Your argument that game developers cant deliver a proper sandbox experience is just stoopid. Have you ever heard of EvE??? DarkFall?? Mortal Online?? There are sandbox games out there, but there are mostly indie with limited budget. We sandboxers jsut wish there was a mmo with a bigger budget doing these games, not that the games are impossible to make.
That's your argument? Those shitty games? The reason sandbox games are indie with limited budget its because developers don't feel that they can deliver good stories to the majority of the players if they go 'sandbox." Combine true open world gameplay and add real impact - yeah sounds great on paper - in practice you get EVE. (Sandbox really isn't the right word here - sandbox should be player created content IE little big planet).
So your solution is never try anything out of the box. Ok lets have wow clones forever, sounds like fun!!
It might not be fun to you - but its the most fun possible for the greatest number of people. Let's look at say Google Glass for example. I say this because few friends of mine have this.
Is it the future - probably. Will everyone be using wearable tech in the future. I think so. Is it good now? Hell no. You look at one in one little corner at a screen you can barely see. It can't basically do anything but take a short movie or picture. Is hard to input any kind of information etc etc.
So its potentially awesome but in reality it sucks. This is how sandbox MMOs are right now.. They sound awesome on paper but developers can't find away to make them deliever on all these ideas in practice.
It's the same old story with the sandbox people - I ask for a PVE game that does all this great stuff - and I get EVE.. WTF. Sometimes dreams are ahead of reality - that's what this forum is filled with. That's why its always the next big thing. Oh EQ:N Is going to be awesome. Yeah good luck with that. If you don't like current MMOs you don't like MMOs because they aren't holding back some secret sauce out of spite. Develoeprs would LOVE to write a AAA sandbox game if it worked.
The compromises they make are for fun. Let's look at another genre - platform games. Would ratchet and clank be fun if each planet was in fact a giant world where you could go any direction? Well maybe - but if they added that they wouldn't have the carefully designed levels that make the game so fun.
Baldur's gate is for example much better then nethack for most players. Scripted content just works better right now.. If we can get games to be interesting and entirely procedural - that would be awesome.. Same with open world and 'real' impact. Everyone likes those ideas - not everyone thinks it can be actually done..
A fun open world game with high quality stories that never end where I can make a real impact - sign me up! But I am not going to wait around for it because I know they can't do it. Just like google glass - I am waiting till they make one that doesn't suck before I buy it.
I thought they were failing because the devs keep neglecting to release a game with an actual endgame... Last like 7 MMOs I've played i get to 50 or 60 or what not and there is absolutely nothing to do...
Your argument that game developers cant deliver a proper sandbox experience is just stoopid. Have you ever heard of EvE??? DarkFall?? Mortal Online?? There are sandbox games out there, but there are mostly indie with limited budget. We sandboxers jsut wish there was a mmo with a bigger budget doing these games, not that the games are impossible to make.
That's your argument? Those shitty games? The reason sandbox games are indie with limited budget its because developers don't feel that they can deliver good stories to the majority of the players if they go 'sandbox." Combine true open world gameplay and add real impact - yeah sounds great on paper - in practice you get EVE. (Sandbox really isn't the right word here - sandbox should be player created content IE little big planet).
So your solution is never try anything out of the box. Ok lets have wow clones forever, sounds like fun!!
It might not be fun to you - but its the most fun possible for the greatest number of people. Let's look at say Google Glass for example. I say this because few friends of mine have this.
Is it the future - probably. Will everyone be using wearable tech in the future. I think so. Is it good now? Hell no. You look at one in one little corner at a screen you can barely see. It can't basically do anything but take a short movie or picture. Is hard to input any kind of information etc etc.
So its potentially awesome but in reality it sucks. This is how sandbox MMOs are right now.. They sound awesome on paper but developers can't find away to make them deliever on all these ideas in practice.
It's the same old story with the sandbox people - I ask for a PVE game that does all this great stuff - and I get EVE.. WTF. Sometimes dreams are ahead of reality - that's what this forum is filled with. That's why its always the next big thing. Oh EQ:N Is going to be awesome. Yeah good luck with that. If you don't like current MMOs you don't like MMOs because they aren't holding back some secret sauce out of spite. Develoeprs would LOVE to write a AAA sandbox game if it worked.
The compromises they make are for fun. Let's look at another genre - platform games. Would ratchet and clank be fun if each planet was in fact a giant world where you could go any direction? Well maybe - but if they added that they wouldn't have the carefully designed levels that make the game so fun.
Baldur's gate is for example much better then nethack for most players. Scripted content just works better right now.. If we can get games to be interesting and entirely procedural - that would be awesome.. Same with open world and 'real' impact. Everyone likes those ideas - not everyone thinks it can be actually done..
A fun open world game with high quality stories that never end where I can make a real impact - sign me up! But I am not going to wait around for it because I know they can't do it. Just like google glass - I am waiting till they make one that doesn't suck before I buy it.
Well those "shitty" games were funner than any themepark piece of trash they release these days, where all you do is stupid chores "Kill 10 of these" "Go here pick that up and go there" it sounds like a day in the office... Yeah they might be buggy, but it means these games CAN be done and are not "impossible" by any means, they just lacked the proper budget to release them with AAA polish.
