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.
If we are talking "sandbox game" then "no" not everone spends all of their time in combat.
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.
There are people who solely play the economic game and craft to sell and trade.
others simply want to be able to achieve the renown of being *the* crafter, the one who can craft high quality items that only a handful of other crafters can make, or the one who can make the *best* <fill in item here>. and in game with a serious crafting system, like SWG some of those items have nothing to do with combat at all.
as for niche games im in total agreement here. for instance, would you like to play an mmo whose skill system is completely open for you to master whatever you want? a game where you can master all the harvesting or crafting trades you would like to master? a game where your guild can actually build their own fortress? then you want to play Runescape3.
oh, you don't like the graphics? its a 'kiddy' game? hm, interesting.
"There are at least two kinds of games. One could be called finite, the other infinite. A finite game is played for the purpose of winning, an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play." Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
Originally posted by TwoThreeFour Niche simply means niche, it doesn't mean "Low budget". GW2 is certainly a niche MMORPG.
Important reminded... "Niche" doesn't mean "I don't like it".
I hope you are not implying that I consider GW2 to be niche simply because you think I don't like it? GW2 didn't aim for the mainstream MMORPG audience, they catered to a niche; one such niche being the "horizontal progression niche for things that make your character powerful".
Edit: Since you edited your text afterwards, I'll edit mine to reply to some more of your edited statements: among the MMORPG population, the "horizontal progression" players are a minority, that's why it is a niche.
Originally posted by TwoThreeFour Niche simply means niche, it doesn't mean "Low budget". GW2 is certainly a niche MMORPG.
Important reminder... "Niche" doesn't mean "I don't like it". Otherwise, even WoW would be "niche" according to people on this forum.
A game with 2.5 million active players logging in per week is definitely not a "niche" game.
Neither is a game with close to 500k players by the way, aka EvE.
Niche means Darkfail, Mortal, etc...
I still consider EVE to be a niche game. Mortal Online and Darkfall (at least pre-UW), just bad implementation and poor design choices. "Niche" it's not the same as "bad".
"EVE is likely the best MMORPG that you've never really understood or played" - Kyleran
EVE-Online started as a tiny indie niche game, but turned into a huge indie niche game !
I doubt anyone here will argue that EVE isn't a niche game. Yet it has more subs than most of the AAA MMO's that launched in the last 7 years.
EVE is proof that niche games don't have to be small budget, buggy and limited in scope. But they have to focus on their target market and serve it well.
For every EVE there will be a 100 Darkfall's and a 1000 Mortal Online's...
Originally posted by TwoThreeFour Niche simply means niche, it doesn't mean "Low budget". GW2 is certainly a niche MMORPG.
Important reminded... "Niche" doesn't mean "I don't like it".
I hope you are not implying that I consider GW2 to be niche simply because you think I don't like it? GW2 didn't aim for the mainstream MMORPG audience, they catered to a niche; one such niche being the "horizontal progression niche for things that make your character powerful".
Pretending GW2 is a "niche" game is like pretending "The Avengers" is niche because it didn't beat "Avatar" at the box office. It doesn't make any sense at all.
I know too little about the movie industry and about the movie "The Avengers" to know whether or not "The Avengers" catered to a specific niche or not.
To get a better understanding of the word "niche", let's consult a dictionary (such as www.dictionary.com):
noun
1.
an ornamental recess in a wall or the like, usually semicircular inplan and arched, as for a statue or other decorative object.
2.
a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing:to find one's niche in the business world.
3.
a distinct segment of a market.
4.
Ecology . the position or function of an organism in acommunity of plants and animals.
adjective
5.
pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specificappeal: niche advertising.
Defenition 1 and 4 are not relevant in this scenario. 5 refers to the noun "niche" to yield an implicit definition.
So that leaves us with 2 and 3.
Is the "horizontal progression"-market a distinct segment of the MMORPG market? I would say yes, and therefore 3 holds. Is the "horizontal progression" position a position suitable or appropiate for GW2 in the MMORPG market? Yes, it has shown that indeed is so, so 2 holds.
A "niche", when talking about MMORPG games, is by definition something catering to a small amount of people. Half a million people is definitely not "niche" anymore.
EvE may have been "niche" when it was released, but right now, it definitely isn't anymore. Neither is GW2, obviously.
See, my reply above which refers to the dictionary definition of the word "niche". Something that may be small in certain situations, does not need to be small in other situations.
1 million dollars is certainly a lot for a person to have if you compare to the average wealth a person has, but it is very little compared to the total wealth of a country. EVE catered to a niche and is still doing so; it nay not be the exact same niche (I know too little of EVE history to know for sure) but it is still a niche.
Originally posted by TwoThreeFour Originally posted by Jean-Luc_PicardOriginally posted by TwoThreeFourOriginally posted by Jean-Luc_PicardOriginally posted by TwoThreeFourNiche simply means niche, it doesn't mean "Low budget". GW2 is certainly a niche MMORPG.
Important reminded... "Niche" doesn't mean "I don't like it".I hope you are not implying that I consider GW2 to be niche simply because you think I don't like it? GW2 didn't aim for the mainstream MMORPG audience, they catered to a niche; one such niche being the "horizontal progression niche for things that make your character powerful".Pretending GW2 is a "niche" game is like pretending "The Avengers" is niche because it didn't beat "Avatar" at the box office. It doesn't make any sense at all.I know too little about the movie industry and about the movie "The Avengers" to know whether or not "The Avengers" catered to a specific niche or not.
To get a better understanding of the word "niche", let's consult a dictionary (such as www.dictionary.com):
noun 1. an ornamental recess in a wall or the like, usually semicircular inplan and arched, as for a statue or other decorative object. 2. a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing:to find one's niche in the business world. 3. a distinct segment of a market. 4. Ecology . the position or function of an organism in acommunity of plants and animals. adjective 5. pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specificappeal: niche advertising. Defenition 1 and 4 are not relevant in this scenario. 5 refers to the noun "niche" to yield an implicit definition. So that leaves us with 2 and 3. Is the "horizontal progression"-market a distinct segment of the MMORPG market? I would say yes, and therefore 3 holds. Is the "horizontal progression" position a position suitable or appropiate for GW2 in the MMORPG market? Yes, it has shown that indeed is so, so 2 holds.
