older MMOs grew over the long term, increase number of servers and subs. Modern MMOs collapse and die almost right after launch. Hardcore MMOs are built around communities. Communities help games last. Data? See all the hardcore MMOs still going with stable subs, while modern MMOs die off left right and center?
in truth there is nothing wrong with the kinds of MMOs they are creating. They are making money. They are serving an audience.
The problem is that they're branding them as MMOs, which they aren't. And they aren't making much money. And they're only making games for ONE segment of a massive user base.
Of course there is a reason. MMORPGs don't do well as mainstream* games. The "new" MMORPGs do much better at providing gameplay for wide playerbase. That's why the trend exists, because developer / publishers are finding increased revenue streams.
However, not all players are looking for a mainstream game. Some would rather find a niche game that plays like MMORPGs used to. I call it oldschool, described as patterned after Vanilla WoW**, classic EQ, UO, or SWG.
This brings me to two related observations.
First, players looking for a modern high budget game that holds to old designs is not realistic. It simply isn't economically feasible to spend that sort of money on a niche market. Oldschoolers are a minority. Sandboxers are a minority. It simply isn't going to happen coming from a major dev / publisher.
Second, if any developer / publisher is going to create an oldschool game, it's going to be an Indie who can fill that niche and still make money in the process. The clearest example I can provide is The Repopulation which can sort of be described as a SWG clone. One can't get more oldschool than that.
Yes, the King is dead. Long live the King. SP+Lobby is the new king. The developers walked away from the existing playerbase in order to gain popularity with new players. It's business, of course they did. Many love it, some don't.
* mass appeal, wide audience
** Yep, I consider Vanilla WoW as oldschool. Some might not, but it's close enough for me.
Vanilla WoW introduced all the things that more or less killed the genre. It's the opposite of old school, it founded the new school.
And its entirely possible to make a profit off hardcore MMO gamers. There's millions of them, and all of them are looking for a game. It's a marketing without competition. Moba style MMOs barely even hold onto 50k players after the first few months of launch. Launching a hardcore MMO would net millions of LONG TERM subscribers.
I think you are far exaggerating the number of "hardcore MMO gamers" (I think you mean old-school) and severely under-estimating the market for new style MMOs.
You also missed his point. He never said you couldn't make money out of old-school players. Its just that they're significantly smaller niche than the mainstream niche. Enough so that it is hard to justify making a high budget game targeted to that audience.
Who said anything about a high budget game? Just make sure that your core game is solid and build it all the time. Don't spend millions on CGI trailers, full voice acting, scripted cinematics... make a damn game. Mythic made Dark Age of Camelot with 30 devs and about a million dollars, and it is STILL better than most MMOs out there today.
In the light of the topic of MMOs that feel like singplayer games. What features do you feel are unproductive or even detrimental to making an MMO or MMORPG what it is or should be in your opinion? MMO design seems to have gotten off track somewhat and I wish devs would take notice to what they are doing compared to what players want (or based on what they don't want?). What is happening can't possibly be the result of not knowing what players want.
I'm not explicitly speaking to just your layman dev but mostly to those responsible for the direction of it's entirety.
Lots of small things, lots of big things... hmm.
Biggest anti social feature - instancing. MMOs are about interacting with other players and instancing does the exact opposite.
Quest based advancement - These guide the players by the nose, and they're always the ONLY way to level up in games that have them. That means, no one groups, because generally everyone will be doing different quests/on different steps/in different instances. They'll group for the one step they need a group then disband.
Lack of death penalty/any kind of real danger in the world - Lack of danger means players will go it alone. Its simply easier.
Auction Houses - They remove as much player interaction from crafting and selling as possible.
EQ/WoW tierred raiding - This is a sticky one. It encourages socialzing with closed cliques and guilds. It also encourages grinding and repeating and they're almost always instanced. In DAoC, dozens of different guilds would team up to do raids. That's blasphemy in modern MMOs. Work with strangers?!?!