You´re not getting it, sandbox developers DONT WANT TO DELIVER ANY STORY TO THE PLAYERS!!! NO STORY AT ALL... now that we hopefully past this, ill explain again.... Sandbox developers want to give the most amount of tools to create an impact in a persistent shared world, maybe you want to create your own city and control the most valuable resources, but there will also be another player that wants to do the same, so its up to them to fight over it or maybe make an alliance and share it. Thats real impact in the world. Not some stupid "high quality" story having randomly generated branch offs, which is nothing but an elaborated themepark.
You somehow think sandboxers want to imagine a fantastic personal story and all the lore behind it themselves, where the impact is just another twist of the story. And you want an intelligent computer to extract all of this info from your brain and transfer it to the game...... well no shit that technology doesnt exist lol
You wanna know a sandbox story? Check out the political boards of any open world pvp sandbox empire building game (Darkfall,Mortal Online,EvE,Shadowbane,etc)
I agree 100%. Most modern ThemeParks last me 1-2 months as I always get bored when you have zero impact on pretty much anything. Specially the PvP is assinine with flipping forts back and forth or just ganking for no gain. Pointless.
New mmos fail because mmos are old news. MMO's were big when people started to first discover them. WoW came out at the perfect time back when many people such as myself didint even know what an MMORPG was. And it being a classic fantasy game with orcs and trolls and mages and a seamless open world, players fell in love with it. Now these days many people/ gamers have grown tired of the genre. Questing sucks now, we've done it a million times in WoW.
I think gaming has to evolve not mmos. Virtual reality I think is the next big thing to come. Playing in online worlds with the Oculus Rift is going to take MMORPG's to the next lvl.
You´re not getting it, sandbox developers DONT WANT TO DELIVER ANY STORY TO THE PLAYERS!!! NO STORY AT ALL... now that we hopefully past this, ill explain again.... Sandbox developers want to give the most amount of tools to create an impact in a persistent shared world, maybe you want to create your own city and control the most valuable resources, but there will also be another player that wants to do the same, so its up to them to fight over it or maybe make an alliance and share it. Thats real impact in the world. Not some stupid "high quality" story having randomly generated branch offs, which is nothing but an elaborated themepark.
Actually I think we are thinking on the same lines - its a choice between a nice scripted story - or no story at all. We know how that works out..
You wanna know a sandbox story? Check out the political boards of any open world pvp sandbox empire building game (Darkfall,Mortal Online,EvE,Shadowbane,etc)
The problem with that is that those kinds of stories feel to much like reading or watching Twilight. Pretentious characters that one instantly dislikes are engaging in idiotic actions in silly game of Conflict Ball. Then in the next book/movie they go through the same actions, not having learned anything.
If you want a good sandbox story, check out A Tale in the Desert. The only problem with it is that sooner or later it runs its course and it does not feel as special telling it a second time.
Think the OP completely missed the mark in the first paragraph ... but definitely hit the nail on the head in the second one. The problem with his first examples is that none of that stuff was gated by creativity or skill ...it was all gated by GRIND and resource accumulation through exploitation.
The truth is most people couldn't handle a dog eat dog world. That's why there's no successor to UO. The amounts of bitching about EVE alone is proof too. It turned out this way because there was not enough inherent "freedom" to overthrow the tyrants who drove everyone else out. They gamed the mechanics, they gamed the system because they understood it better than the Devs could. And they made the following generation of game designers into Victimized pussies because there was no counter to MinMaxing besides Nerfing. And now we have the worst of BOTH worlds.
The issue your describing with L2 is the same as with all of the games being called failures by the OP.
Game comes out does well players get frustrated, with design choices, gameplay, bugs. Players ask devs to make changes. Not all players are satisfied with choices and people quit. That's the issue at its core.
RIFT, SWTOR, CoH, TSW, AoC all had similar things happen to them to name a few.
Sure you can make MMOs with freedom and impact - but in the end they will NOT be good games.
If the game has freedom it will have no direction for most players. Even Skyrim did not have total freedom - the was a main quest and you had to do some if it to accomplish various things. Now if it had an intelligent backend that could create awesome game content on the fly that matched the needs and desires of the player - that world work. But the Matrix is NOT REAL. So we don't have that.
That is... OK, I don't want to insult you, and I suggest you to read carefully what you wrote. Freedom is not a lack of directions. Freedom means that you choose the directions. Your post makes me really angry, because I'm born in communist country, and I know very well the price of freedom - the Matrix can be very real. You must read "1984". I know you are talking about games, but your way of thinking is scary for me.
Let's not get political here. We aren't talking about personal freedom IRL - but freedom in a game world. Let me explain more because some guys here don't seem to get it.
Let's take ESO for example - its questing is 'on rails' so to speak. For example one of my characters is saving/helping the queen of the dominion. Its all scripted - with each little quest done part of the story 'unfolds'. So its like a moving where your character does certain things to trigger the next part of the story.
But here is the important part THERE IS A STORY. Its not your OWN story. Its not personal to you - its the same for everyone playing the game. But they are telling a story.
Here is what the fans on this board want: They want total freedom. For example if I decide to "double cross' the queen and go work for the veiled inheritance - that's an option. And doing that would trigger a whole story that plays out. Likewise I could instead go my own way and become king of the dominion - that's another option that would play out. The best case is if the game would 'fill in' the next part of the story entirely depending on what you do.
