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Are you really ready for a niche MMO?
Scalpless
Member UncommonPosts: 1,426
I see the following argument all the time on these forums:
"I'm tired of AAA themepark games like WoW, GW2 and FF XIV. Developers should start making niche games for niche audiences. They should make a game for people like me, who want [insert niche here]."
The thing is, there's plenty of niche MMOs. There's Wurm for your sandbox needs, Darkfall for fantasy FFA PvP, EVE for sandboxy space adventures, A Tale in the Desert for sandboxy building, Vanguard for complex and slow open world PvE, etc. Most of these games share the following "features":
1) Limited gameplay options
Developing sandbox content, raids, balanced PvP, etc. takes time. Time is something a small studio can't afford. This is why even relatively popular games like EVE often have sloppy or simply missing elements. Examples: the PvE of almost all PvP titles, ATitD's combat, Vanguard's PvP.
2) Dated graphics and bad animations
Pretty pictures cost a lot. Pretty pictures that move well cost even more. EVE cut some corners by using a space setting, but fantasy games can't do that.
3) Poor support and lots of bugs
Expect a grumpy, underpaid nerd to handle your support ticket while he's not fixing that fatal bug that just killed half the server.
...which is why people don't play them and say they suck. I've come to the conclusion people actually don't want niche games. They want games with AAA features specifically catered to their needs. That's not going to happen, unfortunately. We're not going to get a Darkfall with WoW's budget. We're not going to get a fantasy EvE with GW2's visuals. It's just the way things are.
So...
...do you think there aren't enough niche MMOs on the market?
...are you really ready for a niche MMO, or do you just want a AAA game catered to your needs?
Comments
Combat is as much a missing feature from ATITD as raiding is from Second Life.
"We're not going to get a Darkfall with WoW's budget. We're not going to get a fantasy EvE with GW2's visuals. It's just the way things are."
I think that's a biggest difference between the people who want an niche game and the people who think they want one but really don't. The latter is still waiting for something that simply won't happen and the former is either playing one of the existing games or not playing any but not complaining either.
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
Yeah, I always asked people why they're not playing EVE when they talk about how great it is. The answer is always the same, "because I can't be a dude with a sword - can't RP a ship!" Apparently the dividing line between "best game ever" and "can't stomach the thought of playing it" is an avatar.
Watch that thread about the recent massive EVE battle turn into a thread of people saying how awesome it is and how that's what MMO's need. But only a few of those people will have ever played EVE, and fewer still will continue to do so.
Same for DFUW, people post their wishlists and it seemingly matches up directly with DFUW, but yet they always have an excuse why they don't play it.
This niche is really bizarre because it's full of players who won't accept games geared toward them while asking why the industry isn't willing to invest large sums of money to make their dream game.
Why do you think SWTOR got such a large budget to make a turd? Because there is a potential market for those players. Had SWTOR actually been a good game, it would have a sizable following right now. If you're a niche customer, you need to go support the games that are currently out there (with money) even if you don't play them. I know it sounds stupid, but if you show developers and investors that there's a market and money to be made, they'll make you some games. That's kinda how business works.
This isn't field of dreams, it's not a "if we build it they will come". It's a "we'll build it if they're there."
This is where people really show their lack of logic. They say things such as, "MMO's are/should be niche, they were never meant to be mainstream," or "I hope MMO's go back to the niche they were meant to be," or "Devs should focus on their Niche," then in the same paragraph talk about wanting whatever game they are talking about to be AAA.
They seem to forget or perhaps never realized that unless the company is willing to forgo profits for years (ala Eve in a modern day release) a niche will not generate the money to be AAA.
And no you can't compare games of old because they either did have the king AAA budget of their day, or they didn't have the budget and were doomed to be niche.
The game that does have AAA and is niche is very very rare, and usually closed.
There was this sculptor fellow back in old Greece I think it was that made two near identical statues. The second though he left just unfinished and had people from his little town come in and he altered it based on their feedback so that everyone's opinions on how it would look best were taken into account.
