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The problem with MMOs these days is developers are making games and not virtual worlds.
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Could you name some?
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I agree with this. I don't play games in order to fulfill my desire for virtual worlds. I want them to be fun. Old MMOs had too many unnecessary time sinks. I can't spend so much time on playing games, let alone only 1 game. I loved vanilla WoW and I agree that a lot of the changes made the game less fun but I don't see why I would need a virtual reality.
Point is this is your opininon that MMOs have to virtual worlds and not games. My opinion is exactly the opposite. I play games, not virtual worlds ...
All MMOs are set in a virtual world and all MMOs have game elements. The number and complexity of the virtual world elements vary, but you can't have an MMO without some sort of virtual world environment, even if it's just a landscape. You can say the same thing about the game elements. The number and complexity of the game elements vary, but you can't have an MMO without some sort of 'game' elements, even if it's just combat. Completely remove one or the other and you don't have an MMO.
We know that people on these forums will focus on one or the other, giving the impression that one or the other is superfluous or one or the other somehow ruins MMOs, but it's not true.
The question is, if there are people who prefer that MMOs focus on the virtual world aspect, creating more in depth and "living" virtual worlds, why aren't developers doing it? For that matter, if having a better developed virtual world in an MMO would improve the game, without sacrificing the game elements, why aren't developers doing it?
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Player driven content? You mean drama and griefing? I would prefer professional created content anyday. So what if i have to "wait". It is not like i don't play other games. In fact, there is MORe content than I can play.
I am still long way from "finishing" STO story missions.
And in fact, all the new features and innovation in the past 10 years is going AWAY from the virtual world. Instances, LFD, cross realm functions, phasing ... make MMOs much better games, and the market respond positively.
Yeah, that sure worked wonders for SWTOR.
Just because there are few games that do not have all of those things does not mean those types of games are not popular. Most of the games that are coming out have been in development for the past 5 years or so, you know....when WOW was considered a great game and a good idea to copy.
At the end of this year you will start to see the influx of more sand box type games starting with EQ Next's big reveal in August. You are also seeing a lot of indie sandbox games, whether or not those are good or will ever be released is another thing.
But all you have to do is look at the total failure that SWTOR was to give you some kind of indication that the market is over saturated with themepark MMOs.
If you look at xfire numbers .. the top non-themepark MMO .. Eve is way down there.
And TOR .. it is not Sp game enough. It would have done much better if it has a LFD from start, and even not as a MMO. And after going F2P, it apparently is doing well, claiming the "second biggest MMO in the US".
I see LoL, WoT, D3, PoE, Borderlands, TL2 ... games that have some MMO elements, but without the virtual world becoming highly successful.
We certainly will see how teh sandbox games will do.
Here is the problem with that. Other than EVE, what exactly are the AAA sandbox MMOs out there? None. There are no Western AAA sandbox MMOs. There are indie ones, but nothnig that spent a lot of money. In terms of how much money was spent, and the company behind the game, there was Ultima Online then Star Wars Galaxy.....and that is about it.
When SWG tanked and WOW was massive, any sane executive would not spend a single dime on a sandbox type game. What would be the point. SWG had nothing, WOW had everything. You are not going to copy a dud.
EQ Next, another SOE game, is the third major sandbox MMO that will be released (other than EVE). I refuse to put any game like Mortal Online of Darkfall on that list simply because they lacked the money that SWG and EQ Next will have.
The point is that you need a good deal of money to make one of these games. SWTOR spent well over aa hundred million dollars and that game is, uh, yea...lol.
Anyways, this genre will either be totally revived with EQ Next (and there is a good chance that will happen) or it will just continue to flatline and you will end up with GW2 clones (like TESO).
they could still add sandbox features if they want more things to do ingame
or disney could make a new starwars MMO ?why not is there only one allowed?
Why would this be sandbox? All accounts I've heard pointed to it being a themepark. (A themepark with a lot of clunky game mechanics, but still a themepark.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
EVE is way down there? As in not WoW? I just checked XFire stats and the numbers (average hours/day) I saw were:
WoW: 386,372
Silkroad Online: 23,476
GW2: 23,368
EVE: 17,381
Everything else between these four was NOT an MMO, and GW2 has only been out a half-year or so. Both WoW and EVE are circa-2004 or so (EVE took a while to get a running start), so we're approaching a decade of no real success stories... AAA or not. I congratulate all the MMO players on pitching a 9-inning shutout. Might even be a perfect game as I'm not sure anyone even got on base.
Note that Warcraft III is beating SO, GW2, and EVE. I played Warcraft II for over a decade before finally retiring. RTS and shooter games have more of a following than the persistant worlds do. Something is definitely not right - and it has nothing to do with Themepark/Sandbox/WoW/Fantasy/Scifi or Auction Houses.
The problem is GRINDERS trying to corner a market on a commodity that loses value the more rare it is.
I'm not sure you want to claim that Ultima Online was a big-budget production. It was a good undertaking for its time in terms of technology and services, but I don't think you want to compare it against CCP and claim automatic supremacy. I would expect that the two enterprises had very similar roots, with CCP being the current leader.
WoW was a fluke. An artifact of a certain generation and culture of computer user hitting their teens at about the same time as the internet itself was just coming out of adolescence. It followed on the heels of 3 stellar successes for Blizzard, all aimed at that same audience. It's irrelevant anwyay, though as total usage numbers is not what matters and never has. Some games are released with hard cap service limits in the few 10s of thousands - they still fail even with those low expectations.
The problem is that somebody comes up with a game that doesn't have an auction house, and everyone who hates that idea decides to go play it. Just for example.
That's not a comment on MMOs. That's a comment on how people really just want to play Diablo, raiding, and LoL, battle grounds and singleplayer/coop RPGs, questing.