This is how the Matrix works. You do things in the world of the Matrix - and the computer creates a story for you depending on what you do. So your game is always great. You don't ever really want to leave the Matrix..because in comparision reality sucks.
But we don't have that kind of technology. Its either have a story like they do in ESO - a real legit professionally created LINEAR story. Or your alternative is NO STORY. A good example of this is EQ. Back in EQ you could kill various mobs and gain faction with various groups. But there wasn't a story - it didn't roll out like an interesting movie. Your story was basically "I 'killed' a huge number of x things so these guys want to kill me and those guys don't.' That was the only "STORY" you got - and that's basically from most players perspectives not a story at all.
PVP games fare a little better you get stories like "remember that time when we were outnumbers 3 to 1 and took that base" - that was great. Its not a very compelling story - its a little stronger but still pretty limited.
This is how things are now. You can whine about it - but the important point is not that developers don't WANT to. Its that they CANNOT. They CANNOT give you a story as compelling as the linear ones In a truly open world game.
It's the same thing with the 'real change' argument. They can give you 'real change' but you wouldn't like to live in this world. For example when the first guild killed Arthas in WoW. That should have been it. He was dead. He was done. So no one else would get to Kill Arthas. Now if you had "Matrix" technology on your hands you could make it so that say Paragon killed Arthas first - the next time another guild was going to kill a big boss it would be a new one - some guy entirely different from Arthas with a different backstory and everything.
That would be awesome but we CANNOT do that. So instead we suspend our disbelief and kill Arthas again - even though technically he should be already dead.
Its very clear to me that many posters in this forum have a very poor idea about how video games actually work and so they think that companies are holding out on them. They are not.
If companies could make games with compelling stories that feature open world game play and permanent change that doesn't screw up the world for other players - the ABSOLUTELY would. It would be a gold mine.
Everyone gets this - this is why ME3 has 3 different endings. They want you to feel that the ending YOU choose makes things different. They would love to have infinite endings based on exactly what you do..but that's beyond our technology.
I would say when most people say they want to have their own stories they mean not having any scripted stories at all. They want to play the game that's interdependent(not just combat like EQ) and have their own unique experiences in the setting of the game. All of my best experiences in older games came from no scripted events that happened with other players. Not roleplaying but just interactions that can't be created by AI or script.
EQ had a story - it was just the same one over and over again. You can have 'stories' your way - they just won't be GOOD ones.
A story has a setting, conflict, characters, plot, resolution and theme. Its very clear how all these elements are capable of being achieved in a scripted game. It's much less clear how they are achieved in a open world 'sandbox' game with no scripted events. If you know of such a game - that has PVE content - kindly direct me to it because I would want to check it out.
If you just want to 'roleplay' some stories out - there are MUDs where people really get into that.. That's not what you mean right? Because themeparks allow for that kind of thing..without any problem.
Anyway stop acting like the developers are just holding out on you because they are 'lazy'. If they could make a game that allowed real stories to organically from some kind of sandbox platform and most players got to experience them.. They would most certainly do this.
Um you can try any game pre - WoW. Having player freedom and scripted content is not mutually exclusive. In fact themeparks were invented in SWG as perm destination for factioned content in one of the most complex Sandboxes. I feel really sad if your idea of player freedom is wandering doing nothing or roleplaying thee and thou.
Majority of MMORPGS scripted content is bad, generic and repetitive. Majority of players don't even read or listen to them. How many would skip them altogether if they could to get to max level? Blizzard sells that privileged. Even well designed quest are skipped mentally. Lack of player freedom is one of the main reasons since reasonable progression is tied to questing. It makes questing a barrier and grind to getting max level.
I would enjoy quest a lot more if there weren't so many and my progression wasn't tied to it like it used to be in older games.
The majority of television shows are scripted, bad, repetitive and generic. But that doesn't mean I prefer watching C-SPAN - hey that's unscripted and real. Its also boring as hell almost all the time.
Game making is a fundamentally limited art. its not capable of giving you the kind of experiences 'sandboxers' claim exist in their non yet existing games - that's my point. Its not that themeparks aren't imperfect. Its that are developers trying to give players the best experience possible.
Going back to the OP - IF the crux of the problem is that games don't have features X and Y - then developers would just give them freedom and 'real change'. The issue here is that those aren't the real problems. its that when you go for those changes you f-up the entire rest of your game.
GW2 is a good example. Hey the whole problem is the "Holy Trinity' right - now its gone - bravo. But they replaced it with basically NOTHING. So it hurt their entire game. You can't just pick out one random feature and blame everything on its absence.
Games are missing TONS of possible features. Making a good game is all about smoke and mirrors - you want your players to forget your numerous limitations and enjoy themselves. Because you will NOT stamp out the limitations. It can't be done. Don't even get me started on Dynamic Events..
If you really want a fair tv comparison then it would be reality TV vs. scripted TV. One is a show that you get scripted results from and the other is players put into situations to get results by doing what they do with some producer nudging. Its not really a good comparision but fairer than comparing News which is for information and not true entertainment.
Your argument is nitpicking an ideal that player freedom is not possible by developers tech. When MMORPGS started there was 0 scripted content and little to no quest because there wasn't the tech or application of knowledge or a different gaming direction then now. It is only recently that developers have had money and tech for scripted VO quest. Majority of task and some of the quest could be procedurally generated because they're little more then FedEx and kill task with a generic story.