Once finished, nearly everyone agreed his first was the superior work.
Its true that it is asking a lot for a very high quality game designed a certain way with many things that a lot of players wouldn't claim to want in a game.
But regardless of whether or not anyone agrees that popular opinion will make a better game or sell more boxes. I am going to always want a high quality game, and I am always going to want new games with less popular concepts integrated into them.
A game with long-term success speaks for itself, and I do think long term profits and success can be had from games that prove their design over time rather than just appealing to as many people as possible up front to sell copies. I especially see this true as the free to play market becomes more prevalent and initial box sales mean a little less to success. Maybe quality can then come more to the forefront in the design of some games, and we will see less "me too" titles. Maybe not.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
See but that's the thing, okay, it's a good thought but honestly even people wanting niche games don't even think like that.
Just like p2p model, people who want niche things in MMOs are usually the sole reason the game fails in the first place or cease production. I mean just observing, what you said would require patience, something many who play MMOs don't have, which is why there are raids in the first place.
People won't give those games a chance to shape up into something great, those people that complain usually need everything already in it's final form now, on the exception of a few games that is what it is. Now if I missed the point of your post let me know, it's all good I'm still learning.
I might get banned for this. - Rizel Star.
I'm not afraid to tell trolls what they [need] to hear, even if that means for me to have an forced absence afterwards.
P2P LOGIC = If it's P2P it means longevity, overall better game, and THE BEST SUPPORT EVER!!!!!(Which has been rinsed and repeated about a thousand times)
Common Sense Logic = P2P logic is no better than F2P Logic.
No. I don't think there aren't enough niche MMOs on the market. Frankly i don't really care for them.
I just want AAA games catered to my needs .. and luckily a lot of them do.
Haven't said that, there are indie/niche games in other genre that are good. Some of the point-and-click adventures, and turn-based strategy (or RPGs like Shadowrun Return) are good examples. The difference is that those games can look good and polish with a fraction of the budget needed to make a good MMO.
Yes, I'm not saying ATitD needs combat, because it clearly doesn't. However, it missing combat and having ugly graphics is probably what drives people away from it, even though there's plenty of people asking for niche MMOs with lots of non-combat content.
That's a good point, but there's a big difference between the statue you described and something like FFA PvP. One is something that doesn't exist yet, the other is a concept that has been done before.
Played Lineage 1 for 8 years, Lineage 2 for 3 years waiting for Lineage Eternal, I'm ready for another open world pvp season.
Tried many casual games since WoW but I left them after 1 week-1 month.
http://www.mmorpg.com/gamelist.cfm
about 90% wow clones ,exremely easy cash shop products.
~99% complete failures for niche crowd.
So yes i think theres way too much niche products on the market and its time for high quality MMORPG,maybe EQN or AA can do it or maybe not.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
You have a point OP.
Easy, conveniant, hand-holding design filled with 'achievements', gps-helpers, matchmaking, phasing, crazy amount of instancing, invisible walls, zoning, "for everyone" design and microtransactions is something I am simply not willing to play anymore.
Hardcore bug fests, filled with exploiters botters. Coupled with low budget , bad graphicsand severe on-going underfiancing and slow eexploit fixing is also not something I can tolerate.
Guess I will not play MMORPG anymore.
Combat is priority. u spend most time in combat and if its not good and interesting, rest of game is pointless.
combat
open world
open world raids
LFG finder
Raid finder
thouse are most imporant in modern mmo imo.
sick of this response. So righteous and inconsiderate, and I don't mean to attack you personally, Picard.
1) There's nothing at all wrong with someone wanting to play a quality, non-buggy, complete game. Themepark/raid crowd always attacks sandboxers with this. "well, you say you want this, but you don't play what's already there" is a SHALLOW and thoughtless argument. How come WoW players and GW2 players and LoTRO players enjoy those games instead of playing Mario Brothers every day for 8hrs at a time? Because the new games are new. They have quality, production value, a different setting/story, and a list of other reasons that keep those players from playing "any of the other cheap crap games that are already there"
Comments like these sound like anyone who doesn't want a themepark doesn't deserve a new gaming experience. frack that.
