Originally posted by Adamai Eve was a success and if im not mistaken its sttill succeeding. Not many mmos can report growth and success after 10 years. But thats an icelandic company. I lovehow people use wow as a bench mark.. Il say it one last time. Wow is shit.. Its the advertising campaign that was fantastic. No other game is advertisef like wow. And im pretty sure if they used ingame footage rather than that rediculous cgi animated stuff wow would die a death.
Just so you know i'm not a WOW lover, i played from beta and left before battle grounds came into the game. Whether you think the game is shit or i do, the fact remains that it's the most successful mmo in the west.
You just make yourself look dumb trying to actually make out otherwise.
Yes i'll agree with you on that one but we are also talking about successful mmo's in the US.
It was pretty successful for its time and considering it was the first one.. People should really just ignore wow as the amount of players it has is a 1 off.. If we ignore wow good mmos hardly ever had over 500k players..
A lot of stuff can be loosely called successful, but they are forgotten by time or never heard of outside of their group. WoW and EQ transend MMO's by infamy and fame. Commercial success and name brand brought WoW to a position no other MMO has. It is know, talked about on shows and commercials, books based off it, etc. People outside of the game have heard of it.
EQ got its "fame" through news warning of the danger of addictions. People dying while plays. The first to get attention for a game that took hours of people's lives a day. It was known by people that did not play the game. It might have been a negative, but it had name brand status. Hell today people are still waiting and hyping EQNext. Saying how great it will be. Why? because people hang on that name Everquest.
That is success that lasts. You can go out on the street and talk about other games, but they have not achieved the recognition outside of the MMO fans that EQ and WoW have. Those two games as of now will be main stories in the history books of MMO's while other games are just meantions. Not to say others might not join this group but as it stands none sit like these do for what they did and are.
Alexander the Great had a bunch of generals that were successful and make Alexander successful, but they are lost to history as bylines. To me real success is being the one that is remembered when you are done and gone, and known by people that never even met/played you.
Ok I see your point but that is really nitpicking because when you look at the entire genre as a whole only WoW and Everquest really had major success.
You're aware there are more games that clearly outsold EQ, right?
Which brings us back around to Kyleran's question. You're applying some standard other than subs or dollars, so what is it?
Not 3D mmo's, EQ was the first 3D mmo and up until WOW EQ had the highest sub rate. I will say that to me their have been other mmo's that have done well.
If you are talking dollars then it's WOW, if you are talking longest running 3d mmo then you are talking EQ. If you are talking player numbers in the west then you are talking WOW.
If i was a developer i would head over to korea or china to make my mmo, you can see that the up and coming Asian mmo's have far more features than western mmo's being implemented
See how many qualifications you need to make to force that original statement to be even partially true?
3D--can't allow UO to be considered, as it's older. Western-can't allow the Lineage games to be considered, or you lose on subs. Up until WoW--obvious reasons, we can't let Blizzard or CCP or EA into this game.
At some point, you have to toss up the hands and say "at this level of justification it might be better to just not say it in the first place".
God success arguments are so farging stupid, why do marketers (and fans!) still... /scream
Wrap it up how you want but what i've said is true, you can't get round it.
Live with it.
Oh and screaming wont change it.
Ice, I think you just got schooled by an 8-year old girl.
Back on topic, Zelnick's statement would need more context to better understand it. It's entirely possible that he mentioned two because it illustrated his example just fine, and there was no reason to go on with a list of a dozen or so and then have to explain how that's small considering the total number of MMOs.
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
Ice, I think you just got schooled by an 8-year old girl.
Back on topic, Zelnick's statement would need more context to better understand it. It's entirely possible that he mentioned two because it illustrated his example just fine, and there was no reason to go on with a list of a dozen or so and then have to explain how that's small considering the total number of MMOs.
s'okay, at least little girls are cute. I especially like their pigtails.
So, spin, check. The usual purpose of "success" redefinitions.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Ok I see your point but that is really nitpicking because when you look at the entire genre as a whole only WoW and Everquest really had major success. The rest are pretty much fighting for the remaing scraps from the table Blizzard and Sony left behind which according to the article a bad slugging percentage. Couldn't agree more.
