Originally posted by TibernicuspaThis. My interests didn't change, the genre did.
It had to. Stagnant markets are not a good thing. The market wasn't stagnant. MMOs were growing bigger and pushing more innovative ideas every year. A new game was being created for someone all the time. The games were aimed at target audience, not scattershot products that please no one. They were growing steadily over the course of years, not sinking 3 months after launch. With investors demanding more return source? and also dev budgets skyrocketing like crazy aource? the market had to expand harshly and reach a much wider target audience. This fundamentally influences what the games look like.
Basically, the world turned on, we didn't. Now we are a niche and have to accept niche products. Niche is what this genre has always been. Almost all the big AAA products fail, most don't even get higher numbers than the old niche products. Games that fill a niche tend to be the successful ones. You can't have 10 mass market games that appeal to everyone.They are out there. Maybe not as flashy as the big AAA titles, but more to our taste. They aren't, or we'd be playing them. There's a huge difference between niche products, and underfunded indie projects.
The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
I agree with the OP. Many of your responses here I think miss the main point. Just because I love the freedom of EQ (still do) doesn't mean I want all new games to be made as they were in 1999. That doesn't make sense. I believe what the OP is saying (and he can correct me) is that the features in the old MMOs don't exist anymore. We dont have virtual worlds anymore. Now I dont want a new game with a virtual world like EQ, I want an UPDATED, EVOLVED virtual world that BORROWS from EQ.
I'm not hating on the current games, somebody likes them. But I feel they are losing the essence that made them MMOs. Today I see no difference between a single player game and the MMOs (besides the obvious of one being online and many people can play at the same time -- that isn't the full defintion of an MMO for me).
I also agree games are not made by gamers anymore. Its all about metrics and putting something out that can gain a return. For the kids who argue that the games they are playing today are better aren't old enough to understand or connect with what they are missing.
I'm an older gamer as well being 40. Like others I dont have the "endless" time I had when I was in my 20s. But that doesn't mean I want a game so easy that its handed to me. Thats not fun. I also don't want to camp mobs like we did back in the day. You need to separate what we loved from how it was implemented. I want the former to be evolved, but agree the latter can be forgotten.
I have a cure for you. Go to Star Citizen site. Read info, watch there podcasts and ship commercials. Imagine how mind blowing it will be in Oculus Rift. Get hyped again
I agree with the OP. Many of your responses here I think miss the main point. Just because I love the freedom of EQ (still do) doesn't mean I want all new games to be made as they were in 1999. That doesn't make sense. I believe what the OP is saying (and he can correct me) is that the features in the old MMOs don't exist anymore. We dont have virtual worlds anymore. Now I dont want a new game with a virtual world like EQ, I want an UPDATED, EVOLVED virtual world that BORROWS from EQ.
I'm not hating on the current games, somebody likes them. But I feel they are losing the essence that made them MMOs. Today I see no difference between a single player game and the MMOs (besides the obvious of one being online and many people can play at the same time -- that isn't the full defintion of an MMO for me).
I also agree games are not made by gamers anymore. Its all about metrics and putting something out that can gain a return. For the kids who argue that the games they are playing today are better aren't old enough to understand or connect with what they are missing.
I'm an older gamer as well being 40. Like others I dont have the "endless" time I had when I was in my 20s. But that doesn't mean I want a game so easy that its handed to me. Thats not fun. I also don't want to camp mobs like we did back in the day. You need to separate what we loved from how it was implemented. I want the former to be evolved, but agree the latter can be forgotten.
Pretty much what I was trying to say a few posts up, you articulated it much better than I could.
Originally posted by Tibernicuspa Originally posted by GaendricOriginally posted by TibernicuspaThis. My interests didn't change, the genre did.
It had to. Stagnant markets are not a good thing. The market wasn't stagnant. MMOs were growing bigger and pushing more innovative ideas every year. A new game was being created for someone all the time. The games were aimed at target audience, not scattershot products that please no one. They were growing steadily over the course of years, not sinking 3 months after launch. With investors demanding more return source? and also dev budgets skyrocketing like crazy aource? the market had to expand harshly and reach a much wider target audience. This fundamentally influences what the games look like. Basically, the world turned on, we didn't. Now we are a niche and have to accept niche products. Niche is what this genre has always been. Almost all the big AAA products fail, most don't even get higher numbers than the old niche products. Games that fill a niche tend to be the successful ones. You can't have 10 mass market games that appeal to everyone.They are out there. Maybe not as flashy as the big AAA titles, but more to our taste. They aren't, or we'd be playing them. There's a huge difference between niche products, and underfunded indie projects. The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
Video games in general have gotten more expensive, and so have MMORPGs.