Singleplayer storylines - These are usually instanced (or to use the WoW word for instancing- "phasing") which is bad on its own. Singleplayer games are a waste of time and dishonest. They'll never be as good as a singleplayer game mechanic wise, and they'll NEVER impact the game world. They try to trick the player into believing they're "The Chosen One" but as soon as they leave the instance they see 1000 other people doing the same thing, 1000 Chosen ones.
Lack of group rewards - No group xp bonus, no harder encounters that require lots of players...
No down time - This one is sticky. Down time sucks. It really does. BUT, when there's longer down time that encourages people to work together so that there's less down time, and it gives time for people to chat with each other. This is close to forced grouping though...
Global chat channels - I've noticedin modern MMOs NOBODY talks in local chat. It's all about global chat. In DAoC there was local, guild, and alliance (allied guilds). This gave plenty of global talk options, while still not making local obsolete.
Lack of any kind of depth/challenging mechanics/new ideas - Everyone comes into an MMO already knowing how to play, so players rarely rely on others.
In game GPS map - Same as the above.
Abundant quest rewards - Why talk to a crafter or even try to create a game econ when linear quest grinding gives you all you need?
Just bumping this because the thread got hijacked almost right away.
1. Load screens between zones. (A major criticism of SWTOR, for example)
2. Teleporting around everywhere rather than travelling through the world. (Like in WoW when going to a dungeon)
3. NPCs spewing their generic quest monologues at me. (One thing SWTOR fixed - after being able to have interactive dialogues with NPCs it's hard to take lifeless signpost NPCs with monologue texts seriously. Having all the players in a group participating in the same dialogue was a stroke of genius.)
4. Non-interactive quest cutscenes (A big flaw in GW2 story quests. Dialogues are really annoying when you can't even influence them. Not much DIALOGUE about it, guys.)
5. Instancing of world zones. (Making them not-world zones. Major criticism of Age of Conan, for example)
6. End-game content exclusively designed to remove players from the actual world and put them into instances. (Don't get me wrong - some instancing is OK. Just don't have everything worthwhile doing at end-game being couped up in instances)
7. Cross-server PvP and PvE. (Can perhaps be acceptable in off-periods if not overused. How about forming relations on your own server rather than with random unknowns on other servers you don't give an F about?)
8. Lifeless worlds where monsters stand still like statues, waiting for you to come kill them (SWTOR). They should at least pretend to go about their business. And there should be ambient wildlife moving about (critters like the rabbits and deer in WoW).
Vanilla WoW introduced all the things that more or less killed the genre. It's the opposite of old school, it founded the new school.
If by 'killed the genre' you mean 'expanded it tenfold' then you are correct. WOW killed MMOs in the same way that Star Wars killed special effects in movies.
Except that it didn't... it expanded WoW 10 fold, but we now get LESS different types of MMOs, with LESS features, and they have LESS subscribers than pre WoW MMOs did. But yeah, having more people is all that matters, who cares if the games are garbage.
And its entirely possible to make a profit off hardcore MMO gamers. There's millions of them, and all of them are looking for a game.
You keep saying there are millions of them but you have yet to provide proof of that. You also say all of them are looking for a game, which is incorrect in two ways
1) many already have found a game
2) they are not all necessarily looking for the same game, which is a key point here.
There were at least 3 million players just in the US alone spread out across about 8 MMOs before 2003. The majority of them aren't happy with modern "MMOs". Vanguard's initial sales proved that there's a huge market for a hardcore MMO, it just have to be made well. And when there's no other competition it doesn't matter if they're not all looking for the same game, they'll give it a try and the majority will stick if its a good game. Pretty simple. And its not like it has to sustain itself off the pre WoW MMOers, there's plenty of new MMO gamers that ache for something a bit less... moronic as modern WoW clones.
It's a marketing without competition. Moba style MMOs barely even hold onto 50k players after the first few months of launch.
I said Moba style MMOs (WoW, SWTOR, TSW, DDO). Not MOBAs. Reading comprehension is important.
Launching a hardcore MMO would net millions of LONG TERM subscribers.