I agree but too many around here will disagree just because they don't understand what successful means...
"The King and the Pawn return to the same box at the end of the game"
Ok I see your point but that is really nitpicking because when you look at the entire genre as a whole only WoW and Everquest really had major success. The rest are pretty much fighting for the remaing scraps from the table Blizzard and Sony left behind which according to the article a bad slugging percentage. Couldn't agree more.
Yes, in the bad ole days this may have been the case, but now those table scraps are literally billions of dollars. WoW and Everquest aren't dropping crumbs, they are dropping whole hams on the floor. The reason that REALLY bad MMOs are becoming an epidemic is that these companies ARE making money. When an off-shore development company can spin up a new MMO for less than a couple hundred grand, it's very easy to make money and people in the states WILL spend money to advance in the game, even if the game sucks.
Blizz has been the king of the hill FOREVER!! and they aren't going anywhere anytime soon, but their subs are beginning to fail them as well, so if this is what they like to tell themselves to feel better then all the power to them. I will say, though, that WoW will create a massive rip in the time-space continuum when they announce they are going F2P.
That is very true and because NA gamers are not MMO gamers. NA gamers are like children just learning what the world is. Bright colors, cartoon graphic, a lot of flash, and fluff that means nothing is what makes a NA gamer happy.
Here is a test: If you think housing is a cool feature in a MMO you are not a MMO gamer!
"A couple of our competitors have found out that through very, very expensive lessons--one of our competitors just recently announced they're restarting an MMO project in the US," Zelnick said. "We look at it and say 'How many MMOs have ever been successful in the US?' Two. World of Warcraft and EverQuest. That's kind of a bad slugging percentage."
That is very true and because NA gamers are not MMO gamers. NA gamers are like children just learning what the world is. Bright colors, cartoon graphic, a lot of flash, and fluff that means nothing is what makes a NA gamer happy.
Here is a test: If you think housing is a cool feature in a MMO you are not a MMO gamer!
So instead of the classic "asian gamer" racism, we're just cleverly flipping it now?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Way too big revenue and profit expectations, insane push of high-managment in bigger game companies to fast forward their earn and options amount to banking and electronic manufacture industries amounts and jumping bandwagon behaviour that lead to "everyone and their dog making their own mmo & mmorpg's" kinda lead to situation we have in industry for almost an decade and even more bonkers perception of what is a success and what's not.
It's big ball of snow going down the hill getting bigger and bigger, kinda like investment banking looked for quite some time.
Good times to be high in food chain there, but I would start to look a good way to get out of there already and jump to other industry.
That is very true and because NA gamers are not MMO gamers. NA gamers are like children just learning what the world is. Bright colors, cartoon graphic, a lot of flash, and fluff that means nothing is what makes a NA gamer happy.
Here is a test: If you think housing is a cool feature in a MMO you are not a MMO gamer!
So instead of the classic "asian gamer" racism, we're just cleverly flipping it now?
Why not, they've been listening to ignorant Americans dismissing them as unimportant for long enough, I suppose.
I want to know why they region lock games so I am stuck playing NA version of games. Been gaming a long time and had to import many games from overseas to play the real versions or to get them instead of waiting for release in NA but that isn't allowed any longer.
Ever since WOW we have allowed casual gamers to dictate the direction of our MMOs. And there has never been a successful MMO...EVER!
10yrs of total crap gamers, lieing Devs, and over marketed fluff that we have no idea what a game is in NA any longer. Lets just make everyone happy...You can not do this in a game and putting advanced gamers with casual gamers is what truly ruins a game since by definition a game is about skill (Either mental or Physical) not entertainment. But we Americans are to lazy to have to put effort in anything.
OH I never had Asian game racism since I knew that they always made the true games and they use to be the only ones that made RPGs. Always hated NA games and they are just getting worse.
Ok I see your point but that is really nitpicking because when you look at the entire genre as a whole only WoW and Everquest really had major success. The rest are pretty much fighting for the remaing scraps from the table Blizzard and Sony left behind which according to the article a bad slugging percentage. Couldn't agree more.
it's not nitpicking..