You then ignore the fact that you can have player freedom and scripted content. You keep trying to separate it but they work very well together single player, multiplayer and MMO. Its designers/investor choice that we have gotten MMORPGs similar to WoW because it is the biggest earner. Not to mention majority of MMORPGS players have never played an MMORPG that's not a narrow quest hub themepark. So, there is no need to service a desire that the majority havent tried to miss or want. It's like only knowing the McDonald's menu... you're not going to crave pizza if you never had it before.
You also need to go back in time on this board as well. I was here in the days if SWG and WoW. Sandboxes were out the majority of players were done with them. They were tired if wandering game worlds with no purpose . SWG was getting hated on like crazy and so was UO. Theme parks were the craze! Now we are at the opposite end if the spectrum.
IMO going back to the old Sandbox design you will satisfy a certain niche of gamers but you won't be able to hd your subs as previously the genre is to is to big for that now and if you don't impress people leave fast.
There are great elements in themeparks and great ones on Sandboxes. I like what Star Citizen is doing by having a story then opening up the world and the devs can introduce optional stories later on.
IMO most people in favour of themeparks here aren't arguing against changes in the industry they don't want to go back to 2000 - 2003 sandboxes and many that came out afterwards. They hated those games and so did most of the players at the time. Themeparks are getting the same way. The genre needs change but if we go back to IMO dull overly complex Sandboxes as the norm your just gonna see players move faster than they already are into MOBAs or similar games than they already are.
Most people don't even know what the word means anymore. It's some buzz term thrown around so people can continue to enjoy their game of "WAIT FOR THE GAME!".
The reality is waiting for a game has become more enjoyable than playing a game for some out there. They wait, wait, hype it up, wait some more, read some stuff, watch some videos.. they completely psyche themselves up for it then they get it and realise "damn, once again it's not that perfect over-the-top requirements list of a game I want!" and they move onto waiting for the next game.
Originally posted by Fenrir767 The issue your describing with L2 is the same as with all of the games being called failures by the OP.
Game comes out does well players get frustrated, with design choices, gameplay, bugs. Players ask devs to make changes. Not all players are satisfied with choices and people quit. That's the issue at its core.
RIFT, SWTOR, CoH, TSW, AoC all had similar things happen to them to name a few.
Again you miss the point. Lineage 2 was released at the same time as WoW. And no matter what NCSoft did players was playing it almost 10 years. And than NCSoft, made an expansion called GoD in which you start from the beginning, not few levels more, but a new start for the whole grind - and most of the players stopped playing it. And nobody asked NCSoft for that.
It is stupid to believe that any world company cares, and even that is possible to care, what customers want. The company pay for advertisement and you buy, it is so simple. Deny it or not, this is the real marketing, nobody cares what you want, or what you need. Nobody needs iPhone, but people buy it. Nobody needs smartphone with 7 inch screen and tablet, but many people buy it in set. Give to customers some advertisement and discount, and they will buy everything, even if they cannot afford it. They will take loans, but will buy.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been-Wayne Gretzky
It is stupid to believe that any world company cares, and even that is possible to care, what customers want. The company pay for advertisement and you buy, it is so simple. Deny it or not, this is the real marketing, nobody cares what you want, or what you need. Nobody needs iPhone, but people buy it. Nobody needs smartphone with 7 inch screen and tablet, but many people buy it in set. Give to customers some advertisement and discount, and they will buy everything, even if they cannot afford it. They will take loans, but will buy.
So... the real reason MMOs fail is because they're not paying enough for marketing?
I am not missing the point I am just pointing out how L2s design decisions affected it's Success wether to started out successful or not. The same thing occurred with DAOC. Games that gave either decided to try to compete with WoW or go with similar model have similar responses from their player bases. The game may have started as a success but has over the years suffered from the same issues that the games listed as failures have.
Yes advertisers and marketers control the world and we are all of their playthings... It's a conspiracy in deed. If anything it's the companies that don't promote their products correctly that don't succeed. One of the reasons for Samsungs success is educating sales people so they can sell people other products than the IPhone based in the features they actually need. Marketing is good at creating a demand in the end it's about companies meeting the demand, that's where most companies fail and why companies that succeed become massive ie Apple, Google and AAA developers of games. If your product sucks and doesn't satisfy consumers you lose business plain and simple no amount if marketing can overcome that....
If you really want a fair tv comparison then it would be reality TV vs. scripted TV. One is a show that you get scripted results from and the other is players put into situations to get results by doing what they do with some producer nudging. Its not really a good comparision but fairer than comparing News which is for information and not true entertainment.
C-SPAN is not news or entertainment - its just reality. Its just congress in session. And no 'reality' TV is not 'reality' at all. Its basically identical to scripted shows - cept they have unpaid actors and some improv instead of real actors with complete scripting. So no that's not a good analogy at all. Both scenarios are totally controlled by the producer/directors.
Your argument is nitpicking an ideal that player freedom is not possible by developers tech. When MMORPGS started there was 0 scripted content and little to no quest because there wasn't the tech or application of knowledge or a different gaming direction then now. It is only recently that developers have had money and tech for scripted VO quest. Majority of task and some of the quest could be procedurally generated because they're little more then FedEx and kill task with a generic story.