2) Yes, developers DID and DO spend years and technology coming up with game experiences for people to enjoy without expecting to sell it to every person on the planet. I don't care what kind of over-consumerists outlook people may have Today, but games weren't developed like that and they never would have gotten to where they are now if they did. Atari, Nintendo, NeoGeo, etc == These guys were gamers that made games for gamers and they hoped it would net them 'some' money to continue doing it again. You really think back in those days millions of trendy pop-culture people went to college to learn how to make videogames? you think back then people thought to themselves "yeah, I want to get RICH. Maybe I should make videogames" - BS. That is today's market, where videogaming is just another bubble. An industry where corps can potentially make billions, and they took control over it for that reason. Still, there are plenty, PLENTY of developers that care about making good gaming experiences FIRST, and making a stupid large profit comes second or even third if at all. Try Steam out and learn something about what other games and devs are doing to try and fix this greedy corporate industry, and then come back and spew this "developers don't spend money or time on games unless it makes them rich" crap.
3) a couple thousand players? Really? That assumption needs to gtfo too. We're talking millions of players that want more than "another WoW-type game" -- You're purposefully trying to lessen the group of people who disagree with you to make yourselves sound "right". Majority thinks this way, so, it must be right.
The majority of people on the Earth used to think it was flat. The majority of people on Earth thinks there are invisible men in the clouds watching us, deciding which of us gets to go to magic happy land after we die. The majority of people are idiotic sheep. Think for yourself.
AAA is not AAA. With other words there are different games with different production values. Arche Age can be considered AAA but it just costs around 30 million dollar. The same is most probably true for any SOE game including EQN, it will most likely not cost more than 50 million dollar.
And then you have the super expensive AAA productions like WoW (over 200 million), SWTOR(almost 300 million), GW2(with over 100 million) or Wildstar(over 100 million).
And there is a difference between indy companies with no whatsoever experience (Mortal Online, Shadowbane, Darkfall, Repopulation and even EvE in the beginning), and small budget/crowdfunded games with experienced developers/designer (Star Citizien, Camelot Unchained).
Point is.. as a developer you have to pick your audience, know in the best case how many actually will buy/play it, and invest accordingly to that number.. and stick to your guns.
It is not always the best way, and most successful way to look for a catch all formula, because you may lose a lot of people because it is to blurry in certain aspects. And we have a lot of successful games going this route, like LoL/DotA2(just catching multiplayer pvp arena based crowd... and completely ignore the single player audience), like BF series( more or less the same focus entirely on multiplayer team fps and ingore the single player audience), and i could name a dozend more games like that.
In mmorpgs this happend not often enough, and was more or less the most time just tried from indy developers. Also there are a few exceptions like GW1, which was not a full packaged MMO, just picked a few aspects and sticked to it.
And i foresee a lot of companies will do this in the future a lot more often. And Camelot Unchained(also crowd forged and somewhat indy) may be one good example for that.
It is really almost impossible nowadays to develop a catch all MMORPG.. as with any new genre the preferences split into different audiences... and the industry will have to adopt to that. Not every game can be Call of Duty, but Bioshock(FPS focusing on single player experience) or BF series (focusing on team multiplayer aspect) do both very well. And if you ask me, both do a lot better in that specialist part as Call of Duty.
With other words in my humble opinion you are wrong. The time for more specialized MMOs focusing on just a few audiences are here, and more and more AAA developer will go that route in the near future. And maybe just invest 30-50 Million and just focus on a certain audience, but will do better than most behemoth with 150 million+ budgets, which try to cater to all audiences and can't be successful with it.
PS: about inexperienced developers and invested money. Compare Arche Age with Darkfall both did more or less cost the same money. Which one is just in point of view from production value/quality of production the better game?
I think you got my point fine and I think you bring up a good point as well about patience.
I guess there are several possibilities a game that has a shaky release could see.