It's reality, WOW and EQ were most succesfull because there was no real competition and the market was new... WOW had the perfect (I'd dare to say ideal) situation when they launched, it was the perfect time frame for them to launch the game and that's the biggest reason why it did so well..
I'd say the biggest problem companies have today is actually making a good game which has longetivity without taking too long to develop (because they'd go bankrupt I guess) and even tho some companies manage to do it, more or less, the most of them are failing because they're thinking about making biggest profit in shortest time possible. I mean it is bussiness and it's to be expected, but I think they all forgot why they started making mmos in first place, and I'm excluding CCP when I say it because those guys are still awesome.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life." -------------------------------
I think WoW is the biggest failure in the history of MMOS. Financial success, yes. Everything else it lowered the bar. Graphically 5 years behind when it came out. Crafting reduced to clicking one button and waiting. Combat reduced to spamming a few buttons. Endless Quest hub grind.
They probably did with Titan what they always do: copy and steal from other IP's and sell it as their own. Now they realized that the MMO Market is going belly up (some might say it already is) and they need an excuse to overhaul the plagiarized crap they produced.
Blizzard could not find an original idea if it crawled up their ass.
if the game wasnt a success, it wouldnt have been a financial success, can't have one without the other, okay now i appreciate you don't like the game, but you are wrong, what WoW has done has upped the bar for success, not just in terms of financial success, but also in quality, part of the reason why so many games are failures, is because they didnt measure up to WoW, even though they tried to copy it, hate the game all you want, but it doesnt change the facts.
You know what is really awesome! The use of capitalization and periods. Maybe you should try those sometime.
That is very true and because NA gamers are not MMO gamers. NA gamers are like children just learning what the world is. Bright colors, cartoon graphic, a lot of flash, and fluff that means nothing is what makes a NA gamer happy.
Here is a test: If you think housing is a cool feature in a MMO you are not a MMO gamer!
Not sure how it is for NA gamer and what makes a NA gamer happy but I can speak for myself...
I do think housing is a great feature because it adds a little bit of your personalization to the game world, you can 'grow roots' - so to speak.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life." -------------------------------
There's too much spin in this line. What he says is it's too risky to make an mmo for his company in the US or put another way: They don't know how to.
Originally posted by MumboJumbo There's too much spin in this line. What he says is it's too risky to make an mmo for his company in the US or put another way: They don't know how to.
Or we're great at bitching and terrible at advising.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Meridian 59, launched in late 1996 and in late 1997Ultima Online was released and the term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott so any other games before that is tagged with the MMORPG title since then.
Second generation MMORPGs
Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online 2, Runescape, Final Fantasy XI, Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, Earth & Beyond, Shadowbane, Everquest Online Adventures, EvE Online, Lineage II, Second Life and City of Heroes.
to mention a few of the milestone MMPOGs and early MMORPGs.
And the MMORPGS released on todays market have an audience that is so much larger than in the dark ages of online gaming, to even mention success in a market were access is the key to the number of users is just stupid.
And then we have the MMO Veterans that have played online since those days, what we have seen happening on the MMO market is a sad thing really. Todays MMOs is a shadow of past MMOs often they have a shallow and diluted world filled with mechanics that comes from past MMOs and they have so to say polished that mechanic and made it their own.
So the game studios that creates the MMOs of today have dumbed the games down and tries to invent new amazing features never seen before. And in 8 out of 10 new innovations is a failure. We have a plethora of MMOs to play and try. And the player base have become a crowd of MMO Tourists just visiting the new titles for a few weeks to a few months and then go on the next MMO vacation leaving the old behind. And today a game can get old in a mere few weeks because the content is no match to beat and the releases of new content is too slow to satisfy the players.
That have killed many MMOs over the last few years. And to save the MMOs gaming studios have remade them in to free to play MMOs.
And then we have the various ways to support the games, subscription based, pay to play, free to play, in game stores with real money, hybrid models and so on.
But a MMO with 1500 or 15 million players can equally be a success in my honest opinion. It all boils down to one thing, that the player base in said MMO do have fun and get a value of rewards from playing said game.