So you're saying that GW2 targeted only the horizontal progression market and that's it? Because I'm pretty sure they targeted the competitive PvP market, and a the story driven progression PvE market as well. GW2 didn't target a single market, but several. It's not a niche game, even by the limited definition you've presented.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Ready for Niche games? Devs are so afraid of theyr mmo's becoming "niche" that they try to play it safe by following wow's themepark example, the end result is that they end up becoming the worst kind of "niche", one that is already satisfyed!
I think its a mistake to consider mmo's that don't go with the norm niche, the only way you are gonna introduce a considerable amount of new players into your mmo is by breaking the norm.
This is one of the things wow did well, they broke the norm of back then which were "hardcore" mmos that you for the most part had to figure out yourself, wow did the exact opposite and introduced a mmorpg which offered plenty of guidance, while being easy enough for anyone to get into it.
We need to keep in mind that those who once needed theyr hand held when first being introduced to wow, have now grown up and become alot more experienced with mmos in general, just like those of us who are old school mmorpg players, they are now searching for a challenge that the current generation of mmos just wont offer.
Also when I hear people call the idea of introducing first person shooter like combat niche I have to laugh, this is exactly the kind of changes that have the potential of introducing a massive amount of new players to the genre, namely fps players, belive it or not, someone likeing fps combat does not mean rpg does not intrest them.
Another example is Player ran factions and territories, if this was fleshed out properly it could attract rts players that would not previously touch a mmorpg. And no this does not mean pvp would have to be forced on anyone.
I don't think a quality niche MMO is impossible to make. The things that inflate the budgets of AAA games to astronomical numbers can be avoided in the initial release of a quality niche game.
1) There's no reason to make the starting world massively large when 90% of the world's real estate will hardly be visited or used one month into the game's release. You could make a world smaller but more densely populated with things to do that don't get exhausted as easily or as quickly. You can create the illusion that there's a much larger world out there but it can't be reached yet because there are very dangerous regions to overcome or hostile countries to ally with, conquer, or bypass, or "technology/magic "to be discovered before you can travel there (much like how travel was limited in ancient times in the real world).
2) There's no reason to put a huge budget into voice acting. We saw with SWTOR how little the massive amount of voice acting improved the overall game yet increased the games budget to astronomical levels. Games can still have very good quality without alot of voice acting.
3) Be more reasonable with the graphics. A game doesn't have to have high end graphics to be beautiful. WoW was released with what was considered vastly subpar graphics for the time and yet managed to be beautiful for millions of players for a number of years. They achieved this by having a great art style, a polished and a fluid game. Personally I found WoW to be more beautiful on a daily basis than EQII simply because the game felt alot more fluid and functional. Sure EQII had much better graphics but it didn't feel right, and that made all the difference.
4) Give people things to do in the game world that don't ever get old. Player housing, minigames (crafting mini-games anyone?), platforming, competitions. Implementing these kinds of systems may add to your budget but they are very cost effective in the long run. They allow the players to stay involved in the game without having to create alot of virtual real estate that most players won't use or only use a few times (quest lines, dungeons, raids etc.)
5) Limit the amount of time players can effectively play the game each day. I've always been a fan of MMO's implementing a sort of "sleep system" for the avatars. In such a system players can play 6-8 hours a day without needing to rest but then they would have to log off in order for their characters to "sleep" and recoup their strength. In such a system the avatars would become fatigued after very extended play and would start to perform so crappy in everything they do (combat, crafting etc.) so that there's no reason to try to stay on and keep progressing (but you still could stay logged in if you wanted to do non-progression type activities like chat or social interaction in game). I like this idea because it accomplishes multiple things:
-It lowers the power gaps that can arise between players that just no-life the game and players that play an average or small amount without taking into account the player skill.
-It establishes a moderate pace at which players can get through the content of the game regardless of skill level. (the most skilled players will still get through the game much faster than the rest but it won't be much faster than new content can be produced).
-It forces the players to have semi-healthy gaming habits; playing a game for 4-6 hours every day can be considered moderately hardcore by anyone but not allowing much more prevents the truly obsessed players from playing for life-threatening numbers of hours.
-It makes it much harder to cheat on character progression by paying people to powerlevel you, take turns with you or w/e.
-It lowers the effectiveness of chinese farmers and the like because they cannot farm for much more than the other gamers can.
All these things and more can be done to make a quality, polished and functional niche MMO on a lower budget but no one is doing it; the reason being that big companies have seen the success of WoW and want to make a game that can attract and maintain millions of players, not 500k to a million.
Some of the responses from the nice crowd players who want a brand new high production niche mmo make ma smile.
Buy a console because your best niche high production mmos are going to come from console soon
Trust me
*Cough cough*
Destiny? The Crew? The Division?
All three of these would be considered niche mmos on PC.
But yet all three have AAA production values, great graphics and are not your standard Lord of the Rings/WoW clone
You want a niche AAA graat looking mmorpg?
Guess what?
You better go get yourself a PS4. Developers go where the money is and now that many are realizing that WoW money means that audience wants to play WoW, they aren't going to try that hard on what they consider to be an unproven market.
But they sure as hell will throw these resources into a bigger market console mmo
Mark my words ten years from now, the best mmos WILL originate on console in the niches people want to see.
As soon as the console market starts clarmoring for a true Skyrim Online, they will have it, and it will be everything we want from graphics to gameplay to open sandbox everything and it won't suck and be rife with meaningless excuses from pc mmo makers. It will just be made, and you my pc gaming friends will buy it.
*Beeep*
Play-statshun!
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Originally posted by TwoThreeFourNiche simply means niche, it doesn't mean "Low budget". GW2 is certainly a niche MMORPG.
Important reminded... "Niche" doesn't mean "I don't like it".
I hope you are not implying that I consider GW2 to be niche simply because you think I don't like it? GW2 didn't aim for the mainstream MMORPG audience, they catered to a niche; one such niche being the "horizontal progression niche for things that make your character powerful".
Pretending GW2 is a "niche" game is like pretending "The Avengers" is niche because it didn't beat "Avatar" at the box office. It doesn't make any sense at all.