They could make something and release it that still needs a bit of work to be a great game. The "final form" you speak of that everyone wants now but for which they will not wait.
Then there is the game that maybe does old concepts in a unique way. A game that works fine but it might take a while to grow the game because of perceptions in the playerbase at the initial feature list viewed through the lens of all those games that implemented such features poorly.
As I have pointed out at other times, I hate to harp on it but, the second type of game could work under the right conditions with the right sort of release. Especially if initial box sales aren't as important as longevity and growth.
In the end I feel too many people here, (and this certainly isn't directed at you Rizel), take the knee-jerk common sense approach to evaluating these complicated issues and assume far too much about what developers and the market will and will not do.
And to quote Taiichi Ohno, a great industry leader from Japan's 20th century industrial climb - "Common sense is always wrong."
I currently play, and have played, several niche MMOs. I like games like Mortal Online and others.
Gameplay trumps just about everything else for me.
Hell hath no fury like an MMORPG player scorned.
What evidence do you have to support the idea that there are millions of players wanting niche game play? Especially since niche game play would by definition be a small part of the market?
We're not talking about mysterious elements that can't be seen. We're talking about something that can be quantified, and probably has been quantified by research companies.
For instance, OW PvP (always on, not FFA) appeals to fewer people than PvE with optional PvP. This is an easily supportable fact. There are always fewer PvP servers and fewer PvP players in games that offer both types of game play. In Eve, a game driven by PvP, there are more people in "High Sec" space than in "Low Sec" space. Way back in the day, when the option to move to a PvE with optional PvP server in UO happened, the OW PvP server emptied out. OW PvP is the less popular option.
FFA PvP is a less popular option than some form of optional PvP. In UO, when the option to move to a PvE server with optional PvP happened, the PvP server emptied out. In Eve, there are more people in "High Sec" space than in "Low Sec" space. More people are avoiding the PvP. FFA PvP is a less popular option than some form of optional PvP.
There is also evidence that people are getting tired of the formula that EQ2 and WoW used. Games that use the formula do not retain the bulk of the people who start playing when the games release. WoW itself has lost over four million players after the last couple of expansions.
There is evidence that developers are trying to branch out from the WoW/EQ2 formula in games that are coming out in the next year or so. ESO may be a theme park, but it's not a WoW theme park. EQN is trying to release a major league sandbox game. Maybe, it's hard to tell with Smedley. There are half a dozen indie sandbox style games in production or pre-production.
See? We're not neanderthals. We're not even living in medieval Europe. There's no comparison between Flat Earthers and people who wonder why there are people who think niche games need AAA funding.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
If we are talking "sandbox game" then "no" not everone spends all of their time in combat.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
open word pvp like darkfall are not for players that dont have any friend in game.
Open world pvp is just 1 player versus 2-100 player. u lose.
crafting? why u craftt? for money, for money buy better gear, or craft better gear u self and eventually move to do combat. all thouse craft items are pointless if u dont enjoy combat.
Heres my simple formula for successful MMORPG.
a)Format developers memory from wow and gw and all this mmo nonsense.
b)Download RuneQuest ,D&D ,Warhammer,Cyberpunk etc role playing games to a developers memory banks.
c)Watch how developer transforms RPG to multiplayer computer game.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
Strangely enough, I never felt like I was actually the ship. I always felt like my avatar was representing me, and I feel like a pilot, not a bunch of assembled metal.
"EVE is likely the best MMORPG that you've never really understood or played" - Kyleran
There are people who solely play the economic game and craft to sell and trade.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
This is an interesting topic. I think another x-factor is that as an mmo matures, it becomes less appealing to newcomers. I personally like to get in at launch and be part of the game's legacy so to speak. Whenever I try out an mmo that has been out for a while, I always feel like an outsider. Like the out of towner that walks into the local diner and the record needle scratches. I don't understand any of the acronyms happening in chat. Most of the stuff I am crafting is beyond useless to 99% of the population. Its very alienating sometimes.