There is no data to support that claim. Actually, all historical data points to the exact opposite.
Uh, what data points to the opposite? Older MMOs grew over the long term, increase number of servers and subs. Modern MMOs collapse and die almost right after launch. Hardcore MMOs are built around communities. Communities help games last. Data? See all the hardcore MMOs still going with stable subs, while modern MMOs die off left right and center?
There you go.
Less types of MMOs since WOW? We have PBBGs, MOBAs, MMOFPS, MMORTS and several other categories spread over hundreds of MMOs.
Less subscribers than pre-WOW MMOs is a pointless distinction to make, as only a tiny percentage of MMOs even charge a subscription. Yes, Garvon, you're right... transportation in NYC is dead, proven clearly by there being far less horse-drawn carriages in Manhattan than there were in the 1800s.
There were at least 3 million players just in the US alone spread out across about 8 MMOs before 2003. The majority of them aren't happy with modern "MMOs".
There is absolutely nothing to support your contention that the majority who were playing MMOs prior to WOW are unsatisfied and not currently enjoying a modern MMO. I'll stop there, as your assertions get wilder as the post goes on.
Do you really not see that almost every single conclusion you have drawn, and stand vehemently behind as truth, is based entirely on assumptions - most of which are completely false or, at best, simply baseless?
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
Vanilla WoW introduced all the things that more or less killed the genre. It's the opposite of old school, it founded the new school.
If by 'killed the genre' you mean 'expanded it tenfold' then you are correct. WOW killed MMOs in the same way that Star Wars killed special effects in movies.
Except that it didn't... it expanded WoW 10 fold, but we now get LESS different types of MMOs, with LESS features, and they have LESS subscribers than pre WoW MMOs did. But yeah, having more people is all that matters, who cares if the games are garbage.
And its entirely possible to make a profit off hardcore MMO gamers. There's millions of them, and all of them are looking for a game.
You keep saying there are millions of them but you have yet to provide proof of that. You also say all of them are looking for a game, which is incorrect in two ways
1) many already have found a game
2) they are not all necessarily looking for the same game, which is a key point here.
There were at least 3 million players just in the US alone spread out across about 8 MMOs before 2003. The majority of them aren't happy with modern "MMOs". Vanguard's initial sales proved that there's a huge market for a hardcore MMO, it just have to be made well. And when there's no other competition it doesn't matter if they're not all looking for the same game, they'll give it a try and the majority will stick if its a good game. Pretty simple. And its not like it has to sustain itself off the pre WoW MMOers, there's plenty of new MMO gamers that ache for something a bit less... moronic as modern WoW clones.
It's a marketing without competition. Moba style MMOs barely even hold onto 50k players after the first few months of launch.
I said Moba style MMOs (WoW, SWTOR, TSW, DDO). Not MOBAs. Reading comprehension is important.
Launching a hardcore MMO would net millions of LONG TERM subscribers.
There is no data to support that claim. Actually, all historical data points to the exact opposite.
Uh, what data points to the opposite? Older MMOs grew over the long term, increase number of servers and subs. Modern MMOs collapse and die almost right after launch. Hardcore MMOs are built around communities. Communities help games last. Data? See all the hardcore MMOs still going with stable subs, while modern MMOs die off left right and center?
There you go.
Less subscribers than pre-WOW MMOs is a pointless distinction to make, as only a tiny percentage of MMOs even charge a subscription.
But that's because they all suck and nobody plays them for more than a couple of months, they aren't worth a subscription, unlike older MMOs who where able to hold more than 200k players for a year. See UO, EQ, DAoC & AC, all of them more successful than cheap wow clones like AoC, WAR & SWTOR (actually, they wheren't cheap at all) those games banked on hype and payed reviews for the majority of its profits,box sales, once people actuallly played them, everyone left.
It's either F2P where any turd gets players, or a quick 6 month death when the lastest big thing loses 90% of it's playerbase.