I know too little about the movie industry and about the movie "The Avengers" to know whether or not "The Avengers" catered to a specific niche or not.
To get a better understanding of the word "niche", let's consult a dictionary (such as www.dictionary.com):
noun 1. an ornamental recess in a wall or the like, usually semicircular inplan and arched, as for a statue or other decorative object. 2. a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing:to find one's niche in the business world. 3. a distinct segment of a market. 4. Ecology . the position or function of an organism in acommunity of plants and animals. adjective 5. pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specificappeal: niche advertising. Defenition 1 and 4 are not relevant in this scenario. 5 refers to the noun "niche" to yield an implicit definition. So that leaves us with 2 and 3. Is the "horizontal progression"-market a distinct segment of the MMORPG market? I would say yes, and therefore 3 holds. Is the "horizontal progression" position a position suitable or appropiate for GW2 in the MMORPG market? Yes, it has shown that indeed is so, so 2 holds.
So you're saying that GW2 targeted only the horizontal progression market and that's it? Because I'm pretty sure they targeted the competitive PvP market, and a the story driven progression PvE market as well. GW2 didn't target a single market, but several. It's not a niche game, even by the limited definition you've presented.
Yes, you have a good point there, they targetted several niches, some more successful than others. Specially the esport dreams have so far been a failure.
Do those niches altogether form a group of niches that is too large in comparison to the whole MMORPG market to be considered a niche? I very much doubt so. They certainly did not target the largest part of the MMORPG market which is the vertical progression people.
Perhaps you are mixing up the terms "niche" and "independent" (also known as "indie"), GW2 was certainly not an indie game.
A niche game doesn't mean it has to be a broke indie company.
UO was a niche game.
EQ was a niche game.
AC was a niche game.
What makes them niche is they were designed from the ground up to be a specific kind of rpg game. They did not try (at least early on) to cater to every single play style out there. You played them they way they wanted you to play it or you didn't play at all. Obviously there is diversity of play style regardless but in no way the same as today's Wow-type games where each play style is wrapped in pillows and made sure nobody bumps into each other to create the slightest possibility of conflict.
Older mmos were driven by conflict ... and the players of that generation of mmo love it. It reinforced social interaction. Today such interaction is viewed as negative. The developers forgot that mmorpgs were all about conflict and that player base enjoyed it. This is what made it niche ... it focused development towards a certain type of player. This has nothing to do with how much money the company has. All that is required is a large enough player base to support the game. Fewer players = fewer service support needed. It is all relative.
UO had their support team and release schedule, EQ did too and AC had nearly monthly updates ... something todays games can't possibly do because of development times associated with improved graphics. Even Blizzard admitted their new higher poly count models now take months to make instead of days and they are the rich kids on the block.
The issue lately is that the word "niche" is being thrown around a lot lately and evidently many people have no clue what is even means. It simply means focusing on developing a game in a specific style not trying to cater to every single play style out there. ALL games were made like this before yet some how people started thinking mmos should be a gift to the world instead of sticking to an actual concept. There is more than enough room out there for many types of mmos. They only have to be good. The issue today is that it doesn't matter if most of the recently released mmos are niche or not ... they simply just suck.
Originally posted by arctarus Been thinking somewhere along the line, do players really want sandbox Mmo? Do we really have the time and patience to go back to all these stuff?
Who is this "we" you speak of ?
If you're talking about the "worldwide community of gamers", just keep in mind that it consists of all the people who played UO at launch, right through to the kids who logged into their first ever MMO last week.
There are millions of gamers in the world who can play for 4 or 5 hours a day without any problem...
3) Be more reasonable with the graphics. A game doesn't have to have high end graphics to be beautiful. WoW was released with what was considered vastly subpar graphics for the time and yet managed to be beautiful for millions of players for a number of years. They achieved this by having a great art style, a polished and a fluid game. Personally I found WoW to be more beautiful on a daily basis than EQII simply because the game felt alot more fluid and functional. Sure EQII had much better graphics but it didn't feel right, and that made all the difference.
WoW's engine was "low polygon", but WoW's art team is still top notch, I'd daresay one of the best of the industry. Being able to do much with little polygons and cartoon textures isn't something easy. And top notch teams cost a lot of money.
The lesser the graphics are, the more talented the team creating them must be.
And don't even get me started on animations quality... animations are definitely one of the hardest thing to get right for indie/niche developers. That's also why EVE had it quite easy with its "spaceship" based setting, which was very smart.
My point is that people (or at least me and every MMO player I've ever conversed with) want/need good animations quality and art style. They don't need a game to have high polygons or look too realistic to consider it beautiful. If you are going to cut corners somewhere, cut it it on the polygons and focus on animations instead. I'm just talking about where developers can save money on the budget by focusing on things that players really care about and not squandering it on things that don't do much to improve the quality of the game.
A low polygon game with good art style and animations still costs significantly less than a high polygon game with them.
People claim they want more "niche", yet they don't play the existing ones.
There's a huge difference between a studio of experienced developers making a niche title, and a basement startup group with no support or experience making an indie title for a niche audience.
We have one now, we had the other in the 90s and early 00s. Guess which is which.
Also, to the OP, you're full of it. Niche MMOs usually have vastly more gameplay options than themepark MMOs. UO has a million different things to do. In WoW, you can... quest... and uh... quest... and grind.. and.. quest? There's no deep crafting, player market, no housing, no meaningful PvP, no evolving storylines. None of it.
And WoW has always looked like dated garbage, yet people play it. (mainly due to marketing). I'd rather have dated graphics with actually good gameplay, than these lifeless MMOs of the last 8 years.
Originally posted by seacow1g A low polygon game with good art style and animations still costs significantly less than a high polygon game with them.
I will have to disagree again. For being in the computer graphics industry these last 20 years, I can say that making something look good with the constraints of having to keep a low polygon count is harder than being able to create something good looking without any polygon limitations.
Absolutely 100% true.
Anyone can make a human out of 1 billion polygons that looks great given enough time.
Using less to make more? That is where the true art is involved and THAT is where you either spend money to get a real artist, you put out a bad model, or you fill your game with polygons and it runs like crap!
