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The problem with MMOs these days is developers are making games and not virtual worlds.
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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.
It just never lived up to the expectations of Sony executives and it was also outperformed by other games that released during its lifetime. The other games were more theme park games so it certainly looks like developers have taken the idea to heart that sandbox games are not as successful commercial as their theme park counterparts.
I don't think it's true that sandbox = world and game = theme park though. Skyrim is very much an open world theme park. It's very successful and the open world development is a big part of why it's successful. WoW is very successful too, and while it doesn't have an open world that the player can impact, it does have a very detailed virtual world for the player to run around in. It just so happens that both of those games also have well developed game play. WoW may or may not fall into that category any longer, I haven't played in a very long time, but when I played, the game play was top notch.
I think while it's true that you can have a project focused on the 'game', with a minimal 'world' and still be successful, I think games that manage to do both, whether they are sandbox or not are the games that reach a much broader audience and have much more appeal to many players. Limiting a game to just a very well developed world will limit the audience and the success of the game.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Lulz..^ u playing games?
Open World means: zoneless... without zones walls, a developer cannat make 2 cities right next to each other, then make a zone wall+ forest, so it takes 20 minutes to walk around..
You are mistaken seamless, to mean zoneless.. (?) they is different alltogether. You claim to be part of the industry, yet you (again) illustrate you know very little of the basic types of games and their outlaying technology.
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
You are wrong about the 10 min. I was there. The wait was horrible. I remembered. Horrible game design and if you also remember, they took it AWAY. If they change it, you know why ... and certainly NOT because it is popular.
Other horrible stuff ... long boring boat rides (from the Erudite island to Qeynos .. anyone remembers). How about camping for 6 hours when you get to kill the boss 3 times?
Figuring things out? You don't know about those EQ map & strategy sites? They are as prevalent in EQ time as today.
[mod edit]
He doesn't understand how wrong he is... bcuz of choice... he had to stair at a spell book for 10m. It was by his OWN choice. Then, he complains about the path he took..
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
He's making note of developers noticing that players don't want to hurry up and wait. He wasn't the only player, otherwise it never would have changed. The players knew that what they were doing was stretching out the time it took to get things done, and therefore stretch out the amount of time players would pay for the game.In comparison, Skyrim has a very open and dynamic world. How much time was spent staring at the screen waiting for something to complete, where there was nothing else happening? I would be willing to bet there was little or no equivalent to staring at a progress meter, yet Skyrim seems to have a well developed virtual world. Most waiting in MMOs is just that, waiting for the clock to tick by so developers can charge a little more money. It isn't necessary for the virtual world to be well done.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Did you know that a game has no predictable outcome?These pieces of software code do,they are very predictable,the only thing that is unpredicatable is you the gamer.
They setup a roller coaster ride with very few twists and curves,mostly straight ahead with a definite predictable ending.
Then they expand that ride,call it expansions,the cost is just slightly less than the full ride but takes 1/10th the effort to add those few extra rails.
The hook is not fun,the hook is that it is very easy to get on that ride,but once you have invested a lot of time,you feel compelled to continue that ride.You soon ask yourself why,why am i still coming to this same ride with a few extra rails.I think for most of us ,we really don't know,it becomes habit,perhaps boredom,anything is better than nothing right?
Then we become defensive,protecting the idiocy .We understand the flaws of our passion for these games,yet we ridicule others for pointing them out to us.
Step back,remind yourself that the real world can never be replaced by a virtual world,nothing inside of games is important.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Zero. If you visit a place before, click on a button and you telepor there. If there is a shop closed, click a button and time advances.
Waiting and nothing happens is bad game design, and not entertaining. Back in EQ days, that is what you have to endure if you want to play an online RPG with your friend (unless you want to play UO, which is worse).
It is great that no devs will go that path again. And if some niche devs happen to try again, i am glad there are plenty of alternatives and i can just ignore them.
Thank you for taking your time to write that.. (Kinder words than mine.)
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
Ok, lets get one thing straight: Zoning is the industry standard technique to handle players and loading assets. Pretty much all MMOs use them regardless of being entirely open world or not. World of Warcraft is zoned. Vanguard is zoned. Eve Online is zoned.
People use the term "seamless" when they refer to the fact that you can move through these zones "seamlessly" i.e. without a loading screen.
I think Quizzical would be happy to explain the technology further, or maybe you should look up some of the threads where he has explained how and why the stuff works the way it works.
Point is, you're wrong or you're intentionally disruptive.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Phelch, I don't know if Axe works in the industry or not, but I do know he is making a lot of sense. Actually, he often does. Take a break and then come back and re-read his posts. It seems that at this point you're just arguing to argue and that's not helping either you or the discussion.
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
Zones and instances were what we used to talk about, when we had more open worlds and a reason to have them. Today we have MMO's which lead you on a path about 200ft across with the occassional more open area. Yet we still have zones and instances.
You do get the feeling MMO's could become games where we run along a path 20 feet across and we would still have zones and instances.
this is correct.