That's not my argument. Its entirely possible to have both freedom and impact in the game. The problem is the other players won't LIKE such a game. Total freedom means no direction other then grinding (these are the games with "zero' scripting) and real impact means you can grief other players/and or ruin their fun. Paragon killed Arthas first - now he is dead - and no one else can kill him because their kill had "real" impact.
I am saying the OP wants tradeoffs that game producers don't think we lead to superior games.
You then ignore the fact that you can have player freedom and scripted content. You keep trying to separate it but they work very well together single player, multiplayer and MMO. Its designers/investor choice that we have gotten MMORPGs similar to WoW because it is the biggest earner. Not to mention majority of MMORPGS players have never played an MMORPG that's not a narrow quest hub themepark. So, there is no need to service a desire that the majority havent tried to miss or want. It's like only knowing the McDonald's menu... you're not going to crave pizza if you never had it before.
If by 'freedom' you mean they can grind mobs like EQ - then sure it can work. But its a very limited view of freedom - one that has been tried before and met with very limited success. Again sure you can make a game like that - however most players feel that dumping quests and replacing it with grinding isn't much of a step forward. <g>
Most people don't want that. You represent a minuscule minority of people who play MMOs. Besides, who elected you king to declare what an MMO is? If you don't like the way MMOs are, don't play them. Solved your problem.
As much as I love themeparks, and after a long discussion with my friend, the idea of a game like that does sound fun. The game itself wouldn't be hard to make at all, and I couldnt see it being anything other than other than just a box price. With no quests, no scripted content, no levels...just an immense persistent world where you do what ever you'd like sounds almost too good to be true.
It's hard enough banding together with people that support the same ideas as you in current games, but building from the ground up with 20-40 of your friends, securing your in game assests, and then defending your acquired wealth from opposing factions that happen to be online when you all are asleep for the night....man that's only going to get people so far.
No rules or script in a game. Minecraft for 'grown ups'. Hell you could create an atom bomb and blow up that mountain over there if you have the dedication an man power to do so. In theory it sounds amazing. All my min-maxing, rep grinding, econ-pvping would be over with.
But just like in real life, once youre "made it" in a game like that, what else would there be to do? Do in-game drugs? Keep attacking weaker bands of players? There is a reason I quit playing minecraft after I made my own mob grinder.
I know my post might sound all over the place. I guess what Im trying to say is I dont know how long I can depend on a semi-creative me and game full of people to keep me interested for so long. I pay money to experience content - I dont pay it to design content for other people. And if I did then I should be the one getting payed.
BUT, at the end of the day, I cant tell anyone how to have fun.
Content gating and lack of content are the reasons most MMORPGs fail.
The keyword is CONTENT.
I think there is to much content already (if you consider quests and battlegrounds content). The problem is people get bored of doing those things repeatedly after a while. There is only so much story and so much running in, dying, respawning, and dying again you can do before you start to see through the game mechanics are how tedious they are.
Most people don't want that. You represent a minuscule minority of people who play MMOs. Besides, who elected you king to declare what an MMO is? If you don't like the way MMOs are, don't play them. Solved your problem.
As much as I love themeparks, and after a long discussion with my friend, the idea of a game like that does sound fun. The game itself wouldn't be hard to make at all, and I couldnt see it being anything other than other than just a box price. With no quests, no scripted content, no levels...just an immense persistent world where you do what ever you'd like sounds almost too good to be true.
It's hard enough banding together with people that support the same ideas as you in current games, but building from the ground up with 20-40 of your friends, securing your in game assests, and then defending your acquired wealth from opposing factions that happen to be online when you all are asleep for the night....man that's only going to get people so far.
No rules or script in a game. Minecraft for 'grown ups'. Hell you could create an atom bomb and blow up that mountain over there if you have the dedication an man power to do so. In theory it sounds amazing. All my min-maxing, rep grinding, econ-pvping would be over with.
But just like in real life, once youre "made it" in a game like that, what else would there be to do? Do in-game drugs? Keep attacking weaker bands of players? There is a reason I quit playing minecraft after I made my own mob grinder.
I know my post might sound all over the place. I guess what Im trying to say is I dont know how long I can depend on a semi-creative me and game full of people to keep me interested for so long. I pay money to experience content - I dont pay it to design content for other people. And if I did then I should be the one getting payed.
BUT, at the end of the day, I cant tell anyone how to have fun.
That's what happened with a lot of Sandboxes and the dog eat dog world they created. It was fun to log in have a good time but once you were at the top of the food chain that's what you did you defended your spot at the top of the food chain, time commitments go up in order to be a part of the living virtual world and for many you have two live the one in the game and the one in real life. I heard many stories in WoW about people getting woken up at 4 am to log into DAOC and defend their territory as a guild is conducting a sneak attack. While that level of planning and commitment can be fun over the long term it's just not sustainable as people have real lives that are more important than their leisure. When your leisure starts affecting your real life it's harder to keep doing it. That's why Themeparks took the market by storm with the release of WoW
Many people play Sandbox games for awhile and quit due to time commitment, IMO themepark games holds those players longer because they can diminish their time commitments and still be an active part of the community. IMO the next big thing will be that game that incorporates the best part of Sanbox games with great themepark elements and creates a game where players have impact without having to run a second life in a virtual world.