Try it yourself.. see how many lines on a piece of paper it takes you to draw a realistic or well-styled human. It is easier to do with 1000 lines than it is to do with 20. Anyone can do this experiment.
Originally posted by seacow1g A low polygon game with good art style and animations still costs significantly less than a high polygon game with them.
I will have to disagree again. For being in the computer graphics industry these last 20 years, I can say that making something look good with the constraints of having to keep a low polygon count is harder than being able to create something good looking without any polygon limitations.
If that is the case why is it that more often than not the high polygon count MMO's feel clunkier than the lower ones? Is it just that all the good talent goes to the low polygon games? I hardly think that's the case.
I will agree that having more restrictions places more burden on the designers shoulders to find innovative ways to make it look good but that doesn't necessarily equal a higher budget cost. Yes you can make something beautiful easier using more lines, but let's talk about animation. Is it easier to draw a character making a movement when the character is composed of few lines or many? It's much easier to screw up the fluidity of animation when you have more lines to take into account. Having to develop or purchase an engine and use the hardware to make a game look realistic AND fluid AND that can run stable on an acceptable range of gaming pc's should still cost more.
Originally posted by TwoThreeFour Niche simply means niche, it doesn't mean "Low budget". GW2 is certainly a niche MMORPG.
Important reminder... "Niche" doesn't mean "I don't like it". Otherwise, even WoW would be "niche" according to people on this forum.
A game with 2.5 million active players logging in per week is definitely not a "niche" game.
Neither is a game with close to 500k players by the way, aka EvE.
Niche means Darkfail, Mortal, etc...
I still consider EVE to be a niche game. Mortal Online and Darkfall (at least pre-UW), just bad implementation and poor design choices. "Niche" it's not the same as "bad".
A "niche", when talking about MMORPG games, is by definition something catering to a small amount of people. Half a million people is definitely not "niche" anymore.
EvE may have been "niche" when it was released, but right now, it definitely isn't anymore. Neither is GW2, obviously.
I also understand that "TwoThreeFour" post's intent was only to bash GW2. It's a popular sport here this last year.
No.. you are wrong. Niche does catering to a part of a greater amount. Like FPS is a niche in comparsion to all computer gamers. As much as DoTA/LoL is a niche catering to a very specific kind of taste and gameplay.
So it is completely irrelevant how many player a certain game play, as long as it caters to a specific audience within a greater set of games. Like EvE is niche for MMORPGs. I don't know if GW2 is really a niche game as it is more or less aimed to almost any kind of mmorpg gamer, although the progression hint has some value. Exactly like DAoC tried to catering to a niche, also at the very same time tried to catched all.. and did a terrible job with it. (hint ToA expansion)
Niche is not defined by numbers alone, so a niche game can have as many players as it wants, as long as it is not aimed to all players, or all players of a certain set. As BF series is niche within the FPS set catering especially to the team multiplayer crowd and ignoring more or less the singleplayer FPS crowd and the death match multiplayer FPS crowd.
Originally posted by TwoThreeFour Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by TwoThreeFourOriginally posted by Jean-Luc_PicardOriginally posted by TwoThreeFourOriginally posted by Jean-Luc_PicardOriginally posted by TwoThreeFourNiche simply means niche, it doesn't mean "Low budget". GW2 is certainly a niche MMORPG.
Important reminded... "Niche" doesn't mean "I don't like it".I hope you are not implying that I consider GW2 to be niche simply because you think I don't like it? GW2 didn't aim for the mainstream MMORPG audience, they catered to a niche; one such niche being the "horizontal progression niche for things that make your character powerful".Pretending GW2 is a "niche" game is like pretending "The Avengers" is niche because it didn't beat "Avatar" at the box office. It doesn't make any sense at all.I know too little about the movie industry and about the movie "The Avengers" to know whether or not "The Avengers" catered to a specific niche or not. To get a better understanding of the word "niche", let's consult a dictionary (such as www.dictionary.com):noun 1. an ornamental recess in a wall or the like, usually semicircular inplan and arched, as for a statue or other decorative object. 2. a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing:to find one's niche in the business world. 3. a distinct segment of a market. 4. Ecology . the position or function of an organism in acommunity of plants and animals. adjective 5. pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specificappeal: niche advertising. Defenition 1 and 4 are not relevant in this scenario. 5 refers to the noun "niche" to yield an implicit definition. So that leaves us with 2 and 3. Is the "horizontal progression"-market a distinct segment of the MMORPG market? I would say yes, and therefore 3 holds. Is the "horizontal progression" position a position suitable or appropiate for GW2 in the MMORPG market? Yes, it has shown that indeed is so, so 2 holds.So you're saying that GW2 targeted only the horizontal progression market and that's it? Because I'm pretty sure they targeted the competitive PvP market, and a the story driven progression PvE market as well. GW2 didn't target a single market, but several. It's not a niche game, even by the limited definition you've presented.Yes, you have a good point there, they targetted several niches, some more successful than others. Specially the esport dreams have so far been a failure.
Do those niches altogether form a group of niches that is too large in comparison to the whole MMORPG market to be considered a niche? I very much doubt so. They certainly did not target the largest part of the MMORPG market which is the vertical progression people.
Perhaps you are mixing up the terms "niche" and "independent" (also known as "indie"), GW2 was certainly not an indie game.
No, I'm using your definition of "niche". GW2 targets a range of market segments, not one specific group of players. If GW2 targets a range of players rather than one specific group, it is not a niche game.
GW2 sold over two million copies of the game shortly after the game was released. Not many other MMORPG have achieved this. Size wise, GW2 is not a niche game either.
The only way you're correct in your usage of "niche" in regards to GW2 is that any market segment can be described as a "niche", so all games are in some way a "niche" game, even if the niche is described as "people who play game {x}".
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Originally posted by seacow1g A low polygon game with good art style and animations still costs significantly less than a high polygon game with them.
I will have to disagree again. For being in the computer graphics industry these last 20 years, I can say that making something look good with the constraints of having to keep a low polygon count is harder than being able to create something good looking without any polygon limitations.
Absolutely 100% true.
Anyone can make a human out of 1 billion polygons that looks great given enough time.