At the very least, investors are going to expect a larger gross return when their gross investment is larger.
Where is your source for new games not getting numbers higher than the old niche products? SWG capped out at 300k subs. UO capped out at 278k subs. EQ, the biggest success capped out at 550k subs just before it crashed.
AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs.
As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now. Everyone who can hear about a game will hear about a game and play that game when it releases, not years later. Building slowly over time doesn't imply any better retention rates than getting all possible players initially anyway.
This image shows two different graphs. One shows a 'slow' adoption, one shows a 'fast' adoption. The number of 'users' and retention rate of those users is exactly the same between the two scenarios, it's just that one graph shows the users piling on immediately, and the other shows people building up over time.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Mainstream games can do it all. Those old time games weren't as good as people remember and these new ones are nearly as bad. There is most of what people claim to want in GW2, WoW, and Wildstar..if not quite a perfect amount of everything.
Don't get me wrong I personally wanted a kind of "EQ on steroids' model of game to come out.. and EQN seems to be a joke so I am kinda bummed out. But I think Wildstar and ESO will bring the genre a bit forward..
Who are you to tell us these games were not as good as we remember? Maybe they were not to you but you cannot speak for everyone. I know EXACTLY what I liked about the old school MMO's and those things are completely missing in the new MMO's.
The two games you speak of bringing the genre forward....you are severely mistaken. Neither are innovative in any way over the current MMO model. They will be just another of the many MMO's on the market for people to choose from, nothing more or less.
If they were as good as you claim they were, why are you not still playing them? Because they changed the games? That's because more people disliked those things than liked them. Seriously, people have to get the hell over their own personal wishes and desires and realize that if their dreams don't represent a significant portion of the gaming population, then their dreams are worthless.
If they were as good as you claim they were, why are you not still playing them? Because they changed the games? That's because more people disliked those things than liked them. Seriously, people have to get the hell over their own personal wishes and desires and realize that if their dreams don't represent a significant portion of the gaming population, then their dreams are worthless.
Your comment is worthless.
The people dreaming of having spiritual successors to Star Wars Galaxies or City of Heroes and trying to make them happen are awesome.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Originally posted by TibernicuspaThis. My interests didn't change, the genre did.
It had to. Stagnant markets are not a good thing. The market wasn't stagnant. MMOs were growing bigger and pushing more innovative ideas every year. A new game was being created for someone all the time. The games were aimed at target audience, not scattershot products that please no one. They were growing steadily over the course of years, not sinking 3 months after launch. With investors demanding more return source? and also dev budgets skyrocketing like crazy aource? the market had to expand harshly and reach a much wider target audience. This fundamentally influences what the games look like. Basically, the world turned on, we didn't. Now we are a niche and have to accept niche products. Niche is what this genre has always been. Almost all the big AAA products fail, most don't even get higher numbers than the old niche products. Games that fill a niche tend to be the successful ones. You can't have 10 mass market games that appeal to everyone.They are out there. Maybe not as flashy as the big AAA titles, but more to our taste. They aren't, or we'd be playing them. There's a huge difference between niche products, and underfunded indie projects.
The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs.
As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now.
Wrong. Wrong so many times over. AoC started off with 900k, and then crashed so hard that two partner studios of Funcom's went bankrupt.
Building for years is still possible, just look at Eve. You need the right kind of design to keep people playing long term, and that design, almost all the founders of the genre agree, is designing the game so that players generate their own content and socialize, which results in people forming bonds and sticking together longer.
Mainstream games can do it all. Those old time games weren't as good as people remember and these new ones are nearly as bad. There is most of what people claim to want in GW2, WoW, and Wildstar..if not quite a perfect amount of everything.
Don't get me wrong I personally wanted a kind of "EQ on steroids' model of game to come out.. and EQN seems to be a joke so I am kinda bummed out. But I think Wildstar and ESO will bring the genre a bit forward..
Who are you to tell us these games were not as good as we remember? Maybe they were not to you but you cannot speak for everyone. I know EXACTLY what I liked about the old school MMO's and those things are completely missing in the new MMO's.
The two games you speak of bringing the genre forward....you are severely mistaken. Neither are innovative in any way over the current MMO model. They will be just another of the many MMO's on the market for people to choose from, nothing more or less.