Originally posted by Fenrir767 Yes advertisers and marketers control the world and we are all of their playthings... It's a conspiracy in deed. If anything it's the companies that don't promote their products correctly that don't succeed. One of the reasons for Samsungs success is educating sales people so they can sell people other products than the IPhone based in the features they actually need. Marketing is good at creating a demand in the end it's about companies meeting the demand, that's where most companies fail and why companies that succeed become massive ie Apple, Google and AAA developers of games. If your product sucks and doesn't satisfy consumers you lose business plain and simple no amount if marketing can overcome that....
Which is the best smart phone right now? I will tell you, it is HTC One M8 - amazing phone. Will that phone make HTC a leader in higher class phones? No.
Probably you know how Apple have made their batteries to stop working after year. In fact they sold shit to millions of customers. But people still like Apple.
See Nike, the biggest shoe maker in the world. It is made in China. If you compare new Nikes, and some sneakers made before 10 years, you will see a very large difference in quality, even in used materials. Same with the other big shoe makers.
Samsung's success is in stolen technologies, from Apple. Education of people in shops how to sell more than one product is something typical. Before university in 90s I worked in a shop for computers, so I know. That is the low level marketing, which in fact is closer to customers needs. And most of Samsung's sales are from retailers, who are absolutely independent from the korean company. It is not like the Apple marketing model.
Nobody cares about customers, and there is no conspiracy, it is just a free market. You know nothing about thousands of games, which will be released this year. Some of them maybe are far better than ESO or Ever Quest Next, but you will buy the AAA titles. Is that choice really yours? /I don't mean you in fact, but any customer/
Is that HTCs fault or apple's fault. Apple's Customer Service and other features are what has kept them above HTC for years and I have had an HTC phone most of it worked great then it failed on me. Is it the consumers fault or HTC that Apple can deliver an overall better experience the same applies to AAA games or Indie Games.
Samsung has driven sales through it's retail chain by educating their partners as to what their different phones provide and branding Galaxy as their main brand and providing some categories of it while still being a recognizable name. If you want to talk Stolen technologies Apple and Steve Jobs.
Do I miss playing old 8 bit games and platformers, I don't which a lot of indie games are and I don't seek out those experiences those that do will find those games I have no interest in that. Also some companies start out making more indie style games and hit it big like Telltale Games has with Walking Dead and other franchises now. So indie developers with a great concept can hit it big and Walking Dead the game exploded through Word of Mouth not marketing. Star Citizen is another great example people have wanted a Wing Commander like game for years,no one made one and boom word of mouth and crowdfunding are succeeding in creating this game. No AAA developers to be found here....
Keep clinging to your fantasy that Marketing is everything and Marketers rule the world where as in reality it's a part of the commercial system that has to be sustained by a good product, customer service and a great sales team to name a few. No amount of marketing can save a piss poor product but you know keep believing what ever makes you happy as you have one idea and apparently a Masters in Marketing but have no idea about how companies, business models, and anything else work in 2014. Have fun beating that dead horse it's clear that it's impossible to have any kind of conversation or discussion with you.
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That's your argument? Those shitty games? The reason sandbox games are indie with limited budget its because developers don't feel that they can deliver good stories to the majority of the players if they go 'sandbox." Combine true open world gameplay and add real impact - yeah sounds great on paper - in practice you get EVE. (Sandbox really isn't the right word here - sandbox should be player created content IE little big planet).
It might not be fun to you - but its the most fun possible for the greatest number of people. Let's look at say Google Glass for example. I say this because few friends of mine have this.
Is it the future - probably. Will everyone be using wearable tech in the future. I think so. Is it good now? Hell no. You look at one in one little corner at a screen you can barely see. It can't basically do anything but take a short movie or picture. Is hard to input any kind of information etc etc.
So its potentially awesome but in reality it sucks. This is how sandbox MMOs are right now.. They sound awesome on paper but developers can't find away to make them deliever on all these ideas in practice.
It's the same old story with the sandbox people - I ask for a PVE game that does all this great stuff - and I get EVE.. WTF. Sometimes dreams are ahead of reality - that's what this forum is filled with. That's why its always the next big thing. Oh EQ:N Is going to be awesome. Yeah good luck with that. If you don't like current MMOs you don't like MMOs because they aren't holding back some secret sauce out of spite. Develoeprs would LOVE to write a AAA sandbox game if it worked.
The compromises they make are for fun. Let's look at another genre - platform games. Would ratchet and clank be fun if each planet was in fact a giant world where you could go any direction? Well maybe - but if they added that they wouldn't have the carefully designed levels that make the game so fun.
Baldur's gate is for example much better then nethack for most players. Scripted content just works better right now.. If we can get games to be interesting and entirely procedural - that would be awesome.. Same with open world and 'real' impact. Everyone likes those ideas - not everyone thinks it can be actually done..
A fun open world game with high quality stories that never end where I can make a real impact - sign me up! But I am not going to wait around for it because I know they can't do it. Just like google glass - I am waiting till they make one that doesn't suck before I buy it.
Actually, Lineage 2 is a wonderful example. It's the kind of game you want, you have freedom and impact, it was really high budget.
... and it failed incredibly hard in the west.
There's a variety of reasons that a game can fail, and the basic premise of this thread is flawed.
Well those "shitty" games were funner than any themepark piece of trash they release these days, where all you do is stupid chores "Kill 10 of these" "Go here pick that up and go there" it sounds like a day in the office... Yeah they might be buggy, but it means these games CAN be done and are not "impossible" by any means, they just lacked the proper budget to release them with AAA polish.