Using less to make more? That is where the true art is involved and THAT is where you either spend money to get a real artist, you put out a bad model, or you fill your game with polygons and it runs like crap!
Try it yourself.. see how many lines on a piece of paper it takes you to draw a realistic or well-styled human. It is easier to do with 1000 lines than it is to do with 20. Anyone can do this experiment.
The billion polygon human is going to be a lot more expensive to produce. Comparing the previous generation of Unreal graphics to the current generation of Unreal graphics, it takes six times longer to create the models, textures, and animations for people who know what they are doing*. This is more of a limiting factor for indie games than the skill of the people producing the graphics.
A AAA developer will have ten, twenty or a hundred people to produce graphics for a game. An indie developer will have two guys. The difference in the amount of time it takes to produce the graphics is so extreme that the indie developer has to cut corners someplace or the game will never get finished. Lower the polygon count, lower the total number of models that need to be created by reusing them or something else that is going to have an impact on the finished product.
* This is information from people who work in the industry, and a warning included in the UDK training materials. The "bigger" the graphics get, the longer it takes to work with them. Time how long it takes to draw anything with 1,000 lines and how long it takes to draw anything with 20 lines to see the time difference for yourself.
**
Concerning High Polygon modeling, from Epic Games, the people who make the Unreal Development Kit:
High polygon modeling is a very time consuming task, especially given the detail required to make normal maps really shine. It is helpful to ask around and find out what experience your artists have with high polygon modeling and scale your production estimates accordingly. If your artists have no experience in creating high polygon models, expect up to five to six times as long to create a model in Unreal Development Kit compared to a model for Unreal Engine 2. As artists become more comfortable with UDK, that should drop to four to five times. Finally, expect a seasoned high polygon modeler to take about half as long as that.
So from generation 2 to generation 3, it takes 4 to 5 times as long to create models using high polygon models for people with experience. It can take up to 5 or 6 times as long while learning to use the high polygon models. If it takes one day to make a low polygon model, it takes four or five days to make a high polygon model. That's a huge increase in cost for a game developer.
"Niche" is a very broad word, if used literally. However, I think its definition is pretty clear in this case, although there are some borderline cases, such as EVE. I don't think arguing about them being niche or not is productive.
Originally posted by Tamanous
A niche game doesn't mean it has to be a broke indie company.
UO was a niche game.
EQ was a niche game.
AC was a niche game.
...
I don't think you can compare the way the market was back then with the way it is now.
For example, I'd love to play a modern version of UO, but I highly doubt it's possible without a rather big budget. I mean a really modern version, with good 3D graphics and combat on par with other modern titles. AA seems to have many of UO's features, but it's got a huge budget. Yes, it's not as expensive as Western games tend to be, but considering Korean labor costs...
The billion polygon human is going to be a lot more expensive to produce. Comparing the previous generation of Unreal graphics to the current generation of Unreal graphics, it takes six times longer to create the models, textures, and animations for people who know what they are doing*. This is more of a limiting factor for indie games than the skill of the people producing the graphics.
A AAA developer will have ten, twenty or a hundred people to produce graphics for a game. An indie developer will have two guys. The difference in the amount of time it takes to produce the graphics is so extreme that the indie developer has to cut corners someplace or the game will never get finished. Lower the polygon count, lower the total number of models that need to be created by reusing them or something else that is going to have an impact on the finished product.
* This is information from people who work in the industry, and a warning included in the UDK training materials. The "bigger" the graphics get, the longer it takes to work with them. Time how long it takes to draw anything with 1,000 lines and how long it takes to draw anything with 20 lines to see the time difference for yourself.
Well said, this is exactly what I was trying to say. Anyway I'm sad that we got so hung up on arguing on the GRAPHICS part of the design of all things. I think most developers if not all are well aware of how to be economical on the graphics if push comes to shove. It's the other things I mentioned that I think developers are not really considering when making an MMO if they have a lower budget but still want to make a great game i.e. lowering the world sizes and making them harder/more densely populated with stuff to do, implementing more robust and ageless activities (other than quests, dungeons and raids), limiting the amount of time players can play to progress their avatar to a healthy amount, forget about going heavy with the voice acting etc.
I don't think you can compare the way the market was back then with the way it is now.
For example, I'd love to play a modern version of UO, but I highly doubt it's possible without a rather big budget. I mean a really modern version, with good 3D graphics and combat on par with other modern titles. AA seems to have many of UO's features, but it's got a huge budget. Yes, it's not as expensive as Western games tend to be, but considering Korean labor costs...
You absolutely can compare them. It has only gotten easier over the years to make MMOs. Hardware is better, internet is faster. Art assets take more time but so long as you aren't shooting for photorealism that's not really the big issue. The big issue is design is hard, but the early MMO designers were good at it.
Comments
others simply want to be able to achieve the renown of being *the* crafter, the one who can craft high quality items that only a handful of other crafters can make, or the one who can make the *best* <fill in item here>. and in game with a serious crafting system, like SWG some of those items have nothing to do with combat at all.
as for niche games im in total agreement here. for instance, would you like to play an mmo whose skill system is completely open for you to master whatever you want? a game where you can master all the harvesting or crafting trades you would like to master? a game where your guild can actually build their own fortress? then you want to play Runescape3.
oh, you don't like the graphics? its a 'kiddy' game? hm, interesting.
"There are at least two kinds of games.
One could be called finite, the other infinite.
A finite game is played for the purpose of winning,
an infinite game for the purpose of continuing play."
Finite and Infinite Games, James Carse
I hope you are not implying that I consider GW2 to be niche simply because you think I don't like it? GW2 didn't aim for the mainstream MMORPG audience, they catered to a niche; one such niche being the "horizontal progression niche for things that make your character powerful".
Edit: Since you edited your text afterwards, I'll edit mine to reply to some more of your edited statements: among the MMORPG population, the "horizontal progression" players are a minority, that's why it is a niche.
I still consider EVE to be a niche game. Mortal Online and Darkfall (at least pre-UW), just bad implementation and poor design choices. "Niche" it's not the same as "bad".
"EVE is likely the best MMORPG that you've never really understood or played" - Kyleran
EVE-Online started as a tiny indie niche game, but turned into a huge indie niche game !