If they were as good as you claim they were, why are you not still playing them? Because they changed the games? That's because more people disliked those things than liked them.
Uh, no. If more people liked those changes, then the changes wouldn't have made those games lose all their players. Do you even think through what you type?
In most cases, devs changed their games trying to cash in on the casual market, alienate their core playerbase, and fail to attract casual players, so the games end up dead. The team washes their hands of the matter and starts to work on a new game aimed at casuals from the start, which also fails in an amazing way.
Originally posted by Tibernicuspa Originally posted by lizardbonesOriginally posted by TibernicuspaOriginally posted by GaendricOriginally posted by TibernicuspaThis. My interests didn't change, the genre did.
It had to. Stagnant markets are not a good thing. The market wasn't stagnant. MMOs were growing bigger and pushing more innovative ideas every year. A new game was being created for someone all the time. The games were aimed at target audience, not scattershot products that please no one. They were growing steadily over the course of years, not sinking 3 months after launch. With investors demanding more return source? and also dev budgets skyrocketing like crazy aource? the market had to expand harshly and reach a much wider target audience. This fundamentally influences what the games look like. Basically, the world turned on, we didn't. Now we are a niche and have to accept niche products. Niche is what this genre has always been. Almost all the big AAA products fail, most don't even get higher numbers than the old niche products. Games that fill a niche tend to be the successful ones. You can't have 10 mass market games that appeal to everyone.They are out there. Maybe not as flashy as the big AAA titles, but more to our taste. They aren't, or we'd be playing them. There's a huge difference between niche products, and underfunded indie projects. The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now. AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs. As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now. Wrong. Wrong so many times over. AoC started off with 900k, and then crashed so hard that two partner studios of Funcom's went bankrupt.
Building for years is still possible, just look at Eve. You need the right kind of design to keep people playing long term, and that design, almost all the founders of the genre agree, is designing the game so that players generate their own content and socialize, which results in people forming bonds and sticking together longer.
Building up slowly over time has nothing to do with retention. The retention rates of a game that builds up over time and pulls in many players at once can be exactly the same. If you'd care to show some sort of math that proves otherwise, I'd love to see it.
Eve released in 2003, a year before WoW. A time when games could build up slowly over time. Maybe that's how they had to before WoW released. The point is, Eve isn't a new game. If Eve released today, everyone who could know about the game would know about the game before it released, and all of those people would join the game when it released. They wouldn't wait years.
The only way a game is going to slowly build over time is if it has no advertising budget, doesn't show up on any gaming sites, or (like Eve) sucks when it releases* and takes years to reach a state where people enjoy the game.
AoC, probably the weakest of the 'AAA' games still running reached a point that none of the 'old school' games ever got close to. It started with 900k subscribers. It has far fewer now, but there was no way it was going to have more. There weren't any more people who were interested in playing the game. 900k was it. Remember, AoC is the weakest of the AAA games running right now. All of the rest of them have more players and are making more money. AoC, as weak as it was financed the creation of an entirely new MMORPG. The only older niche game that did was Everquest.
The old niche games did not do as well as newer AAA games. We know this because if they did, we would be playing games just like those older niche games. We're not. The market follows the money. The money is not in those older niche games.
* Eve is a good game. Maybe a great game. It wasn't when it released.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
Mainstream games can do it all. Those old time games weren't as good as people remember and these new ones are nearly as bad. There is most of what people claim to want in GW2, WoW, and Wildstar..if not quite a perfect amount of everything.
Don't get me wrong I personally wanted a kind of "EQ on steroids' model of game to come out.. and EQN seems to be a joke so I am kinda bummed out. But I think Wildstar and ESO will bring the genre a bit forward..
Who are you to tell us these games were not as good as we remember? Maybe they were not to you but you cannot speak for everyone. I know EXACTLY what I liked about the old school MMO's and those things are completely missing in the new MMO's.
The two games you speak of bringing the genre forward....you are severely mistaken. Neither are innovative in any way over the current MMO model. They will be just another of the many MMO's on the market for people to choose from, nothing more or less.
If they were as good as you claim they were, why are you not still playing them? Because they changed the games? That's because more people disliked those things than liked them.
Uh, no. If more people liked those changes, then the changes wouldn't have made those games lose all their players. Do you even think through what you type?
In most cases, devs changed their games trying to cash in on the casual market, alienate their core playerbase, and fail to attract casual players, so the games end up dead. The team washes their hands of the matter and starts to work on a new game aimed at casuals from the start, which also fails in an amazing way.
Seriously, learn something.