If anything, the death of the P2P model proves how bad the genre is ATM, MMOs lost depth to warrant a subscription, they became like single player rpgs, but with less quality and more quantity.
2 month fillers.
MMOs now are poor man's RPG for the people who can't afford 60$ for 20 hours of content.
Most of the specific issues can be summed up in more general terms:
Design which makes you not need to travel. Design which speeds up levelling. Design which reduces your ability to explore. Design which hinders you ability to meet players again. Design which sidelines grouping. Design which sidelines crafting. Design which cuts out roleplaying tools. Design which makes you pay to win. Design which makes MMO’s too easy.
Finally to sum up:
Design which puts graphics before gameplay and gameplay before the multiplayer experience.
MMOs now are poor man's RPG for the people who can't afford 60$ for 20 hours of content.
Although I disagree with much of your analysis of why subscriptions have gone by the wayside, I do find the above an interesting analysis. Although I would change "can't afford' to 'cannot or will not pay'
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
Most of the specific issues can be summed up in more general terms:
Design which makes you not need to travel. To some extent it affects immersion however I don't appreciate it so much so that I'd be willing to spend hours upon hours with autorun on or grinding random encounters (players are REs too if I'm concerned). Design which speeds up levelling. Do you mean XP boosts? Design which reduces your ability to explore. There's hardly ever anything out there. Never were. Design which hinders you ability to meet players again. Could you expand this perhaps? Design which sidelines grouping.Design which simply allows solo progress does not sideline grouping
Design which sidelines crafting.Not every MMO is about crafting nor should they. Design which cuts out roleplaying tools.You don't need tools to roleplay. Design which makes you pay to win.Only a handful of games are like this nor do they exactly unmake an MMO. Design which makes MMO’s too easy. I admit; MMOs are easy. They all are - old and new.
Finally to sum up:
Design which puts graphics before gameplay and gameplay before the multiplayer experience. What an odd 1+1=3 conclusion. You didn't exactly refer to graphics in your list and you imply that today's games have less gameplay in them. I'm of the mind that MMOs have more game in them than ever before. Old MMOs had many things in them a lot of them brought not much gameplay.
You don't really care about MMOs, you just don't like some features or ways of doing things.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
I think you are far exaggerating the number of "hardcore MMO gamers" (I think you mean old-school) and severely under-estimating the market for new style MMOs.
You also missed his point. He never said you couldn't make money out of old-school players. Its just that they're significantly smaller niche than the mainstream niche. Enough so that it is hard to justify making a high budget game targeted to that audience.
Who said anything about a high budget game? Just make sure that your core game is solid and build it all the time. Don't spend millions on CGI trailers, full voice acting, scripted cinematics... make a damn game. Mythic made Dark Age of Camelot with 30 devs and about a million dollars, and it is STILL better than most MMOs out there today.
Mythic was a one-hit-wonder like many others (and many still are). If I remember correctly, Quake 3 was made with 24 people and Guild Wars 1 started out with three guys coding in one's kitchen.
Your subjective view matters little when almost every AAA MMO today regularly overshadows any successess DAoC may or may not have had.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
Comments
WOW, the biggest one, is. GW, the first one, is. DCUO is. Sure some are not, but a lot are.
DDO is.
Lot of the same people who play WOW play Diablo 3 (in fact, at least 1.2M annual pass holder, not counting those who purchase in retail). The play style is close enough. Plus, D3, Torchlight are not MMOs, but discussed here anyway.
And i don't. Players want different things. The market decide what gets made.
Exactly. And there is no reason why people who like the new MMO trend, like me, cannot voice our opinions. In fact, i experienced the old way back then, and found the new way much more entertaining.
And sure, not all players are looking for a mainstream, and there are plenty of indie developers (even in MMO like DF).
But there is no reason not to discuss why *I* like the new way. There are gameplay reasons why instancing, LFG tools are popular.
Great List !!! I agree 110%
If you find a game out there that drops even half of the items you listed let me know. Until then I am stuck playing 8+ year old games to avoid the craptastic casual friendly CO OP games that DEVs are trying to pass of nowadays as MMOs.