I doubt anyone here will argue that EVE isn't a niche game. Yet it has more subs than most of the AAA MMO's that launched in the last 7 years.
EVE is proof that niche games don't have to be small budget, buggy and limited in scope. But they have to focus on their target market and serve it well.
For every EVE there will be a 100 Darkfall's and a 1000 Mortal Online's...
I know too little about the movie industry and about the movie "The Avengers" to know whether or not "The Avengers" catered to a specific niche or not.
To get a better understanding of the word "niche", let's consult a dictionary (such as www.dictionary.com):
noun
2.
3.
4.
adjective
Defenition 1 and 4 are not relevant in this scenario. 5 refers to the noun "niche" to yield an implicit definition.
Do we really have the time and patience to go back to all these stuff?
RIP Orc Choppa
See, my reply above which refers to the dictionary definition of the word "niche". Something that may be small in certain situations, does not need to be small in other situations.
1 million dollars is certainly a lot for a person to have if you compare to the average wealth a person has, but it is very little compared to the total wealth of a country. EVE catered to a niche and is still doing so; it nay not be the exact same niche (I know too little of EVE history to know for sure) but it is still a niche.
I hope you are not implying that I consider GW2 to be niche simply because you think I don't like it? GW2 didn't aim for the mainstream MMORPG audience, they catered to a niche; one such niche being the "horizontal progression niche for things that make your character powerful".
Pretending GW2 is a "niche" game is like pretending "The Avengers" is niche because it didn't beat "Avatar" at the box office. It doesn't make any sense at all.
I know too little about the movie industry and about the movie "The Avengers" to know whether or not "The Avengers" catered to a specific niche or not.
To get a better understanding of the word "niche", let's consult a dictionary (such as www.dictionary.com):
noun 1. an ornamental recess in a wall or the like, usually semicircular inplan and arched, as for a statue or other decorative object. 2. a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing:to find one's niche in the business world. 3. a distinct segment of a market. 4. Ecology . the position or function of an organism in acommunity of plants and animals. adjective 5. pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specificappeal: niche advertising. Defenition 1 and 4 are not relevant in this scenario. 5 refers to the noun "niche" to yield an implicit definition. So that leaves us with 2 and 3. Is the "horizontal progression"-market a distinct segment of the MMORPG market? I would say yes, and therefore 3 holds. Is the "horizontal progression" position a position suitable or appropiate for GW2 in the MMORPG market? Yes, it has shown that indeed is so, so 2 holds.
So you're saying that GW2 targeted only the horizontal progression market and that's it? Because I'm pretty sure they targeted the competitive PvP market, and a the story driven progression PvE market as well. GW2 didn't target a single market, but several. It's not a niche game, even by the limited definition you've presented.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Ready for Niche games? Devs are so afraid of theyr mmo's becoming "niche" that they try to play it safe by following wow's themepark example, the end result is that they end up becoming the worst kind of "niche", one that is already satisfyed!
I think its a mistake to consider mmo's that don't go with the norm niche, the only way you are gonna introduce a considerable amount of new players into your mmo is by breaking the norm.
This is one of the things wow did well, they broke the norm of back then which were "hardcore" mmos that you for the most part had to figure out yourself, wow did the exact opposite and introduced a mmorpg which offered plenty of guidance, while being easy enough for anyone to get into it.
We need to keep in mind that those who once needed theyr hand held when first being introduced to wow, have now grown up and become alot more experienced with mmos in general, just like those of us who are old school mmorpg players, they are now searching for a challenge that the current generation of mmos just wont offer.
Also when I hear people call the idea of introducing first person shooter like combat niche I have to laugh, this is exactly the kind of changes that have the potential of introducing a massive amount of new players to the genre, namely fps players, belive it or not, someone likeing fps combat does not mean rpg does not intrest them.
Another example is Player ran factions and territories, if this was fleshed out properly it could attract rts players that would not previously touch a mmorpg. And no this does not mean pvp would have to be forced on anyone.
I don't think a quality niche MMO is impossible to make. The things that inflate the budgets of AAA games to astronomical numbers can be avoided in the initial release of a quality niche game.
1) There's no reason to make the starting world massively large when 90% of the world's real estate will hardly be visited or used one month into the game's release. You could make a world smaller but more densely populated with things to do that don't get exhausted as easily or as quickly. You can create the illusion that there's a much larger world out there but it can't be reached yet because there are very dangerous regions to overcome or hostile countries to ally with, conquer, or bypass, or "technology/magic "to be discovered before you can travel there (much like how travel was limited in ancient times in the real world).
2) There's no reason to put a huge budget into voice acting. We saw with SWTOR how little the massive amount of voice acting improved the overall game yet increased the games budget to astronomical levels. Games can still have very good quality without alot of voice acting.
3) Be more reasonable with the graphics. A game doesn't have to have high end graphics to be beautiful. WoW was released with what was considered vastly subpar graphics for the time and yet managed to be beautiful for millions of players for a number of years. They achieved this by having a great art style, a polished and a fluid game. Personally I found WoW to be more beautiful on a daily basis than EQII simply because the game felt alot more fluid and functional. Sure EQII had much better graphics but it didn't feel right, and that made all the difference.
4) Give people things to do in the game world that don't ever get old. Player housing, minigames (crafting mini-games anyone?), platforming, competitions. Implementing these kinds of systems may add to your budget but they are very cost effective in the long run. They allow the players to stay involved in the game without having to create alot of virtual real estate that most players won't use or only use a few times (quest lines, dungeons, raids etc.)
5) Limit the amount of time players can effectively play the game each day. I've always been a fan of MMO's implementing a sort of "sleep system" for the avatars. In such a system players can play 6-8 hours a day without needing to rest but then they would have to log off in order for their characters to "sleep" and recoup their strength. In such a system the avatars would become fatigued after very extended play and would start to perform so crappy in everything they do (combat, crafting etc.) so that there's no reason to try to stay on and keep progressing (but you still could stay logged in if you wanted to do non-progression type activities like chat or social interaction in game). I like this idea because it accomplishes multiple things:
-It lowers the power gaps that can arise between players that just no-life the game and players that play an average or small amount without taking into account the player skill.