The hype of so many MMOs get silly at times. And some of the game studios spend ridiculous amounts of money on marketing. And the total sum of many MMOs released todays have a budget on marketing that is just wrong.
I think WoW is the biggest failure in the history of MMOS. Financial success, yes. Everything else it lowered the bar. Graphically 5 years behind when it came out. Crafting reduced to clicking one button and waiting. Combat reduced to spamming a few buttons. Endless Quest hub grind.
They probably did with Titan what they always do: copy and steal from other IP's and sell it as their own. Now they realized that the MMO Market is going belly up (some might say it already is) and they need an excuse to overhaul the plagiarized crap they produced.
Blizzard could not find an original idea if it crawled up their ass.
if the game wasnt a success, it wouldnt have been a financial success, can't have one without the other, okay now i appreciate you don't like the game, but you are wrong, what WoW has done has upped the bar for success, not just in terms of financial success, but also in quality, part of the reason why so many games are failures, is because they didnt measure up to WoW, even though they tried to copy it, hate the game all you want, but it doesnt change the facts.
You know what is really awesome! The use of capitalization and periods. Maybe you should try those sometime.
irony is a subtle art, but obviously too difficult for some to master.
"A couple of our competitors have found out that through very, very expensive lessons--one of our competitors just recently announced they're restarting an MMO project in the US," Zelnick said. "We look at it and say 'How many MMOs have ever been successful in the US?' Two. World of Warcraft and EverQuest. That's kind of a bad slugging percentage."
This is as wrong and false it can get. Lets nail down the facts:
1. WoW is no longer the most successful MMO in the history, League of Legends is.
2. WoW is the most successful MMORPG in the history.
3. Being successful isn't measured by player base, but in the costs; Does the game generate more income than output? Did the sales overcome development costs?
Now then, say again that MMO's aren't successful in US. If anything at all we have more successful MMO's than single player games in the recent years. MMORPG industry however has been drying up lately with only few successful games being at the market right now: WoW, GW2, Aion, Tera and EVE (borderline RPG). Neverwinter might join the ranks of 'successful games' in a time, having been out in the market for only a little time its hard to tell yet.
EDIT: Also for the love of god the term 'MMO' is being used way too loosely on these forums. Although it shouldnt come as a surprise when the site is called MMORPG, everyone instantly ties the other term to it. Do not forget the meaning real meaning behind it.
I think WoW is the biggest failure in the history of MMOS. Financial success, yes. Everything else it lowered the bar. Graphically 5 years behind when it came out. Crafting reduced to clicking one button and waiting. Combat reduced to spamming a few buttons. Endless Quest hub grind.
They probably did with Titan what they always do: copy and steal from other IP's and sell it as their own. Now they realized that the MMO Market is going belly up (some might say it already is) and they need an excuse to overhaul the plagiarized crap they produced.
Blizzard could not find an original idea if it crawled up their ass.
I find this comment extremely ironic especially when you mentioned that you are excited and looking forward to Wildstar. if you think WOW was graphically behind in 2004 what about Wildstar which is releasing this year? and not to mention still stuck in old 'hardcore raid grind' for end game?
Such double standards.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.' -Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid." -Luke McKinney
I dont agree with the OP, just because I dont see enough different kind of high quality mmorpgs to begin with. Just because companies create very similar games to the end of the world does not mean the "genre" it self cant be succesful in the U.S.
I havent seen any high quality first person mmorpgs AT ALL on the market, not to mention sci-fi ones. Even a third person one with proper shooter mechanics would do. And it does not have to be a goddamn leveling trip spiced up with a loot hoarding heart for x2 times better gear every 2 levels LIKE EVERY GODDAMN SINGLE mmorpg currently is, the mainstream ones at least, the ones without piss poor general quality.
Come to think of it, the guy only speaks of wow clone themeparks, because he simply can not talk about anything else, since anything else does not exist in the genre as high quality titles.
...FF and I noted that even after an awful launch they keep updating and pumping money into it. That shows a confidence I am not sure you would see outside of those countries. Over here we downsize the staff and pull the money plug.