You´re not getting it, sandbox developers DONT WANT TO DELIVER ANY STORY TO THE PLAYERS!!! NO STORY AT ALL... now that we hopefully past this, ill explain again.... Sandbox developers want to give the most amount of tools to create an impact in a persistent shared world, maybe you want to create your own city and control the most valuable resources, but there will also be another player that wants to do the same, so its up to them to fight over it or maybe make an alliance and share it. Thats real impact in the world. Not some stupid "high quality" story having randomly generated branch offs, which is nothing but an elaborated themepark.
You somehow think sandboxers want to imagine a fantastic personal story and all the lore behind it themselves, where the impact is just another twist of the story. And you want an intelligent computer to extract all of this info from your brain and transfer it to the game...... well no shit that technology doesnt exist lol
You wanna know a sandbox story? Check out the political boards of any open world pvp sandbox empire building game (Darkfall,Mortal Online,EvE,Shadowbane,etc)
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New mmos fail because mmos are old news. MMO's were big when people started to first discover them. WoW came out at the perfect time back when many people such as myself didint even know what an MMORPG was. And it being a classic fantasy game with orcs and trolls and mages and a seamless open world, players fell in love with it. Now these days many people/ gamers have grown tired of the genre. Questing sucks now, we've done it a million times in WoW.
I think gaming has to evolve not mmos. Virtual reality I think is the next big thing to come. Playing in online worlds with the Oculus Rift is going to take MMORPG's to the next lvl.
I assumed we were going by the same definition of fail that is applied to SWTOR, LOTRO, RIFT and the like. 'Failure is not doing as well as WoW'.
Either new MMOs aren't failing, or L2 failed right along with them. You can't have it BOTH ways.
Actually I think we are thinking on the same lines - its a choice between a nice scripted story - or no story at all. We know how that works out..
The problem with that is that those kinds of stories feel to much like reading or watching Twilight. Pretentious characters that one instantly dislikes are engaging in idiotic actions in silly game of Conflict Ball. Then in the next book/movie they go through the same actions, not having learned anything.
If you want a good sandbox story, check out A Tale in the Desert. The only problem with it is that sooner or later it runs its course and it does not feel as special telling it a second time.
Think the OP completely missed the mark in the first paragraph ... but definitely hit the nail on the head in the second one. The problem with his first examples is that none of that stuff was gated by creativity or skill ...it was all gated by GRIND and resource accumulation through exploitation.
The truth is most people couldn't handle a dog eat dog world. That's why there's no successor to UO. The amounts of bitching about EVE alone is proof too. It turned out this way because there was not enough inherent "freedom" to overthrow the tyrants who drove everyone else out. They gamed the mechanics, they gamed the system because they understood it better than the Devs could. And they made the following generation of game designers into Victimized pussies because there was no counter to MinMaxing besides Nerfing. And now we have the worst of BOTH worlds.
Wait , i know it a bit late after 14 pages of posts .
but how we know an MMOGame are fail ?
Game comes out does well players get frustrated, with design choices, gameplay, bugs. Players ask devs to make changes. Not all players are satisfied with choices and people quit. That's the issue at its core.
RIFT, SWTOR, CoH, TSW, AoC all had similar things happen to them to name a few.
If you really want a fair tv comparison then it would be reality TV vs. scripted TV. One is a show that you get scripted results from and the other is players put into situations to get results by doing what they do with some producer nudging. Its not really a good comparision but fairer than comparing News which is for information and not true entertainment.
Your argument is nitpicking an ideal that player freedom is not possible by developers tech. When MMORPGS started there was 0 scripted content and little to no quest because there wasn't the tech or application of knowledge or a different gaming direction then now. It is only recently that developers have had money and tech for scripted VO quest. Majority of task and some of the quest could be procedurally generated because they're little more then FedEx and kill task with a generic story.
You then ignore the fact that you can have player freedom and scripted content. You keep trying to separate it but they work very well together single player, multiplayer and MMO. Its designers/investor choice that we have gotten MMORPGs similar to WoW because it is the biggest earner. Not to mention majority of MMORPGS players have never played an MMORPG that's not a narrow quest hub themepark. So, there is no need to service a desire that the majority havent tried to miss or want. It's like only knowing the McDonald's menu... you're not going to crave pizza if you never had it before.
IMO going back to the old Sandbox design you will satisfy a certain niche of gamers but you won't be able to hd your subs as previously the genre is to is to big for that now and if you don't impress people leave fast.
There are great elements in themeparks and great ones on Sandboxes. I like what Star Citizen is doing by having a story then opening up the world and the devs can introduce optional stories later on.
IMO most people in favour of themeparks here aren't arguing against changes in the industry they don't want to go back to 2000 - 2003 sandboxes and many that came out afterwards. They hated those games and so did most of the players at the time. Themeparks are getting the same way. The genre needs change but if we go back to IMO dull overly complex Sandboxes as the norm your just gonna see players move faster than they already are into MOBAs or similar games than they already are.
Oh, the old "I wish this game were sandbox" bull.
Most people don't even know what the word means anymore. It's some buzz term thrown around so people can continue to enjoy their game of "WAIT FOR THE GAME!".