-It establishes a moderate pace at which players can get through the content of the game regardless of skill level. (the most skilled players will still get through the game much faster than the rest but it won't be much faster than new content can be produced).
-It forces the players to have semi-healthy gaming habits; playing a game for 4-6 hours every day can be considered moderately hardcore by anyone but not allowing much more prevents the truly obsessed players from playing for life-threatening numbers of hours.
-It makes it much harder to cheat on character progression by paying people to powerlevel you, take turns with you or w/e.
-It lowers the effectiveness of chinese farmers and the like because they cannot farm for much more than the other gamers can.
All these things and more can be done to make a quality, polished and functional niche MMO on a lower budget but no one is doing it; the reason being that big companies have seen the success of WoW and want to make a game that can attract and maintain millions of players, not 500k to a million.
Some of the responses from the nice crowd players who want a brand new high production niche mmo make ma smile.
Buy a console because your best niche high production mmos are going to come from console soon
Trust me
*Cough cough*
Destiny? The Crew? The Division?
All three of these would be considered niche mmos on PC.
But yet all three have AAA production values, great graphics and are not your standard Lord of the Rings/WoW clone
You want a niche AAA graat looking mmorpg?
Guess what?
You better go get yourself a PS4. Developers go where the money is and now that many are realizing that WoW money means that audience wants to play WoW, they aren't going to try that hard on what they consider to be an unproven market.
But they sure as hell will throw these resources into a bigger market console mmo
Mark my words ten years from now, the best mmos WILL originate on console in the niches people want to see.
As soon as the console market starts clarmoring for a true Skyrim Online, they will have it, and it will be everything we want from graphics to gameplay to open sandbox everything and it won't suck and be rife with meaningless excuses from pc mmo makers. It will just be made, and you my pc gaming friends will buy it.
*Beeep*
Play-statshun!
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Yes, you have a good point there, they targetted several niches, some more successful than others. Specially the esport dreams have so far been a failure.
Do those niches altogether form a group of niches that is too large in comparison to the whole MMORPG market to be considered a niche? I very much doubt so. They certainly did not target the largest part of the MMORPG market which is the vertical progression people.
Perhaps you are mixing up the terms "niche" and "independent" (also known as "indie"), GW2 was certainly not an indie game.
A niche game doesn't mean it has to be a broke indie company.
UO was a niche game.
EQ was a niche game.
AC was a niche game.
What makes them niche is they were designed from the ground up to be a specific kind of rpg game. They did not try (at least early on) to cater to every single play style out there. You played them they way they wanted you to play it or you didn't play at all. Obviously there is diversity of play style regardless but in no way the same as today's Wow-type games where each play style is wrapped in pillows and made sure nobody bumps into each other to create the slightest possibility of conflict.
Older mmos were driven by conflict ... and the players of that generation of mmo love it. It reinforced social interaction. Today such interaction is viewed as negative. The developers forgot that mmorpgs were all about conflict and that player base enjoyed it. This is what made it niche ... it focused development towards a certain type of player. This has nothing to do with how much money the company has. All that is required is a large enough player base to support the game. Fewer players = fewer service support needed. It is all relative.
UO had their support team and release schedule, EQ did too and AC had nearly monthly updates ... something todays games can't possibly do because of development times associated with improved graphics. Even Blizzard admitted their new higher poly count models now take months to make instead of days and they are the rich kids on the block.
The issue lately is that the word "niche" is being thrown around a lot lately and evidently many people have no clue what is even means. It simply means focusing on developing a game in a specific style not trying to cater to every single play style out there. ALL games were made like this before yet some how people started thinking mmos should be a gift to the world instead of sticking to an actual concept. There is more than enough room out there for many types of mmos. They only have to be good. The issue today is that it doesn't matter if most of the recently released mmos are niche or not ... they simply just suck.
You stay sassy!
Who is this "we" you speak of ?
If you're talking about the "worldwide community of gamers", just keep in mind that it consists of all the people who played UO at launch, right through to the kids who logged into their first ever MMO last week.
There are millions of gamers in the world who can play for 4 or 5 hours a day without any problem...
My point is that people (or at least me and every MMO player I've ever conversed with) want/need good animations quality and art style. They don't need a game to have high polygons or look too realistic to consider it beautiful. If you are going to cut corners somewhere, cut it it on the polygons and focus on animations instead. I'm just talking about where developers can save money on the budget by focusing on things that players really care about and not squandering it on things that don't do much to improve the quality of the game.
A low polygon game with good art style and animations still costs significantly less than a high polygon game with them.
There's a huge difference between a studio of experienced developers making a niche title, and a basement startup group with no support or experience making an indie title for a niche audience.
We have one now, we had the other in the 90s and early 00s. Guess which is which.
Also, to the OP, you're full of it. Niche MMOs usually have vastly more gameplay options than themepark MMOs. UO has a million different things to do. In WoW, you can... quest... and uh... quest... and grind.. and.. quest? There's no deep crafting, player market, no housing, no meaningful PvP, no evolving storylines. None of it.
And WoW has always looked like dated garbage, yet people play it. (mainly due to marketing). I'd rather have dated graphics with actually good gameplay, than these lifeless MMOs of the last 8 years.
Absolutely 100% true.
Anyone can make a human out of 1 billion polygons that looks great given enough time.
Using less to make more? That is where the true art is involved and THAT is where you either spend money to get a real artist, you put out a bad model, or you fill your game with polygons and it runs like crap!
Try it yourself.. see how many lines on a piece of paper it takes you to draw a realistic or well-styled human. It is easier to do with 1000 lines than it is to do with 20. Anyone can do this experiment.
If that is the case why is it that more often than not the high polygon count MMO's feel clunkier than the lower ones? Is it just that all the good talent goes to the low polygon games? I hardly think that's the case.
I will agree that having more restrictions places more burden on the designers shoulders to find innovative ways to make it look good but that doesn't necessarily equal a higher budget cost. Yes you can make something beautiful easier using more lines, but let's talk about animation. Is it easier to draw a character making a movement when the character is composed of few lines or many? It's much easier to screw up the fluidity of animation when you have more lines to take into account. Having to develop or purchase an engine and use the hardware to make a game look realistic AND fluid AND that can run stable on an acceptable range of gaming pc's should still cost more.