Not all corporations think only in the short term, nor the long. CCP showed some pretty long-term faith in EVE, I'd say. Hell, any title that survives five years is a rare and beautiful flower to be nurtured.
What are you trying to say? Sequels rarely do really well in mmospace historically, yet fans show just stupid (imo) levels of brand loyalty as far as fannish company faith?
We have certainly had successes, but like the guy said our hit rate is low, I can think of several but that's still a low hit rate. What I was pointing out was that I don't see us putting money into MMO's that don't launch well, when FF did that I thought 'no western MMO company would do that these days'. They have in the past, Anarchy Online showed what you can do. But these days in the west the idea seems to be if you do not do well at launch then cut your loses.
Expectations here are unrealistic too. Every new MMO is expected to be the best ever and the finite player population is excepted to jump ship to the new one. Maybe in Asia they just don't expect every release to be the best thing since EQ launched.
Comments
Just so you know i'm not a WOW lover, i played from beta and left before battle grounds came into the game. Whether you think the game is shit or i do, the fact remains that it's the most successful mmo in the west.
You just make yourself look dumb trying to actually make out otherwise.
It was pretty successful for its time and considering it was the first one.. People should really just ignore wow as the amount of players it has is a 1 off.. If we ignore wow good mmos hardly ever had over 500k players..
A lot of stuff can be loosely called successful, but they are forgotten by time or never heard of outside of their group. WoW and EQ transend MMO's by infamy and fame. Commercial success and name brand brought WoW to a position no other MMO has. It is know, talked about on shows and commercials, books based off it, etc. People outside of the game have heard of it.
EQ got its "fame" through news warning of the danger of addictions. People dying while plays. The first to get attention for a game that took hours of people's lives a day. It was known by people that did not play the game. It might have been a negative, but it had name brand status. Hell today people are still waiting and hyping EQNext. Saying how great it will be. Why? because people hang on that name Everquest.
That is success that lasts. You can go out on the street and talk about other games, but they have not achieved the recognition outside of the MMO fans that EQ and WoW have. Those two games as of now will be main stories in the history books of MMO's while other games are just meantions. Not to say others might not join this group but as it stands none sit like these do for what they did and are.
Alexander the Great had a bunch of generals that were successful and make Alexander successful, but they are lost to history as bylines. To me real success is being the one that is remembered when you are done and gone, and known by people that never even met/played you.
Ice, I think you just got schooled by an 8-year old girl.
Back on topic, Zelnick's statement would need more context to better understand it. It's entirely possible that he mentioned two because it illustrated his example just fine, and there was no reason to go on with a list of a dozen or so and then have to explain how that's small considering the total number of MMOs.
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
s'okay, at least little girls are cute. I especially like their pigtails.
So, spin, check. The usual purpose of "success" redefinitions.Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
I agree but too many around here will disagree just because they don't understand what successful means...
Yes, in the bad ole days this may have been the case, but now those table scraps are literally billions of dollars. WoW and Everquest aren't dropping crumbs, they are dropping whole hams on the floor. The reason that REALLY bad MMOs are becoming an epidemic is that these companies ARE making money. When an off-shore development company can spin up a new MMO for less than a couple hundred grand, it's very easy to make money and people in the states WILL spend money to advance in the game, even if the game sucks.
Blizz has been the king of the hill FOREVER!! and they aren't going anywhere anytime soon, but their subs are beginning to fail them as well, so if this is what they like to tell themselves to feel better then all the power to them. I will say, though, that WoW will create a massive rip in the time-space continuum when they announce they are going F2P.
Crazkanuk
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Azarelos - 90 Hunter - Emerald
Durnzig - 90 Paladin - Emerald
Demonicron - 90 Death Knight - Emerald Dream - US
Tankinpain - 90 Monk - Azjol-Nerub - US
Brindell - 90 Warrior - Emerald Dream - US
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That is very true and because NA gamers are not MMO gamers. NA gamers are like children just learning what the world is. Bright colors, cartoon graphic, a lot of flash, and fluff that means nothing is what makes a NA gamer happy.