The reality is waiting for a game has become more enjoyable than playing a game for some out there. They wait, wait, hype it up, wait some more, read some stuff, watch some videos.. they completely psyche themselves up for it then they get it and realise "damn, once again it's not that perfect over-the-top requirements list of a game I want!" and they move onto waiting for the next game.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
So... the real reason MMOs fail is because they're not paying enough for marketing?
Sounds legit.
C-SPAN is not news or entertainment - its just reality. Its just congress in session. And no 'reality' TV is not 'reality' at all. Its basically identical to scripted shows - cept they have unpaid actors and some improv instead of real actors with complete scripting. So no that's not a good analogy at all. Both scenarios are totally controlled by the producer/directors.
That's not my argument. Its entirely possible to have both freedom and impact in the game. The problem is the other players won't LIKE such a game. Total freedom means no direction other then grinding (these are the games with "zero' scripting) and real impact means you can grief other players/and or ruin their fun. Paragon killed Arthas first - now he is dead - and no one else can kill him because their kill had "real" impact.
I am saying the OP wants tradeoffs that game producers don't think we lead to superior games.
If by 'freedom' you mean they can grind mobs like EQ - then sure it can work. But its a very limited view of freedom - one that has been tried before and met with very limited success. Again sure you can make a game like that - however most players feel that dumping quests and replacing it with grinding isn't much of a step forward. <g>
As much as I love themeparks, and after a long discussion with my friend, the idea of a game like that does sound fun. The game itself wouldn't be hard to make at all, and I couldnt see it being anything other than other than just a box price. With no quests, no scripted content, no levels...just an immense persistent world where you do what ever you'd like sounds almost too good to be true.
It's hard enough banding together with people that support the same ideas as you in current games, but building from the ground up with 20-40 of your friends, securing your in game assests, and then defending your acquired wealth from opposing factions that happen to be online when you all are asleep for the night....man that's only going to get people so far.
No rules or script in a game. Minecraft for 'grown ups'. Hell you could create an atom bomb and blow up that mountain over there if you have the dedication an man power to do so. In theory it sounds amazing. All my min-maxing, rep grinding, econ-pvping would be over with.
But just like in real life, once youre "made it" in a game like that, what else would there be to do? Do in-game drugs? Keep attacking weaker bands of players? There is a reason I quit playing minecraft after I made my own mob grinder.
I know my post might sound all over the place. I guess what Im trying to say is I dont know how long I can depend on a semi-creative me and game full of people to keep me interested for so long. I pay money to experience content - I dont pay it to design content for other people. And if I did then I should be the one getting payed.
BUT, at the end of the day, I cant tell anyone how to have fun.
Content gating and lack of content are the reasons most MMORPGs fail.
The keyword is CONTENT.
I think there is to much content already (if you consider quests and battlegrounds content). The problem is people get bored of doing those things repeatedly after a while. There is only so much story and so much running in, dying, respawning, and dying again you can do before you start to see through the game mechanics are how tedious they are.
That's what happened with a lot of Sandboxes and the dog eat dog world they created. It was fun to log in have a good time but once you were at the top of the food chain that's what you did you defended your spot at the top of the food chain, time commitments go up in order to be a part of the living virtual world and for many you have two live the one in the game and the one in real life. I heard many stories in WoW about people getting woken up at 4 am to log into DAOC and defend their territory as a guild is conducting a sneak attack. While that level of planning and commitment can be fun over the long term it's just not sustainable as people have real lives that are more important than their leisure. When your leisure starts affecting your real life it's harder to keep doing it. That's why Themeparks took the market by storm with the release of WoW
Many people play Sandbox games for awhile and quit due to time commitment, IMO themepark games holds those players longer because they can diminish their time commitments and still be an active part of the community. IMO the next big thing will be that game that incorporates the best part of Sanbox games with great themepark elements and creates a game where players have impact without having to run a second life in a virtual world.
Is that HTCs fault or apple's fault. Apple's Customer Service and other features are what has kept them above HTC for years and I have had an HTC phone most of it worked great then it failed on me. Is it the consumers fault or HTC that Apple can deliver an overall better experience the same applies to AAA games or Indie Games.
Samsung has driven sales through it's retail chain by educating their partners as to what their different phones provide and branding Galaxy as their main brand and providing some categories of it while still being a recognizable name. If you want to talk Stolen technologies Apple and Steve Jobs.
Do I miss playing old 8 bit games and platformers, I don't which a lot of indie games are and I don't seek out those experiences those that do will find those games I have no interest in that. Also some companies start out making more indie style games and hit it big like Telltale Games has with Walking Dead and other franchises now. So indie developers with a great concept can hit it big and Walking Dead the game exploded through Word of Mouth not marketing. Star Citizen is another great example people have wanted a Wing Commander like game for years,no one made one and boom word of mouth and crowdfunding are succeeding in creating this game. No AAA developers to be found here....
Keep clinging to your fantasy that Marketing is everything and Marketers rule the world where as in reality it's a part of the commercial system that has to be sustained by a good product, customer service and a great sales team to name a few. No amount of marketing can save a piss poor product but you know keep believing what ever makes you happy as you have one idea and apparently a Masters in Marketing but have no idea about how companies, business models, and anything else work in 2014. Have fun beating that dead horse it's clear that it's impossible to have any kind of conversation or discussion with you.