It would seem that if the game was doing great to begin with it would not have to try and change to cash in on another market. Do not see Eve changing.
Originally posted by TibernicuspaThis. My interests didn't change, the genre did.
It had to. Stagnant markets are not a good thing. The market wasn't stagnant. MMOs were growing bigger and pushing more innovative ideas every year. A new game was being created for someone all the time. The games were aimed at target audience, not scattershot products that please no one. They were growing steadily over the course of years, not sinking 3 months after launch. With investors demanding more return source? and also dev budgets skyrocketing like crazy aource? the market had to expand harshly and reach a much wider target audience. This fundamentally influences what the games look like. Basically, the world turned on, we didn't. Now we are a niche and have to accept niche products. Niche is what this genre has always been. Almost all the big AAA products fail, most don't even get higher numbers than the old niche products. Games that fill a niche tend to be the successful ones. You can't have 10 mass market games that appeal to everyone.They are out there. Maybe not as flashy as the big AAA titles, but more to our taste. They aren't, or we'd be playing them. There's a huge difference between niche products, and underfunded indie projects.
The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs. As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now.
Wrong. Wrong so many times over. AoC started off with 900k, and then crashed so hard that two partner studios of Funcom's went bankrupt.
Building for years is still possible, just look at Eve. You need the right kind of design to keep people playing long term, and that design, almost all the founders of the genre agree, is designing the game so that players generate their own content and socialize, which results in people forming bonds and sticking together longer.
Building up slowly over time has nothing to do with retention. The retention rates of a game that builds up over time and pulls in many players at once can be exactly the same. If you'd care to show some sort of math that proves otherwise, I'd love to see it.
Eve released in 2003, a year before WoW. A time when games could build up slowly over time. Maybe that's how they had to before WoW released. The point is, Eve isn't a new game. If Eve released today, everyone who could know about the game would know about the game before it released, and all of those people would join the game when it released. They wouldn't wait years.
The only way a game is going to slowly build over time is if it has no advertising budget, doesn't show up on any gaming sites, or (like Eve) sucks when it releases* and takes years to reach a state where people enjoy the game.
AoC, probably the weakest of the 'AAA' games still running reached a point that none of the 'old school' games ever got close to. It started with 900k subscribers. It has far fewer now, but there was no way it was going to have more. There weren't any more people who were interested in playing the game. 900k was it. Remember, AoC is the weakest of the AAA games running right now. All of the rest of them have more players and are making more money. AoC, as weak as it was financed the creation of an entirely new MMORPG. The only older niche game that did was Everquest.
The old niche games did not do as well as newer AAA games. We know this because if they did, we would be playing games just like those older niche games. We're not. The market follows the money. The money is not in those older niche games.
* Eve is a good game. Maybe a great game. It wasn't when it released.
I think adding on to this is that players demand a lot more out of a game out the door than they did in the past. Now it must have all the current features and something "innovative". That costs money. When people invest money they expect a return. You have to show them something that makes them believe they will get a return. That return better not be years in the future.
Originally posted by TibernicuspaThis. My interests didn't change, the genre did.
It had to. Stagnant markets are not a good thing. The market wasn't stagnant. MMOs were growing bigger and pushing more innovative ideas every year. A new game was being created for someone all the time. The games were aimed at target audience, not scattershot products that please no one. They were growing steadily over the course of years, not sinking 3 months after launch. With investors demanding more return source? and also dev budgets skyrocketing like crazy aource? the market had to expand harshly and reach a much wider target audience. This fundamentally influences what the games look like. Basically, the world turned on, we didn't. Now we are a niche and have to accept niche products. Niche is what this genre has always been. Almost all the big AAA products fail, most don't even get higher numbers than the old niche products. Games that fill a niche tend to be the successful ones. You can't have 10 mass market games that appeal to everyone.They are out there. Maybe not as flashy as the big AAA titles, but more to our taste. They aren't, or we'd be playing them. There's a huge difference between niche products, and underfunded indie projects.
The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs. As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now.
Wrong. Wrong so many times over. AoC started off with 900k, and then crashed so hard that two partner studios of Funcom's went bankrupt.
Building for years is still possible, just look at Eve. You need the right kind of design to keep people playing long term, and that design, almost all the founders of the genre agree, is designing the game so that players generate their own content and socialize, which results in people forming bonds and sticking together longer.
Building up slowly over time has nothing to do with retention. Flat out wrong. If people leave your game right away, they can't bring new players into the game who hadn't tried it yet.