No.. you are wrong. Niche does catering to a part of a greater amount. Like FPS is a niche in comparsion to all computer gamers. As much as DoTA/LoL is a niche catering to a very specific kind of taste and gameplay.
So it is completely irrelevant how many player a certain game play, as long as it caters to a specific audience within a greater set of games. Like EvE is niche for MMORPGs. I don't know if GW2 is really a niche game as it is more or less aimed to almost any kind of mmorpg gamer, although the progression hint has some value. Exactly like DAoC tried to catering to a niche, also at the very same time tried to catched all.. and did a terrible job with it. (hint ToA expansion)
Niche is not defined by numbers alone, so a niche game can have as many players as it wants, as long as it is not aimed to all players, or all players of a certain set. As BF series is niche within the FPS set catering especially to the team multiplayer crowd and ignoring more or less the singleplayer FPS crowd and the death match multiplayer FPS crowd.
I hope you are not implying that I consider GW2 to be niche simply because you think I don't like it? GW2 didn't aim for the mainstream MMORPG audience, they catered to a niche; one such niche being the "horizontal progression niche for things that make your character powerful".
Pretending GW2 is a "niche" game is like pretending "The Avengers" is niche because it didn't beat "Avatar" at the box office. It doesn't make any sense at all.
I know too little about the movie industry and about the movie "The Avengers" to know whether or not "The Avengers" catered to a specific niche or not. To get a better understanding of the word "niche", let's consult a dictionary (such as www.dictionary.com): noun 1. an ornamental recess in a wall or the like, usually semicircular inplan and arched, as for a statue or other decorative object. 2. a place or position suitable or appropriate for a person or thing:to find one's niche in the business world. 3. a distinct segment of a market. 4. Ecology . the position or function of an organism in acommunity of plants and animals. adjective 5. pertaining to or intended for a market niche; having specificappeal: niche advertising. Defenition 1 and 4 are not relevant in this scenario. 5 refers to the noun "niche" to yield an implicit definition. So that leaves us with 2 and 3. Is the "horizontal progression"-market a distinct segment of the MMORPG market? I would say yes, and therefore 3 holds. Is the "horizontal progression" position a position suitable or appropiate for GW2 in the MMORPG market? Yes, it has shown that indeed is so, so 2 holds.
So you're saying that GW2 targeted only the horizontal progression market and that's it? Because I'm pretty sure they targeted the competitive PvP market, and a the story driven progression PvE market as well. GW2 didn't target a single market, but several. It's not a niche game, even by the limited definition you've presented.
Yes, you have a good point there, they targetted several niches, some more successful than others. Specially the esport dreams have so far been a failure.
Do those niches altogether form a group of niches that is too large in comparison to the whole MMORPG market to be considered a niche? I very much doubt so. They certainly did not target the largest part of the MMORPG market which is the vertical progression people.
Perhaps you are mixing up the terms "niche" and "independent" (also known as "indie"), GW2 was certainly not an indie game.
No, I'm using your definition of "niche". GW2 targets a range of market segments, not one specific group of players. If GW2 targets a range of players rather than one specific group, it is not a niche game.
GW2 sold over two million copies of the game shortly after the game was released. Not many other MMORPG have achieved this. Size wise, GW2 is not a niche game either.
The only way you're correct in your usage of "niche" in regards to GW2 is that any market segment can be described as a "niche", so all games are in some way a "niche" game, even if the niche is described as "people who play game {x}".
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
The billion polygon human is going to be a lot more expensive to produce. Comparing the previous generation of Unreal graphics to the current generation of Unreal graphics, it takes six times longer to create the models, textures, and animations for people who know what they are doing*. This is more of a limiting factor for indie games than the skill of the people producing the graphics.
A AAA developer will have ten, twenty or a hundred people to produce graphics for a game. An indie developer will have two guys. The difference in the amount of time it takes to produce the graphics is so extreme that the indie developer has to cut corners someplace or the game will never get finished. Lower the polygon count, lower the total number of models that need to be created by reusing them or something else that is going to have an impact on the finished product.
* This is information from people who work in the industry, and a warning included in the UDK training materials. The "bigger" the graphics get, the longer it takes to work with them. Time how long it takes to draw anything with 1,000 lines and how long it takes to draw anything with 20 lines to see the time difference for yourself.
**
Concerning High Polygon modeling, from Epic Games, the people who make the Unreal Development Kit:
So from generation 2 to generation 3, it takes 4 to 5 times as long to create models using high polygon models for people with experience. It can take up to 5 or 6 times as long while learning to use the high polygon models. If it takes one day to make a low polygon model, it takes four or five days to make a high polygon model. That's a huge increase in cost for a game developer.
http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitContentCreation.html
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
"Niche" is a very broad word, if used literally. However, I think its definition is pretty clear in this case, although there are some borderline cases, such as EVE. I don't think arguing about them being niche or not is productive.
I don't think you can compare the way the market was back then with the way it is now.
For example, I'd love to play a modern version of UO, but I highly doubt it's possible without a rather big budget. I mean a really modern version, with good 3D graphics and combat on par with other modern titles. AA seems to have many of UO's features, but it's got a huge budget. Yes, it's not as expensive as Western games tend to be, but considering Korean labor costs...
Well said, this is exactly what I was trying to say. Anyway I'm sad that we got so hung up on arguing on the GRAPHICS part of the design of all things. I think most developers if not all are well aware of how to be economical on the graphics if push comes to shove. It's the other things I mentioned that I think developers are not really considering when making an MMO if they have a lower budget but still want to make a great game i.e. lowering the world sizes and making them harder/more densely populated with stuff to do, implementing more robust and ageless activities (other than quests, dungeons and raids), limiting the amount of time players can play to progress their avatar to a healthy amount, forget about going heavy with the voice acting etc.
You absolutely can compare them. It has only gotten easier over the years to make MMOs. Hardware is better, internet is faster. Art assets take more time but so long as you aren't shooting for photorealism that's not really the big issue. The big issue is design is hard, but the early MMO designers were good at it.