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?"
Yeh. Because there is less and less reason to have a virtual world. Look at highly acclaimed games like PoE .. it is like a public zone, and instanced gameplay.
While it may not be a MMO by your definition, the "proper" MMOs are competing with games like that.
I basically want an open world such as Skryim that's about ten times as big, and I can play it with my friends.
-Crafting based.
-Single Shard.
-Minimal Zoning.
-Extremely minimal instancing.
-Full looting.
-Full PVP.
-Stiff criminal system.
-Player built cities.
-No levels.
-Deep skill system with hundreds of skills.
-Skills can only be raised by using them, and degrade if unused. They won't degrade to zero, but they will deteriorate with no use.
-Subtle magic system based on enchanting, buffing/debuffing, illusion, healing.... but no direct damage such as slinging fireballs at each other.
I could go on for a long time.
I've been reading quizzical's posts for years. But you are incoorect in your assumptions.
Zoning use to be the only way in which you could load assests, now they can be streamed on-the-fly.. The ideal of hitting a zone and loading all those assets before you can continue is a very old server technology. That form of server is so cheap, that me and you can make a WoW clone and do exactly that... very easily.
Zone games (ie: themeparks) are technically easy to make...
WoW is zoned...
It has fake zones walls and a peicemeal Continents. Vanguard is seamless open world... though it has "chunks" which are used to load/stream in assets as the players moves about their gameworld. But there are no zones in the game... If you see a mountain, you can travel, or fly to it. No zones walls. World of Warcraft is all zones, with zones walls.
There is a clear line drawn and one that makes a gameworld super expensive, & thus costing your customers more.
understand, Seamless has a dual meaning... no zone walls.. & (or) the crossing of zones is seamless without the player's knowledge.
For instance, even though DOAC had zones, transfering between them was seamless...
"No they are not charity. That is where the whales come in. (I play for free. Whales pays.) Devs get a business. That is how it works."
-Nariusseldon
Vangaurd is not seamless. It has zone walls, you are right they are called chunk lines but they do the same thing. They are not physical barriers like a mountain but they do have a pause in game play to load up assets, just like a zone wall.
Yes it is open world as in you can go anywhere but it is not seamless.
All they did was do away with a loading screen. Crossing them, depending on the performance at the time, is a few seconds to several minutes.
I agree with the OP but you can't use EQ2(at any time) as an example of a virtual world. One of the reasons that game is hated over EQ1 is because it was made into a game over a world. You click bells to teleport across the world, no racial starting cities, button spaming solo centered game. In the beginning you even picked up group xp debt from across the world if your party member died.
There was nothing immersive about it at all, in fact, EQ2 launch was one of the first signs of MMO's going to crap.
I agree with the OP up to a point - Eve (and Darkfall) try to be worlds, which is fantastic.
However, both examples are flawed worlds because everything in them is combat focused, in some way or another.
There should be more to a world than combat.
SWG when it was released may have come close (I believe there were activities that had nothing to do with combat), but unfortunately I never had the pleasure of playing it.
Crap for you. Great for many.
It is the first sign that finally devs realize that they are selling entertainment software, not worlds.
For SWG, think EvE where someone in game makes and designs the clothes for your avatar and someone builds captains quarters. The rest was combat centered.
Without combat being central you lose the game aspect, in which case you are playing an economic or social sim like entropia/second life or ATITD.
I agree. eq + kunark , velious.
EQ classic is the most fun addictive mmo by far. I still play it . on eq mac.
reasons... no questing to level..................................................... no level reqs on items. ............ challenge....... risk...... shit gets scary.... etc etc.... traveling mattered........... factions that mattered........ i could go on and on. Loot that mattered..... rare named with rare drops . ..........OPEN dungeons........ etc etc. everyone wasn't the same.....
eqoa is the 2nd best mmo. < isle of dread zone.... best zone ever in a mmo.
wow 3rd. < used to feel more like a world. was something new. after soe changed eq1 into a Entirely different game in 2002. i complained about the quest grind of wow . 2 weeks after launch though. first 50 on my server<<
gw2 4th. very fun combat. more like a action game.
come to eq mac or p1999 if you want to play in the only true mmorpg left. 14 years of mmo'ing . games are all about money now. eq 1999 was made for the love of bringing DD to and onine world. not mainly for money. They slept under their desks for months when they weremaking it..!!!!
Same here. I finally tried EQ2 a few years ago. Facade game world; hated the voice acting, and felt no challenge whatsoever before I heard my first few dings. Uninstalled and never went back.
EpicEmu launched this month and solved problems plaguing p1999 for years. And their personalities show it; which is the second reason I stopped playing on that server. First reason being everything at high level is permacamped by alts. Powerleveling is a real problem too.Luckily, i don't need you to like me to enjoy video games. -nariusseldon.
In F2P I think it's more a case of the game's trying to play the player's. -laserit
"true" MMORPG? Why would i care if it is not a fun game to me?
Label it however you want, the net result is the same. Creating games over virtual worlds.