Here is a test: If you think housing is a cool feature in a MMO you are not a MMO gamer!
never beliebe in stats you didn't fake yourself.
mmos dont work in the states? what a dumb statement, seriously
"I'll never grow up, never grow up, never grow up! Not me!"
So instead of the classic "asian gamer" racism, we're just cleverly flipping it now?
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
Way too big revenue and profit expectations, insane push of high-managment in bigger game companies to fast forward their earn and options amount to banking and electronic manufacture industries amounts and jumping bandwagon behaviour that lead to "everyone and their dog making their own mmo & mmorpg's" kinda lead to situation we have in industry for almost an decade and even more bonkers perception of what is a success and what's not.
It's big ball of snow going down the hill getting bigger and bigger, kinda like investment banking looked for quite some time.
Good times to be high in food chain there, but I would start to look a good way to get out of there already and jump to other industry.
I want to know why they region lock games so I am stuck playing NA version of games. Been gaming a long time and had to import many games from overseas to play the real versions or to get them instead of waiting for release in NA but that isn't allowed any longer.
Ever since WOW we have allowed casual gamers to dictate the direction of our MMOs. And there has never been a successful MMO...EVER!
10yrs of total crap gamers, lieing Devs, and over marketed fluff that we have no idea what a game is in NA any longer. Lets just make everyone happy...You can not do this in a game and putting advanced gamers with casual gamers is what truly ruins a game since by definition a game is about skill (Either mental or Physical) not entertainment. But we Americans are to lazy to have to put effort in anything.
OH I never had Asian game racism since I knew that they always made the true games and they use to be the only ones that made RPGs. Always hated NA games and they are just getting worse.
it's not nitpicking..
It's reality, WOW and EQ were most succesfull because there was no real competition and the market was new... WOW had the perfect (I'd dare to say ideal) situation when they launched, it was the perfect time frame for them to launch the game and that's the biggest reason why it did so well..
I'd say the biggest problem companies have today is actually making a good game which has longetivity without taking too long to develop (because they'd go bankrupt I guess) and even tho some companies manage to do it, more or less, the most of them are failing because they're thinking about making biggest profit in shortest time possible. I mean it is bussiness and it's to be expected, but I think they all forgot why they started making mmos in first place, and I'm excluding CCP when I say it because those guys are still awesome.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
You know what is really awesome! The use of capitalization and periods. Maybe you should try those sometime.
I'm fine with corporate losing the MMO file.
I'll KS a few indie devs as a last hope effort before losing all interest in MMOs.
Not sure how it is for NA gamer and what makes a NA gamer happy but I can speak for myself...
I do think housing is a great feature because it adds a little bit of your personalization to the game world, you can 'grow roots' - so to speak.
"Happiness is not a destination. It is a method of life."
-------------------------------
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem
Or we're great at bitching and terrible at advising.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
As many said define success!
In the past we have had MMPOGs like the first commercial MMORPG Island of Kesmai, Club Caribe, and the first graphical MMPOG Neverwinter Nights followed by Dragon's Gate and a few other MMPOGs. And the first game published outside of private networks onto Internet was Legends of Future Past.
Meridian 59, launched in late 1996 and in late 1997 Ultima Online was released and the term MMORPG was coined by Richard Garriott so any other games before that is tagged with the MMORPG title since then.
Second generation MMORPGs
Anarchy Online, Dark Age of Camelot, Ultima Online 2, Runescape, Final Fantasy XI, Ragnarok Online, Maple Story, Earth & Beyond, Shadowbane, Everquest Online Adventures, EvE Online, Lineage II, Second Life and City of Heroes.
to mention a few of the milestone MMPOGs and early MMORPGs.
Current-generation MMORPGs
Dungeons&Dragons Online, Everquest II, Perfect World, The Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, Age of Conan: Hyborian Adventures, Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning, Star Wars: The Old Republic and Star Trek Online.
And the MMORPGS released on todays market have an audience that is so much larger than in the dark ages of online gaming, to even mention success in a market were access is the key to the number of users is just stupid.
And then we have the MMO Veterans that have played online since those days, what we have seen happening on the MMO market is a sad thing really. Todays MMOs is a shadow of past MMOs often they have a shallow and diluted world filled with mechanics that comes from past MMOs and they have so to say polished that mechanic and made it their own.