YOu mean way more successful than Eve, UO, DF ... yeah .. you are right on.
Well, alt-tabbing to look at strategy site is immersion breaking. Having to click on a "WOW" icon before starting the game is immersion breaking. Having to check latency and frame per second is immersion breaking. So what?
Immersion != fun. We are playing GAMES .. of course there will be some part that take you out of the game. If it streamlilne the experience, and make the game more fun, why not?
Look at the popular WOW addons .. recount, auctioneer, .... all immersion breaking ... and you still see lots and lots of people downloading them.
Personally, I don't think immersion should be in the way of fun. Ditto for socializing. There is enough socializing with chat channels and what -not. Anyone who want to chat, can chat ... and we don't need down-time and stuff like that.
honestly .. this post just falls on def ears.
in truth there is nothing wrong with the kinds of MMOs they are creating. They are making money. They are serving an audience.
what hopefully some devs will understand is that they are only supplying content for the majority. now if that majority is 90% .. then so be it. but if that majority is 51% then there is still a lot of profit in other models.
the reality is though that those of us who arent the majority are buying their products anyway because we have no choice other than not playing online with our friends.
as a result, imo, the majority, the people that games like swtor are perfect for, is probably closer to 30% .. how can that be a majority? easy. there is no other group of people with a defined market, or niche that is greater than 30% of the population.
obviously, numbers pulled out of my backside ..
bring on repop and aa! gw2 will help, but wont change much.
LFD tools are great for cramming people into content, but quality > quantity.
I am, usually on the sandbox .. more "hardcore" side of things, but I also do just want to have fun. So lighten up already
I think you are far exaggerating the number of "hardcore MMO gamers" (I think you mean old-school) and severely under-estimating the market for new style MMOs.
You also missed his point. He never said you couldn't make money out of old-school players. Its just that they're significantly smaller niche than the mainstream niche. Enough so that it is hard to justify making a high budget game targeted to that audience. These smaller niches are naturally filled by indies because big developers are not interesed. Its their only way to survive because they can't compete in the mainstream niche.
If you can't outdo your competition, specialize.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
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
Im not following your train of thought.
How is fun king? Please explain. Id love to hear you elaborate. How can immersion detract from the fun if you are immersed?
Is a book so good that it is not fun to read? Seriously?
Nice list.
The only one I think can be salvaged is #6. Localized auction houses work very nicely (think Eve).
One more thing I'd like to add is the damn global banking system. The logistics of moving can add a lot to a game.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
The problem is that they overuse them. Cutscenes are not really a problem in Guildwars but are really annoying in TOR.
The perfect number of cutscenes a player in a MMO see during the time she plays a single character is 5-20, and that is totally, not each day.
Cutscenes is a powerful tool that can set the mode if you use them sparsly. If overused they are just something annoying.
let's see here.
1: no exploration is a big bad one for me.
2: competative or "tagging" mobs for xp or loot.
3: artificial experience inflation, normal white mob trash with resistances (other then obvious ones like elementals being immune to their elemental type), dailies for reputation basically anything to artificially slow the leveling or progression down.
4: enormous fees for anything to change a character, like transfers (does it really cost $25 to have bob take the usb drive downstairs three stories and plug it into the other server?) character name changes, race changes, cosmetic changes.
5: single player-esque dialogs between npcs and the player (does it really take ten minutes to explain why you want me to kill ten womprats? and how many questions do i REALLY need to answer about it before i actually DO the quest?)
6: no rubber band keeping mobs from chasing you across the entire planet before they finally kill you with torches and pitchforks. (i get enough torches and pitchforks in RL thanks)
There you go.
The problem is that they're branding them as MMOs, which they aren't. And they aren't making much money. And they're only making games for ONE segment of a massive user base.
Who said anything about a high budget game? Just make sure that your core game is solid and build it all the time. Don't spend millions on CGI trailers, full voice acting, scripted cinematics... make a damn game. Mythic made Dark Age of Camelot with 30 devs and about a million dollars, and it is STILL better than most MMOs out there today.