Eve released in 2003, a year before WoW. A time when games could build up slowly over time. That doesn't explain why it is STILL growing. Maybe that's how they had to before WoW released. The point is, Eve isn't a new game. If Eve released today, everyone who could know about the game would know about the game before it released, and all of those people would join the game when it released. They wouldn't wait years. That doesn't explain why it is STILL growing. Under your theory, everyone who might ever play a game plays it the day of launch. Which is just laughable.
AoC, probably the weakest of the 'AAA' games still running reached a point that none of the 'old school' games ever got close to. It started with 900k subscribers. It has far fewer now, but there was no way it was going to have more. If it was actually a good game people wanted to play, it would have gotten more. There are more than 900k people in the world. I myself didn't play at launch because everyone said it sucked. And those 900k existed all in one month. Over the course of 6 years, sitting at 500k, that's a LOT more people overall playing and paying for EQ
Originally posted by TibernicuspaThis. My interests didn't change, the genre did.
It had to. Stagnant markets are not a good thing. The market wasn't stagnant. MMOs were growing bigger and pushing more innovative ideas every year. A new game was being created for someone all the time. The games were aimed at target audience, not scattershot products that please no one. They were growing steadily over the course of years, not sinking 3 months after launch. With investors demanding more return source? and also dev budgets skyrocketing like crazy aource? the market had to expand harshly and reach a much wider target audience. This fundamentally influences what the games look like. Basically, the world turned on, we didn't. Now we are a niche and have to accept niche products. Niche is what this genre has always been. Almost all the big AAA products fail, most don't even get higher numbers than the old niche products. Games that fill a niche tend to be the successful ones. You can't have 10 mass market games that appeal to everyone.They are out there. Maybe not as flashy as the big AAA titles, but more to our taste. They aren't, or we'd be playing them. There's a huge difference between niche products, and underfunded indie projects.
The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs. As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now.
Wrong. Wrong so many times over. AoC started off with 900k, and then crashed so hard that two partner studios of Funcom's went bankrupt.
Building for years is still possible, just look at Eve. You need the right kind of design to keep people playing long term, and that design, almost all the founders of the genre agree, is designing the game so that players generate their own content and socialize, which results in people forming bonds and sticking together longer.
Building up slowly over time has nothing to do with retention. The retention rates of a game that builds up over time and pulls in many players at once can be exactly the same. If you'd care to show some sort of math that proves otherwise, I'd love to see it.
Eve released in 2003, a year before WoW. A time when games could build up slowly over time. Maybe that's how they had to before WoW released. The point is, Eve isn't a new game. If Eve released today, everyone who could know about the game would know about the game before it released, and all of those people would join the game when it released. They wouldn't wait years.
The only way a game is going to slowly build over time is if it has no advertising budget, doesn't show up on any gaming sites, or (like Eve) sucks when it releases* and takes years to reach a state where people enjoy the game.
AoC, probably the weakest of the 'AAA' games still running reached a point that none of the 'old school' games ever got close to. It started with 900k subscribers. It has far fewer now, but there was no way it was going to have more. There weren't any more people who were interested in playing the game. 900k was it. Remember, AoC is the weakest of the AAA games running right now. All of the rest of them have more players and are making more money. AoC, as weak as it was financed the creation of an entirely new MMORPG. The only older niche game that did was Everquest.
The old niche games did not do as well as newer AAA games. We know this because if they did, we would be playing games just like those older niche games. We're not. The market follows the money. The money is not in those older niche games.
* Eve is a good game. Maybe a great game. It wasn't when it released.
I think adding on to this is that players demand a lot more out of a game out the door than they did in the past. Now it must have all the current features and something "innovative". That costs money. When people invest money they expect a return. You have to show them something that makes them believe they will get a return. That return better not be years in the future.
"All the current features" are significantly less than features of 90s MMOs. WoW STILL doesn't have housing.
Originally posted by lizardbones AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs. As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now.
Wrong. Wrong so many times over. AoC started off with 900k, and then crashed so hard that two partner studios of Funcom's went bankrupt.
Building for years is still possible, just look at Eve. You need the right kind of design to keep people playing long term, and that design, almost all the founders of the genre agree, is designing the game so that players generate their own content and socialize, which results in people forming bonds and sticking together longer.
Building up slowly over time has nothing to do with retention. The retention rates of a game that builds up over time and pulls in many players at once can be exactly the same. If you'd care to show some sort of math that proves otherwise, I'd love to see it.