So the game studios that creates the MMOs of today have dumbed the games down and tries to invent new amazing features never seen before. And in 8 out of 10 new innovations is a failure. We have a plethora of MMOs to play and try. And the player base have become a crowd of MMO Tourists just visiting the new titles for a few weeks to a few months and then go on the next MMO vacation leaving the old behind. And today a game can get old in a mere few weeks because the content is no match to beat and the releases of new content is too slow to satisfy the players.
That have killed many MMOs over the last few years. And to save the MMOs gaming studios have remade them in to free to play MMOs.
And then we have the various ways to support the games, subscription based, pay to play, free to play, in game stores with real money, hybrid models and so on.
But a MMO with 1500 or 15 million players can equally be a success in my honest opinion. It all boils down to one thing, that the player base in said MMO do have fun and get a value of rewards from playing said game.
The hype of so many MMOs get silly at times. And some of the game studios spend ridiculous amounts of money on marketing. And the total sum of many MMOs released todays have a budget on marketing that is just wrong.
irony is a subtle art, but obviously too difficult for some to master.
"A couple of our competitors have found out that through very, very expensive lessons--one of our competitors just recently announced they're restarting an MMO project in the US," Zelnick said. "We look at it and say 'How many MMOs have ever been successful in the US?' Two. World of Warcraft and EverQuest. That's kind of a bad slugging percentage."
This is as wrong and false it can get. Lets nail down the facts:
1. WoW is no longer the most successful MMO in the history, League of Legends is.
2. WoW is the most successful MMORPG in the history.
3. Being successful isn't measured by player base, but in the costs; Does the game generate more income than output? Did the sales overcome development costs?
Now then, say again that MMO's aren't successful in US. If anything at all we have more successful MMO's than single player games in the recent years. MMORPG industry however has been drying up lately with only few successful games being at the market right now: WoW, GW2, Aion, Tera and EVE (borderline RPG). Neverwinter might join the ranks of 'successful games' in a time, having been out in the market for only a little time its hard to tell yet.
EDIT: Also for the love of god the term 'MMO' is being used way too loosely on these forums. Although it shouldnt come as a surprise when the site is called MMORPG, everyone instantly ties the other term to it. Do not forget the meaning real meaning behind it.
I find this comment extremely ironic especially when you mentioned that you are excited and looking forward to Wildstar. if you think WOW was graphically behind in 2004 what about Wildstar which is releasing this year? and not to mention still stuck in old 'hardcore raid grind' for end game?
Such double standards.
"The problem is that the hardcore folks always want the same thing: 'We want exactly what you gave us before, but it has to be completely different.'
-Jesse Schell
"Online gamers are the most ludicrously entitled beings since Caligula made his horse a senator, and at least the horse never said anything stupid."
-Luke McKinney
I dont agree with the OP, just because I dont see enough different kind of high quality mmorpgs to begin with. Just because companies create very similar games to the end of the world does not mean the "genre" it self cant be succesful in the U.S.
I havent seen any high quality first person mmorpgs AT ALL on the market, not to mention sci-fi ones. Even a third person one with proper shooter mechanics would do. And it does not have to be a goddamn leveling trip spiced up with a loot hoarding heart for x2 times better gear every 2 levels LIKE EVERY GODDAMN SINGLE mmorpg currently is, the mainstream ones at least, the ones without piss poor general quality.
Come to think of it, the guy only speaks of wow clone themeparks, because he simply can not talk about anything else, since anything else does not exist in the genre as high quality titles.
We have certainly had successes, but like the guy said our hit rate is low, I can think of several but that's still a low hit rate. What I was pointing out was that I don't see us putting money into MMO's that don't launch well, when FF did that I thought 'no western MMO company would do that these days'. They have in the past, Anarchy Online showed what you can do. But these days in the west the idea seems to be if you do not do well at launch then cut your loses.
Expectations here are unrealistic too. Every new MMO is expected to be the best ever and the finite player population is excepted to jump ship to the new one. Maybe in Asia they just don't expect every release to be the best thing since EQ launched.