Of course trying to cobble a bunch of different and not at all complementary game types didn't work, and now we see the split happening like it was destined to.
Yeah, especially with all those super succesful titles like TOR or Tera or [insert any Themepark "MMO" to be released in the last 4 or 5 years]. It'll be a while before we see the populations of those dwindle and go F2P.
Games come first, virtual world second.
Game developers these days arent developing any. Games are supossed to be fun. Not boring second jobs. The virtual world can be added to a fun game for social experience. But if i have to choose one. A fun game comes first.
The funny thing, SWG tanked only after becoming a WoW clone.
Any sane executive would have dug deep into how the market works instead of just shitting out WoW clones. Sadly, no AAA MMOs have been run by sane executives.
I think the problem with MMOs today has less to do with the games and more to do with "people are idiots".
Waiting: CU, WildStar, Destiny, Eternal Crusade
Playing: ESO,DCUO
Played: LotRO,RIFT,ToR,Warhammer, Runescape
Others say SWG was tanking and bleeding badly before it switched and was the reason for the switch. I couldn't say, I only lasted a few months in it and found it really quite dull.
SWG had followed the pre-existing formula of MMORPG's at that time. It never rose beyond those set standards and was hampered by poor quality and direction. WOW fashioned its own take on the MMO and created its new demographic of players while sucking up existing players from other games. The impact of WOW is bigger than folks seem to realize when it comes to market share. It created its own market.
Developers saw the WOW market and have been trying to catch those folks ever since. The changes to SWG (i.e. the CU, NGE) were direct responces to investor demands to catch WOW players. If SOE was allowed to fix the game they had, SWG would be in a much different place. Hybrid is the new format to come.
Put some sand in your theme.
I have a hard time believing that anything related to MMOs is destined. More like survival of the fittest, where "fittest" would be whatever attracts the most resources, and thus survives.
Game development, especially MMO development has to be pretty focused because it consumes so many resources. That's why MMOs need to focus on one specific kind of game play over another. You can have game focused MMOs or world focused MMOs, but doing both really well is too resource intensive. Right now, the game play elements win out over the world elements because that's what people want. If the resources required to create fully realized worlds gets less expensive, then we'll definitely see well developed worlds. All other things being equal, the game with the better developed world will win.
If you reduce expectations for development, and target an audience who has expectations inline with what you're making, then there's no reason to not sacrifice game play elements for world development. This makes perfect sense because you're giving people who want to buy your product something they want.
Kind of like the destined thing above, I have a hard time taking seriously comments about the MMO market as if there is some moral aspect to the types of games that get made. If the market is heading towards games, not worlds and the games are getting simpler, that's just how things work. The other thing to keep in mind is that trends don't continue forever. Otherwise there would be no blondes, flying cars would be everywhere and everyone would have robot servants because money wouldn't matter. Don't forget a super flu of some sort killing most of the population. Whatever the current trend is, it will change.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Nothing you posted had anything to do with my argument. I'm not arguing that worlds are better, although they are.
I am saying that many MMORPGs tried to make several separate games and shove it into a framework of a large empty world that had no reason to exist.
Battlegrounds are inferior to MOBAs. They are the same gameplay, but harder to balance and with fewer character options. Later in their life they tried to do things like have a specific set of gear everyone got. MOBA much?
Raids are static and have no business in a virtual world. Why not just make a game about raiding? They have 0 impact on any other aspects of the game.
And trying to fit a high quality single player "you are the one and only hero" style RPG into a world makes no sense either. At least single player games change the world somewhat in reaction to the player. And there are no concerns about "class balance."
MMORPGs have gone the way of the dinosaurs. Neopets is more of an MMO than SWTOR. They have stories and quests and duals and they even have in ingame rpg, two of them even.
The future of virtual worlds is in VOWs where the focus should be on the world instead of a cobbled together mess of 5 different RPGish game genres.
When I was designing my VOW on this site everything linked together. Anything you did affected the world and experience of you and other players and it was 100% persistent. That is how worlds should be. Even if the some of the individual mechanics won't work out, they were created to be part of a persistent, dynamic world.
The Themepark designation could not be more accurate. You ride the ride and nothing changes in the park. Every other ride is still the same and even that ride doesn't change.
No one wants to play basketball with a backboard with no net and a ball that is so flat it can't even bounce. People still do it, if they don't have access to something better. Just like people played MMOs as if they were virtual worlds because they didn't have a choice. And when someone got a brand new soccer ball and functioning goal in their backyard they ran off to play that. That doesn't mean that if they got new court and some functioning balls they wouldn't prefer that over soccer.
How is that not a comment on MMO when MMOs can have Diablo, raiding, LoL, battlegrounds, and SP/coop RPGs elements?
I agree. The solution is to take the virtual world out, but you want to keep your "community" in-touch. Not everyone is playing teh pve raiding game today, or the MOBA game today. Something like a federation of games (ARPG, raiding instances (like warframe), MOBA, other types of arena combat, even a world pvp game like planetside 2) but with one single social network (friend-list/chat channels/same lobby) .. will be really nice.
Some MMOs are essentially serving the same function except the game mechanics "spill over" from one game-type (like pvp) to another (like raiding) and that creates problems.
Nailed it. UO created stories from players creating novel interactions that led to new ways to play - and great stories.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
The solution is to make "virtual worlds" actually virtual worlds, and let games be games. Not get rid of worlds. Separate things that should be separate.
I actually agree that having a federation of games is a good idea. That's really what current MMOs are, they just bury it under jargon.
I am a big proponent of seperating out the various gameplay styles in MMORPGs. Nothing sours you more on a game than having to do one boring activity in order to participate in the gameplay you joined the game for.
Of course the 'old school' players woudl argue that it is not really a MMORPG if you do not force the players to participate in everything.