Eve released in 2003, a year before WoW. A time when games could build up slowly over time. Maybe that's how they had to before WoW released. The point is, Eve isn't a new game. If Eve released today, everyone who could know about the game would know about the game before it released, and all of those people would join the game when it released. They wouldn't wait years.
The only way a game is going to slowly build over time is if it has no advertising budget, doesn't show up on any gaming sites, or (like Eve) sucks when it releases* and takes years to reach a state where people enjoy the game.
AoC, probably the weakest of the 'AAA' games still running reached a point that none of the 'old school' games ever got close to. It started with 900k subscribers. It has far fewer now, but there was no way it was going to have more. There weren't any more people who were interested in playing the game. 900k was it. Remember, AoC is the weakest of the AAA games running right now. All of the rest of them have more players and are making more money. AoC, as weak as it was financed the creation of an entirely new MMORPG. The only older niche game that did was Everquest.
The old niche games did not do as well as newer AAA games. We know this because if they did, we would be playing games just like those older niche games. We're not. The market follows the money. The money is not in those older niche games.
* Eve is a good game. Maybe a great game. It wasn't when it released.
I think adding on to this is that players demand a lot more out of a game out the door than they did in the past. Now it must have all the current features and something "innovative". That costs money. When people invest money they expect a return. You have to show them something that makes them believe they will get a return. That return better not be years in the future.
I agree, people don't want an oldschool game, they wand oldschool gameplay but with modern AAA quality graphics, polish and some of the newer features. (I would love a game like that, nothing against it.. BUT..)
This leads to the budget being in today's AAA ballpark too.
And this is where the problems arise. The "oldschool market" by itself is too small to support a fully polished big AAA budget game. Especially with other effects like market saturation factored in.
We can hope someone succeeds with an innovative product and we get the ball rolling again, but simply tacking modern graphics/polish onto old gameplay is not the way to go, especially from the view of investors and execs. (and that kinda dictates what gets made, not some game enthusiasts on a forum)
On a side note, Tibernicuspa stop quoting people in a way that totally garbles what they have posted if the post gets requoted. This is bad conduct and just weakens your standpoint.
The tired old, no one plays the games I don't like and the market is failing thing with a dash of it's not me it's them. I sometimes wonder if forums are more about fantasy than the games people make shit up about.
Originally posted by DamonVile The tired old, no one plays the games I don't like and the market is failing thing with a dash of it's not me it's them. I sometimes wonder if forums are more about fantasy than the games people make shit up about.
Sounds to me like you read absolutely none of this thread and have no understanding of the MMORPG market, or you'd realize how inaccurate what you're saying is.
Stop dissecting MMO's like you're all armchair developers just play the damn games.
When you dissect something too much, you just kill it.
Try playing the game they make and stop giving a sh*t about what everyone else thinks. All day long people sit around on their arse wondering what so and so says about a game. Screw that garbage - just go into a game that nobody thinks is cool and just play the game they made.
It will revitalize MMO's for you.
There are 620 MMO's listed on this site and none of them are good enough for some of you. Screw that jazz - just chill out and try some man.
I've played all of the games on mmorpg.com's list that are available to be played and then some. With that, I can safely say that they all are either sucky, derivative, boring, poorly made, or barely function. There hasn't been a decent game out that wasn't a copy of a 'winning' game in at least 10 years. The ones that aren't copies are either outdated, empty, or non-functional.
You'd know that if you played them too.
I've moved on to single player and multi-player games because there are quite a few out that use their own unique systems and backgrounds. MMORPGs haven't picked up steam in that avenue yet because there aren't any good Indie tools yet. There are some..but not good ones. Once there's a good toolkit for people that's secure..it'll get better. Until then, I'll stick to my solo shit.
Originally posted by KhinRunite Well I can say one thing for sure: if MMOs stayed the way they were since the 90's I wouldn't be touching them.
You missed the point of the entire thread.
I don't think so. The OP, yes I missed. But I wasn't addressing the OP. My comment immediately followed a trail of quotes that basically discusses old vs new MMORPG and which is better.
Originally posted by drivendawn EQ, FFXI, DOAC, and AC1 were no harder than games now days they just had more time sinks.
That is flat out wrong. WoW's raiding is based on gear and add ons more than anything else. DAOC's raiding was based on player skill, and the raids were, on average, much harder and more intricate. Considering DAoC raiding had no time sinks and WoW's does... There was also a lot more depth to the gameplay systems, a lot more you could do.