Just bumping this because the thread got hijacked almost right away.
1. Load screens between zones. (A major criticism of SWTOR, for example)
2. Teleporting around everywhere rather than travelling through the world. (Like in WoW when going to a dungeon)
3. NPCs spewing their generic quest monologues at me. (One thing SWTOR fixed - after being able to have interactive dialogues with NPCs it's hard to take lifeless signpost NPCs with monologue texts seriously. Having all the players in a group participating in the same dialogue was a stroke of genius.)
4. Non-interactive quest cutscenes (A big flaw in GW2 story quests. Dialogues are really annoying when you can't even influence them. Not much DIALOGUE about it, guys.)
5. Instancing of world zones. (Making them not-world zones. Major criticism of Age of Conan, for example)
6. End-game content exclusively designed to remove players from the actual world and put them into instances. (Don't get me wrong - some instancing is OK. Just don't have everything worthwhile doing at end-game being couped up in instances)
7. Cross-server PvP and PvE. (Can perhaps be acceptable in off-periods if not overused. How about forming relations on your own server rather than with random unknowns on other servers you don't give an F about?)
8. Lifeless worlds where monsters stand still like statues, waiting for you to come kill them (SWTOR). They should at least pretend to go about their business. And there should be ambient wildlife moving about (critters like the rabbits and deer in WoW).
Less types of MMOs since WOW? We have PBBGs, MOBAs, MMOFPS, MMORTS and several other categories spread over hundreds of MMOs.
Less subscribers than pre-WOW MMOs is a pointless distinction to make, as only a tiny percentage of MMOs even charge a subscription. Yes, Garvon, you're right... transportation in NYC is dead, proven clearly by there being far less horse-drawn carriages in Manhattan than there were in the 1800s.
There were at least 3 million players just in the US alone spread out across about 8 MMOs before 2003. The majority of them aren't happy with modern "MMOs".
There is absolutely nothing to support your contention that the majority who were playing MMOs prior to WOW are unsatisfied and not currently enjoying a modern MMO. I'll stop there, as your assertions get wilder as the post goes on.
Do you really not see that almost every single conclusion you have drawn, and stand vehemently behind as truth, is based entirely on assumptions - most of which are completely false or, at best, simply baseless?
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
But that's because they all suck and nobody plays them for more than a couple of months, they aren't worth a subscription, unlike older MMOs who where able to hold more than 200k players for a year. See UO, EQ, DAoC & AC, all of them more successful than cheap wow clones like AoC, WAR & SWTOR (actually, they wheren't cheap at all) those games banked on hype and payed reviews for the majority of its profits,box sales, once people actuallly played them, everyone left.
It's either F2P where any turd gets players, or a quick 6 month death when the lastest big thing loses 90% of it's playerbase.
If anything, the death of the P2P model proves how bad the genre is ATM, MMOs lost depth to warrant a subscription, they became like single player rpgs, but with less quality and more quantity.
2 month fillers.
MMOs now are poor man's RPG for the people who can't afford 60$ for 20 hours of content.
Most of the specific issues can be summed up in more general terms:
Design which speeds up levelling.
Design which reduces your ability to explore.
Design which hinders you ability to meet players again.
Design which sidelines grouping.
Design which sidelines crafting.
Design which cuts out roleplaying tools.
Design which makes you pay to win.
Design which makes MMO’s too easy.
Finally to sum up:
Although I disagree with much of your analysis of why subscriptions have gone by the wayside, I do find the above an interesting analysis. Although I would change "can't afford' to 'cannot or will not pay'
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 don't really care about MMOs, you just don't like some features or ways of doing things.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Mythic was a one-hit-wonder like many others (and many still are). If I remember correctly, Quake 3 was made with 24 people and Guild Wars 1 started out with three guys coding in one's kitchen.
Your subjective view matters little when almost every AAA MMO today regularly overshadows any successess DAoC may or may not have had.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky