It's not poisoning the well to have high expectations when the competition is very fierce. Guess what, the standard has been raised. A new game has to meet the standards of 2014. That includes competing with everything including Everquest and World of Warcraft as they are today. Put on your big boy pants, bring your "A" game and make something amazing or prepare for the internet to take a collective dump on the average crap we get.
It's also pretty hard to poison the well when they tell you the water is from pure mountain streams but is actually stagnant pond scum.
"You CAN'T buy ships for RL money." - MaxBacon
"classification of games into MMOs is not by rational reasoning" - nariusseldon
Often the simplest answer is the correct one. There are many jaded MMORPG players because there are so shitty MMORPGS. Wwhich are more and more like single player games than MMORPGs.
Take ESO for example. I play that game, and although a nice single player game, the multiplayer aspect is G A R B A G E.
Zerg PvP with little incentive and rewards. 80% of the PvE content is best done solo, to an extent that you wish there were fewer people around because they mow down any few mobs that are still standing.
Again, the solo content is nice and well done, but as an MMOrpg it is terrible.
There are more options now more than ever, and devs better step it up when you have games like DDO, Rift, EQ2, etc f2p. Because quite frankly they are a million times more fun than ESO or SWTOR or GW2.
If this is true, why does SWTOR have as many people playing it as the first group of games likely does combined? GW2 might as well.
Options, my friend. You have yours, and I have mine. And fun is subjective. I just think a lot more people agree with me than you're willing to admit. Even so, doesn't matter a lick if I don't like the game.
Its just your statement makes no sense. Devs better step it up because three games with low player bases are a million times more fun than games with medium/high playerbases. Huh?
And one more time MMORPG.com attempts to defend a major advertiser...
...by blaming the customers for the poor quality of the product? Again?
I suspect most of us are less concerned about how feature rich a new MMORPG may be than we are concerned that the "promised" features actually work. Consider: Who sets up players' expectations?
--The developers.
--The marketers.
--Their advertisements (aka paid reviews).
--Their shils in the forums.
--Their promises of great and wonderful things that are new and unique so we should spend our money on their product and not on someone else's product.
Do the players force these "expectations" onto the developers? No. So, when the players experience something that doesn't meet expectations, whose fault is it?
MMORPG.com continues to lose what little credibility it has left with these repeated attempts to rationalize a bad product. ESO could have been a great game, but it isn't. ZOS didn't listen to its testers. ZOS didn't get a clue from the massive cancellation of pre-orders after the open Beta sessions. ZOS hasn't gotten a clue from the massive cancellation of subscriptions.
ZOS built up player expectations with a whole lot of marketing hype and then didn't deliver on the product they promised.
Often the simplest answer is the correct one. There are many jaded MMORPG players because there are so shitty MMORPGS. Wwhich are more and more like single player games than MMORPGs.
Take ESO for example. I play that game, and although a nice single player game, the multiplayer aspect is G A R B A G E.
Zerg PvP with little incentive and rewards. 80% of the PvE content is best done solo, to an extent that you wish there were fewer people around because they mow down any few mobs that are still standing.
Again, the solo content is nice and well done, but as an MMOrpg it is terrible.
However there is a market for those types of games. Not every game is designed for YOU.
I do wish there were more games designed for ME though.
More "stop making fun of the games!" arguments. Nope. I'm shelling out money, I'm being as critical as I can be. I want you to be honest - how many games in the list are actually worth a damn? I'd say less than 25%. You have about 20 some odd MMOs that are good, worthy titles to at least some niche crowd. The rest are crap f2p offerings with no forethought, shelled out by some Asian company who only sees the profits that WoW had and thinks they can get in on it. I'm willing to consider some of those companies even have a division that hires the occasional "my sister made $30,000 a year, and here's how" post. They're a blight. It's entirely different than indie games you see elsewhere.
And one more time MMORPG.com attempts to defend a major advertiser...
...by blaming the customers for the poor quality of the product? Again?
I suspect most of us are less concerned about how feature rich a new MMORPG may be than we are concerned that the "promised" features actually work. Consider: Who sets up players' expectations?
--The developers.
--The marketers.
--Their advertisements (aka paid reviews).
--Their shils in the forums.
--Their promises of great and wonderful things that are new and unique so we should spend our money on their product and not on someone else's product.
Do the players force these "expectations" onto the developers? No. So, when the players experience something that doesn't meet expectations, whose fault is it?
MMORPG.com continues to lose what little credibility it has left with these repeated attempts to rationalize a bad product. ESO could have been a great game, but it isn't. ZOS didn't listen to its testers. ZOS didn't get a clue from the massive cancellation of pre-orders after the open Beta sessions. ZOS hasn't gotten a clue from the massive cancellation of subscriptions.
ZOS built up player expectations with a whole lot of marketing hype and then didn't deliver on the product they promised.
FACT: That is not their customers' fault.
Very solid post.
I second that. Awesome post!
No, this is mostly a load of shit.
Because people see what they want to see.
Here are some examples: "SoE never listens to it customers" and "SoE ruined EQ"
In Everquest, SoE introduced many things that were a DIRECT result of player requests. Things such as portal stones to be able to better play with friends. And PoK was what killed EQ some players will tell you. however, EQ's peak popularity was actually the years after PoP.
"SWTOR is the least social MMORPG"
Yet its the only MMORPG since LOTRO to launch with lots of multiplayer quests and you can frequently see LFG cries in the chat channels of every planet.
People want someone other themselves to lay the blame on. the simple fact is our expectations mainly come from within. Shills on forums? Thats what, 1% of the posts? Marketers? People actually dont know to take marketing with a grain of salt? Its not like its any different than any marketing anywhere. No, people have this idea of what they want the game to be. like the people that try to twist around developer words on PvP in EQ Next, they will be disappointed when EQN isnt ffa PvP and say they were misled, when it was never said EQN will be FFA PvP and it would be ridiculous to think it will be.
More "stop making fun of the games!" arguments. Nope. I'm shelling out money, I'm being as critical as I can be. I want you to be honest - how many games in the list are actually worth a damn? I'd say less than 25%. You have about 20 some odd MMOs that are good, worthy titles to at least some niche crowd. The rest are crap f2p offerings with no forethought, shelled out by some Asian company who only sees the profits that WoW had and thinks they can get in on it. I'm willing to consider some of those companies even have a division that hires the occasional "my sister made $30,000 a year, and here's how" post. They're a blight. It's entirely different than indie games you see elsewhere.
except games like ESO and SWTOR are certainly among those good, worthy titles to at least some crowd.
I cant think of a single AAA game that doesnt have some redeeming qualities to it.
I read the title and immediately thought ESO. Then as I read, sure enough it wraps up with eso as an example. The shortcomings of eso have nothing to do with a publicly poisoned well. The only thing poisoned with respect to eso was sales and it's a good thing too, trying to sell garbage like eso at a steep cost should be a crime. Today we have social outlets all over and the news about how bad eso is spread like wildfire and cut profits dramatically. I think people have reasonable expectations, some do not respect money and some don't know quality, but overall people have reasonable expectations and reasonable expectations with respect to the price of games as well. At the end of the day eso was an attempt at a quick dollar and in attempting to make a quick buck, they hurt the industry by driving out consumers through utter dissapointed in what reasonable value and quality actually are.
The article contradicts itself from start to finish. On one hand we shouldn't roll over and accept whatever is thrown our way. On the other we shouldn't over scrutinize. What exactly should happen? How should we not roll over and throw our money away if not through questioning and scrutiny.
The author uses ESO as an example. The game wants nearly $250 from a customer for the first year of play. Unless one has a couple hundred bucks to burn why wouldn't scrutiny be in order?
In a business industry worth billions where a single title is expected to gross over $100M per year scrutiny down to the microscopic is in order. When there is that much money changing hands, ethics tends to take a distant back seat especially if ones job is on the line.
I would also question whether the well is actually being poisoned or not. The author makes the claim but then never really proves it. I can think of a counter-example: SW:TOR. If there was ever well poisoning in progress it was with that title after release, yet here it stands now possibly the most successful (financially and estimated player counts) western mmorpg after WoW. Prove to me the well has been poisoned.
There is no proof whatsoever that is it the "most successful western MMORPG after WoW". EvE has proven it has more sub numbers per month paying $15 each than SWTOR has in F2P contributions.
EvE is currently the best "Western" MMORPG on the market currently according to actual subscriber numbers they released unlike SWTOR whom "fluff" their numbers with accounts that are no longer active.
No, that isn't the case. SWTOR made just shy of $140 million in microtransactions alone last year. That doesn't include income from subscriptions.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Originally posted by Crusades I read the title and immediately thought ESO. Then as I read, sure enough it wraps up with eso as an example. The shortcomings of eso have nothing to do with a publicly poisoned well. The only thing poisoned with respect to eso was sales and it's a good thing too, trying to sell garbage like eso at a steep cost should be a crime. Today we have social outlets all over and the news about how bad eso is spread like wildfire and cut profits dramatically.
Except outside of bugs its not really a bad game and the bugs look to be only temporary.
Stop defending and apologizing for horrible products like SWTOR, GW2, and ESO. They made horrible mistakes in their development process, and failed to actually "capture" their target audiences for a REASON.
I think their target audiences are actually happily playing the games right now in fact! Well, it's early to tell how successful ESO will be but GW2 and SWTOR seem to have come into their own and are doing well.
Just because you have an opinion, doesn't mean it's a fact.
The article contradicts itself from start to finish. On one hand we shouldn't roll over and accept whatever is thrown our way. On the other we shouldn't over scrutinize. What exactly should happen? How should we not roll over and throw our money away if not through questioning and scrutiny.
The author uses ESO as an example. The game wants nearly $250 from a customer for the first year of play. Unless one has a couple hundred bucks to burn why wouldn't scrutiny be in order?
In a business industry worth billions where a single title is expected to gross over $100M per year scrutiny down to the microscopic is in order. When there is that much money changing hands, ethics tends to take a distant back seat especially if ones job is on the line.
I would also question whether the well is actually being poisoned or not. The author makes the claim but then never really proves it. I can think of a counter-example: SW:TOR. If there was ever well poisoning in progress it was with that title after release, yet here it stands now possibly the most successful (financially and estimated player counts) western mmorpg after WoW. Prove to me the well has been poisoned.
There is no proof whatsoever that is it the "most successful western MMORPG after WoW". EvE has proven it has more sub numbers per month paying $15 each than SWTOR has in F2P contributions.
EvE is currently the best "Western" MMORPG on the market currently according to actual subscriber numbers they released unlike SWTOR whom "fluff" their numbers with accounts that are no longer active.
No, that isn't the case. SWTOR made just shy of $140 million in microtransactions alone last year. That doesn't include income from subscriptions.
can you provide a link for that number please? I mean an official link not just to something made up by fanboys/marketers as all i can find from ea is that their revenue doubled after release of f2p but that doesn't really mean much(aoc had 5x after f2p).
Its not just video games, its everything. People are just out to judge everything and always accent the negatives more because its easier too. You can look at any forum for anything you can think of and you will find the same trash posts there.
Most vocal people seem to be very cynical about everything anyway. You never see a guy making a scene at a diner to compliment them on the food and service, you see the people who make a scene and demand free meals because an item was wrong in some way.
In 1990-2000 poisoning the well might have been an issue, now that there are so many titles competing it's hardly a worry. The mmo market is brutal right now.
The more people think through whether or not their project really brings something amazing to the market or fills a niche better than anyone else can then the less bad/mediocre mmos get made.
Making an mmo that can't survive in the market only brings hardship to your employees, misfortune to your investors, and disappointment to your customers. The less of these that get made the better. I say poison the well as much as we can.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
Perhaps the issue is not with the players/customers. Perhaps the issue is with the developers/publishers. The seem to not be in touch with reality, and the fact that the community calls them on this should not be seen as a problem.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
Perhaps the issue is not with the players/customers. Perhaps the issue is with the developers/publishers. The seem to not be in touch with reality, and the fact that the community calls them on this should not be seen as a problem.
No, its also the fault of the customer, there are usually beta weekends, open betas, tons of chances to try the game before launch, beta previews, beta reviews, beta videos, and people STILL buy the games knowing they're sick of themeparks.
The article contradicts itself from start to finish. On one hand we shouldn't roll over and accept whatever is thrown our way. On the other we shouldn't over scrutinize. What exactly should happen? How should we not roll over and throw our money away if not through questioning and scrutiny.
This x100
There is one thing much more poisoning than those that scrutinize, those that say we shouldn't. Scrutiny leads to the creation of better products and leads to protecting oneself from bad products...kissing butt keeps things bad, makes products worse and does nothing for no one.
The problem is simple and is not high expectations.Developers have not advanced the genre one bit,they have remained entirely stagnant.
I would disagree - sort of. The problem is that the genre shifted from being a niche genre for people who want to group, face challenges, cope with danger, etc - like in the original MMORPGs like EQ.
The genre is stagnant now, as it's just WoW clones, but the bigger problem is that it shouldn't be about WoW clones to begin with. The MMORPG genre was never suited to wider/casual appeal. If it had evolved from its origins and stayed true to form (grouping/challenge/danger) it *might* be in a good place now.
But instead, yes, we have stagnation of a hopeless formula of suck - of ever refining the Blizzard/WoW bastardization of MMORPGs into single player games with optional grouping. It's a failed formula for the clones and just continues to fail even worse the more dumbed down, stripped down, and generic they make it.
What passes for MMORPGs now are so far away from the original style that it's kind of a joke, and it's a joke when people write about this stuff as if soloing is normal and all these screwy features like housing have anything to do with good gaming.
MMORPGs have become intolerably boring online worlds because they are full of nothing but fluffy stuff that's boring and the actual gameplay is gutted and boring too and not worth a sub. And soloing isn't worth a sub. What little shred of actual MMORPG that's left isn't worth playing.
All the housing and dress up your character stuff should be left to SIMS or Barbie Online. Soloing should be left where it belongs, in single player games. PvP should go back to being an afterthought and left to genres that do it way better. MMORPGs should get back to being MMORPGs - and evolve from THAT to be better MMORPGs - better GROUP content, group activities, new ways of doing challenge, etc.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
The problem is simple and is not high expectations.Developers have not advanced the genre one bit,they have remained entirely stagnant.What has happened is that developers are using a lot more marketing and under handed gimmicks to lure money out of people's pockets.It used to be make a game and see if people like it.
Now developers are even making less than standard products meaning not a very good effort and telling us how great their game is.Well sorry Mr.Dev guys but your game is ONLY as good as we say it is,well unless you want to buy a million copies of your own game,problem is you won't make any profit that way.
Why change it if people are paying for crap "content" that is handed out via cash shops???
You realise that almost all the revenue from cash shop sales on SWtOR come from the sub based people and NOT the F2P crowd???
So I ask you again...why should they change????
It's going to take a collapse of the genre for it to restart....
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
Perhaps the issue is not with the players/customers. Perhaps the issue is with the developers/publishers. The seem to not be in touch with reality, and the fact that the community calls them on this should not be seen as a problem.
No, its also the fault of the customer, there are usually beta weekends, open betas, tons of chances to try the game before launch, beta previews, beta reviews, beta videos, and people STILL buy the games knowing they're sick of themeparks.
Derros is correct....until consumers stop buying this stuff, they won't stop making it...
Originally posted by Crusades I read the title and immediately thought ESO. Then as I read, sure enough it wraps up with eso as an example. The shortcomings of eso have nothing to do with a publicly poisoned well. The only thing poisoned with respect to eso was sales and it's a good thing too, trying to sell garbage like eso at a steep cost should be a crime. Today we have social outlets all over and the news about how bad eso is spread like wildfire and cut profits dramatically.
Except outside of bugs its not really a bad game and the bugs look to be only temporary.
So this is proving the OP's point.
No - all bugs could be removed and it would still be a sub par game that is overpriced.
Sub par enough that even if it were free people would still not play it for more than a month.
The poisoned well analogy works very well when talking about SWTOR - the poison was brought about because it's a wow clone. SWTOR is actually a great game. If a game is judged simply based on "WoW Clone" then it has been unfairly judged.
The same just can't be said about ESO - ESO just feels cheap, it feels like an attempt to see how much one can get away with, how much can one make with minimal effort. - The "well at least it's not a wow clone" argument is a mask, it's a diversion to train the mind into actually believing that a lack of basic mmorpg elements is a step toward innovation and the anit wow. Anti wow supposedly being good.
There is room for wow clones and non wow clones, but the garbage can is full, there just isn't room for games like ESO.
The article contradicts itself from start to finish. On one hand we shouldn't roll over and accept whatever is thrown our way. On the other we shouldn't over scrutinize. What exactly should happen? How should we not roll over and throw our money away if not through questioning and scrutiny.
The author uses ESO as an example. The game wants nearly $250 from a customer for the first year of play. Unless one has a couple hundred bucks to burn why wouldn't scrutiny be in order?
In a business industry worth billions where a single title is expected to gross over $100M per year scrutiny down to the microscopic is in order. When there is that much money changing hands, ethics tends to take a distant back seat especially if ones job is on the line.
I would also question whether the well is actually being poisoned or not. The author makes the claim but then never really proves it. I can think of a counter-example: SW:TOR. If there was ever well poisoning in progress it was with that title after release, yet here it stands now possibly the most successful (financially and estimated player counts) western mmorpg after WoW. Prove to me the well has been poisoned.
There is no proof whatsoever that is it the "most successful western MMORPG after WoW". EvE has proven it has more sub numbers per month paying $15 each than SWTOR has in F2P contributions.
EvE is currently the best "Western" MMORPG on the market currently according to actual subscriber numbers they released unlike SWTOR whom "fluff" their numbers with accounts that are no longer active.
No, that isn't the case. SWTOR made just shy of $140 million in microtransactions alone last year. That doesn't include income from subscriptions.
can you provide a link for that number please? I mean an official link not just to something made up by fanboys/marketers as all i can find from ea is that their revenue doubled after release of f2p but that doesn't really mean much(aoc had 5x after f2p).
Google SWTOR microtransaction revenue and pick from any of the numerous MMO and gaming news sites that reported it. Doesn't take much to find it.....
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Comments
It's not poisoning the well to have high expectations when the competition is very fierce. Guess what, the standard has been raised. A new game has to meet the standards of 2014. That includes competing with everything including Everquest and World of Warcraft as they are today. Put on your big boy pants, bring your "A" game and make something amazing or prepare for the internet to take a collective dump on the average crap we get.
It's also pretty hard to poison the well when they tell you the water is from pure mountain streams but is actually stagnant pond scum.
"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/Often the simplest answer is the correct one. There are many jaded MMORPG players because there are so shitty MMORPGS. Wwhich are more and more like single player games than MMORPGs.
Take ESO for example. I play that game, and although a nice single player game, the multiplayer aspect is G A R B A G E.
Zerg PvP with little incentive and rewards. 80% of the PvE content is best done solo, to an extent that you wish there were fewer people around because they mow down any few mobs that are still standing.
Again, the solo content is nice and well done, but as an MMOrpg it is terrible.
My gaming blog
Its just your statement makes no sense. Devs better step it up because three games with low player bases are a million times more fun than games with medium/high playerbases. Huh?
I second that. Awesome post!
My gaming blog
However there is a market for those types of games. Not every game is designed for YOU.
I do wish there were more games designed for ME though.
More "stop making fun of the games!" arguments. Nope. I'm shelling out money, I'm being as critical as I can be. I want you to be honest - how many games in the list are actually worth a damn? I'd say less than 25%. You have about 20 some odd MMOs that are good, worthy titles to at least some niche crowd. The rest are crap f2p offerings with no forethought, shelled out by some Asian company who only sees the profits that WoW had and thinks they can get in on it. I'm willing to consider some of those companies even have a division that hires the occasional "my sister made $30,000 a year, and here's how" post. They're a blight. It's entirely different than indie games you see elsewhere.
No, this is mostly a load of shit.
Because people see what they want to see.
Here are some examples: "SoE never listens to it customers" and "SoE ruined EQ"
In Everquest, SoE introduced many things that were a DIRECT result of player requests. Things such as portal stones to be able to better play with friends. And PoK was what killed EQ some players will tell you. however, EQ's peak popularity was actually the years after PoP.
"SWTOR is the least social MMORPG"
Yet its the only MMORPG since LOTRO to launch with lots of multiplayer quests and you can frequently see LFG cries in the chat channels of every planet.
People want someone other themselves to lay the blame on. the simple fact is our expectations mainly come from within. Shills on forums? Thats what, 1% of the posts? Marketers? People actually dont know to take marketing with a grain of salt? Its not like its any different than any marketing anywhere. No, people have this idea of what they want the game to be. like the people that try to twist around developer words on PvP in EQ Next, they will be disappointed when EQN isnt ffa PvP and say they were misled, when it was never said EQN will be FFA PvP and it would be ridiculous to think it will be.
except games like ESO and SWTOR are certainly among those good, worthy titles to at least some crowd.
I cant think of a single AAA game that doesnt have some redeeming qualities to it.
No, that isn't the case. SWTOR made just shy of $140 million in microtransactions alone last year. That doesn't include income from subscriptions.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Except outside of bugs its not really a bad game and the bugs look to be only temporary.
So this is proving the OP's point.
I think their target audiences are actually happily playing the games right now in fact! Well, it's early to tell how successful ESO will be but GW2 and SWTOR seem to have come into their own and are doing well.
Just because you have an opinion, doesn't mean it's a fact.
can you provide a link for that number please? I mean an official link not just to something made up by fanboys/marketers as all i can find from ea is that their revenue doubled after release of f2p but that doesn't really mean much(aoc had 5x after f2p).
Joined 2004 - I can't believe I've been a MMORPG.com member for 20 years! Get off my lawn!
Its not just video games, its everything. People are just out to judge everything and always accent the negatives more because its easier too. You can look at any forum for anything you can think of and you will find the same trash posts there.
Most vocal people seem to be very cynical about everything anyway. You never see a guy making a scene at a diner to compliment them on the food and service, you see the people who make a scene and demand free meals because an item was wrong in some way.
The squeaky wheel gets the grease.
In 1990-2000 poisoning the well might have been an issue, now that there are so many titles competing it's hardly a worry. The mmo market is brutal right now.
The more people think through whether or not their project really brings something amazing to the market or fills a niche better than anyone else can then the less bad/mediocre mmos get made.
Making an mmo that can't survive in the market only brings hardship to your employees, misfortune to your investors, and disappointment to your customers. The less of these that get made the better. I say poison the well as much as we can.
"Insanity: doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein
Perhaps the issue is not with the players/customers. Perhaps the issue is with the developers/publishers. The seem to not be in touch with reality, and the fact that the community calls them on this should not be seen as a problem.
No, its also the fault of the customer, there are usually beta weekends, open betas, tons of chances to try the game before launch, beta previews, beta reviews, beta videos, and people STILL buy the games knowing they're sick of themeparks.
This x100
There is one thing much more poisoning than those that scrutinize, those that say we shouldn't. Scrutiny leads to the creation of better products and leads to protecting oneself from bad products...kissing butt keeps things bad, makes products worse and does nothing for no one.
I would disagree - sort of. The problem is that the genre shifted from being a niche genre for people who want to group, face challenges, cope with danger, etc - like in the original MMORPGs like EQ.
The genre is stagnant now, as it's just WoW clones, but the bigger problem is that it shouldn't be about WoW clones to begin with. The MMORPG genre was never suited to wider/casual appeal. If it had evolved from its origins and stayed true to form (grouping/challenge/danger) it *might* be in a good place now.
But instead, yes, we have stagnation of a hopeless formula of suck - of ever refining the Blizzard/WoW bastardization of MMORPGs into single player games with optional grouping. It's a failed formula for the clones and just continues to fail even worse the more dumbed down, stripped down, and generic they make it.
What passes for MMORPGs now are so far away from the original style that it's kind of a joke, and it's a joke when people write about this stuff as if soloing is normal and all these screwy features like housing have anything to do with good gaming.
MMORPGs have become intolerably boring online worlds because they are full of nothing but fluffy stuff that's boring and the actual gameplay is gutted and boring too and not worth a sub. And soloing isn't worth a sub. What little shred of actual MMORPG that's left isn't worth playing.
All the housing and dress up your character stuff should be left to SIMS or Barbie Online. Soloing should be left where it belongs, in single player games. PvP should go back to being an afterthought and left to genres that do it way better. MMORPGs should get back to being MMORPGs - and evolve from THAT to be better MMORPGs - better GROUP content, group activities, new ways of doing challenge, etc.
Premium MMORPGs do not feature built-in cheating via cash for gold pay 2 win. PLAY to win or don't play.
I deeply loathe threads that analyse the posting habits of the community rather than talking about games.
As if we are here to be 'taught' and lectured by these people.
Stick to games MMORPG.com column guys, leave the social instruction to teachers and nuns.
Why change it if people are paying for crap "content" that is handed out via cash shops???
You realise that almost all the revenue from cash shop sales on SWtOR come from the sub based people and NOT the F2P crowd???
So I ask you again...why should they change????
It's going to take a collapse of the genre for it to restart....
Derros is correct....until consumers stop buying this stuff, they won't stop making it...
No - all bugs could be removed and it would still be a sub par game that is overpriced.
Sub par enough that even if it were free people would still not play it for more than a month.
The poisoned well analogy works very well when talking about SWTOR - the poison was brought about because it's a wow clone. SWTOR is actually a great game. If a game is judged simply based on "WoW Clone" then it has been unfairly judged.
The same just can't be said about ESO - ESO just feels cheap, it feels like an attempt to see how much one can get away with, how much can one make with minimal effort. - The "well at least it's not a wow clone" argument is a mask, it's a diversion to train the mind into actually believing that a lack of basic mmorpg elements is a step toward innovation and the anit wow. Anti wow supposedly being good.
There is room for wow clones and non wow clones, but the garbage can is full, there just isn't room for games like ESO.
Google SWTOR microtransaction revenue and pick from any of the numerous MMO and gaming news sites that reported it. Doesn't take much to find it.....
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?