What year did Drakkar release? Because people say M59 was the first MMORPG but I sware it was Drakkar. M59 the first 3d MMORPG to release but I remember Drakkar before M59. Could be wrong I guess.
I read through that entire post and you end up it with: "Time to go straight console gaming I guess."
Have fun hating your hobby for all eternity. If you think PC games are getting more and more linear or at the very least MMOs you'll find nothing even remotely enjoyable in the console space. Destiny? Maybe. It's more or less borderlands with pretty graphics and some MMO options tacked on.
Comments
The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
I agree with the OP. Many of your responses here I think miss the main point. Just because I love the freedom of EQ (still do) doesn't mean I want all new games to be made as they were in 1999. That doesn't make sense. I believe what the OP is saying (and he can correct me) is that the features in the old MMOs don't exist anymore. We dont have virtual worlds anymore. Now I dont want a new game with a virtual world like EQ, I want an UPDATED, EVOLVED virtual world that BORROWS from EQ.
I'm not hating on the current games, somebody likes them. But I feel they are losing the essence that made them MMOs. Today I see no difference between a single player game and the MMOs (besides the obvious of one being online and many people can play at the same time -- that isn't the full defintion of an MMO for me).
I also agree games are not made by gamers anymore. Its all about metrics and putting something out that can gain a return. For the kids who argue that the games they are playing today are better aren't old enough to understand or connect with what they are missing.
I'm an older gamer as well being 40. Like others I dont have the "endless" time I had when I was in my 20s. But that doesn't mean I want a game so easy that its handed to me. Thats not fun. I also don't want to camp mobs like we did back in the day. You need to separate what we loved from how it was implemented. I want the former to be evolved, but agree the latter can be forgotten.
Pretty much what I was trying to say a few posts up, you articulated it much better than I could.
The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
Rise in MMORPG Development Costs: http://www.mmorpg.com/showFeature.cfm/loadFeature/7585/MMO-Development-Needs-Change.html
Graphics in video games in general can take as much as six times longer using current generation engines versus previous generation engines: http://udn.epicgames.com/Three/DevelopmentKitContentCreation.html
Video games in general have gotten more expensive, and so have MMORPGs.
At the very least, investors are going to expect a larger gross return when their gross investment is larger.
Where is your source for new games not getting numbers higher than the old niche products? SWG capped out at 300k subs. UO capped out at 278k subs. EQ, the biggest success capped out at 550k subs just before it crashed.
AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs.
As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now. Everyone who can hear about a game will hear about a game and play that game when it releases, not years later. Building slowly over time doesn't imply any better retention rates than getting all possible players initially anyway.
This image shows two different graphs. One shows a 'slow' adoption, one shows a 'fast' adoption. The number of 'users' and retention rate of those users is exactly the same between the two scenarios, it's just that one graph shows the users piling on immediately, and the other shows people building up over time.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
If they were as good as you claim they were, why are you not still playing them? Because they changed the games? That's because more people disliked those things than liked them. Seriously, people have to get the hell over their own personal wishes and desires and realize that if their dreams don't represent a significant portion of the gaming population, then their dreams are worthless.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
Your comment is worthless.
The people dreaming of having spiritual successors to Star Wars Galaxies or City of Heroes and trying to make them happen are awesome.
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Love Minecraft. And check out my Youtube channel OhCanadaGamer
Try a MUD today at http://www.mudconnect.com/Wrong. Wrong so many times over. AoC started off with 900k, and then crashed so hard that two partner studios of Funcom's went bankrupt.
Building for years is still possible, just look at Eve. You need the right kind of design to keep people playing long term, and that design, almost all the founders of the genre agree, is designing the game so that players generate their own content and socialize, which results in people forming bonds and sticking together longer.
Uh, no. If more people liked those changes, then the changes wouldn't have made those games lose all their players. Do you even think through what you type?
In most cases, devs changed their games trying to cash in on the casual market, alienate their core playerbase, and fail to attract casual players, so the games end up dead. The team washes their hands of the matter and starts to work on a new game aimed at casuals from the start, which also fails in an amazing way.
Seriously, learn something.
You missed the point of the entire thread.
The market is more stagnant than it ever has been. Only one type of MMO is being made by publishers, the AAA WoW clone. Innovation has been on the back back burner for almost 8 years now.
AoC, probably one of the weakest contenders started with 900k subs. As far as building over years, that's just not going to happen now.
Wrong. Wrong so many times over. AoC started off with 900k, and then crashed so hard that two partner studios of Funcom's went bankrupt.
Building for years is still possible, just look at Eve. You need the right kind of design to keep people playing long term, and that design, almost all the founders of the genre agree, is designing the game so that players generate their own content and socialize, which results in people forming bonds and sticking together longer.
Building up slowly over time has nothing to do with retention. The retention rates of a game that builds up over time and pulls in many players at once can be exactly the same. If you'd care to show some sort of math that proves otherwise, I'd love to see it.
Eve released in 2003, a year before WoW. A time when games could build up slowly over time. Maybe that's how they had to before WoW released. The point is, Eve isn't a new game. If Eve released today, everyone who could know about the game would know about the game before it released, and all of those people would join the game when it released. They wouldn't wait years.
The only way a game is going to slowly build over time is if it has no advertising budget, doesn't show up on any gaming sites, or (like Eve) sucks when it releases* and takes years to reach a state where people enjoy the game.
AoC, probably the weakest of the 'AAA' games still running reached a point that none of the 'old school' games ever got close to. It started with 900k subscribers. It has far fewer now, but there was no way it was going to have more. There weren't any more people who were interested in playing the game. 900k was it. Remember, AoC is the weakest of the AAA games running right now. All of the rest of them have more players and are making more money. AoC, as weak as it was financed the creation of an entirely new MMORPG. The only older niche game that did was Everquest.
The old niche games did not do as well as newer AAA games. We know this because if they did, we would be playing games just like those older niche games. We're not. The market follows the money. The money is not in those older niche games.
* Eve is a good game. Maybe a great game. It wasn't when it released.
I can not remember winning or losing a single debate on the internet.
It would seem that if the game was doing great to begin with it would not have to try and change to cash in on another market. Do not see Eve changing.
I think adding on to this is that players demand a lot more out of a game out the door than they did in the past. Now it must have all the current features and something "innovative". That costs money. When people invest money they expect a return. You have to show them something that makes them believe they will get a return. That return better not be years in the future.
"All the current features" are significantly less than features of 90s MMOs. WoW STILL doesn't have housing.
I agree, people don't want an oldschool game, they wand oldschool gameplay but with modern AAA quality graphics, polish and some of the newer features. (I would love a game like that, nothing against it.. BUT..)
This leads to the budget being in today's AAA ballpark too.
And this is where the problems arise. The "oldschool market" by itself is too small to support a fully polished big AAA budget game. Especially with other effects like market saturation factored in.
We can hope someone succeeds with an innovative product and we get the ball rolling again, but simply tacking modern graphics/polish onto old gameplay is not the way to go, especially from the view of investors and execs. (and that kinda dictates what gets made, not some game enthusiasts on a forum)
On a side note, Tibernicuspa stop quoting people in a way that totally garbles what they have posted if the post gets requoted. This is bad conduct and just weakens your standpoint.
Sounds to me like you read absolutely none of this thread and have no understanding of the MMORPG market, or you'd realize how inaccurate what you're saying is.
I've played all of the games on mmorpg.com's list that are available to be played and then some. With that, I can safely say that they all are either sucky, derivative, boring, poorly made, or barely function. There hasn't been a decent game out that wasn't a copy of a 'winning' game in at least 10 years. The ones that aren't copies are either outdated, empty, or non-functional.
You'd know that if you played them too.
I've moved on to single player and multi-player games because there are quite a few out that use their own unique systems and backgrounds. MMORPGs haven't picked up steam in that avenue yet because there aren't any good Indie tools yet. There are some..but not good ones. Once there's a good toolkit for people that's secure..it'll get better. Until then, I'll stick to my solo shit.
I don't think so. The OP, yes I missed. But I wasn't addressing the OP. My comment immediately followed a trail of quotes that basically discusses old vs new MMORPG and which is better.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
I read through that entire post and you end up it with: "Time to go straight console gaming I guess."
Have fun hating your hobby for all eternity. If you think PC games are getting more and more linear or at the very least MMOs you'll find nothing even remotely enjoyable in the console space. Destiny? Maybe. It's more or less borderlands with pretty graphics and some MMO options tacked on.
I am for sure not happy alot with MMOs now.
A. They either are designed for console player to (limits PC fun)
B. They are designed by a foreign country and suck controls wise or to easy to level up
C. They are just crappy games with no support, no anything
D. If you have to decide if 16bit or 32 bit graphics at the start of the setup. Delete the game, its not worth it.
E. USA gets water downed versions of games because of the Worlds view of our people.
F. PC players are last on the $$ market because we demand more and were not shelling out BS $ for DLC and Maps.