This is the only game that counts

delete5230

I've been on this web site for years.  For most of that time I looked forward to reading what's going on in the mmo world.  It used to be my main go to site.  Lately, its just another web site on my list of sites to look at.  Sure I'll scan over topics once maybe twice a day, but it seems to be drying up.

With all the politics and red tape associated with Western made mmos, it seems that our industry is in a " lock down " only to leave Asian grinders, and ridiculous cash shops......This can't be disputed.

 I would guess everyone has their hand in the cookie jar making it impossible for any company to produce a long lasting virtual world.  Here in the west were full of fees and high cost and copy rights.  What's next a trademark on using the word " Love, Kill or Great Axe  ".  Maybe not, but close.  It's 2015, I never foreseen things would get so screwed up in the western world, and it seems that mmos got the worst of it. 

What mmos are today:

Character creation >>> Starting zone, with tutorial >>> Quest 1 >>> Quest 2 >>> Quest 3 (use the cash shop) >>> Quest 4 >>> Quest 5 >>> Que for Dungeon >>> Quest 6 >>> Que for PvP.

This style is cheap to make with less content than ever before.  Developers found a neat little trick, stating "this is what players are asking for".  How can you argue that ?....Will you invest thousands to prove them wrong ?....They know full well you can't.

This is standard, no deviation from it 

Pantheon Rise of the Fallen seems to look past that by using old school.  It's been so long since we had a real mmo that you can actually call it NEW SCHOOL !!!!!.......The system worked well, no one complained.  Yet developers changed the formula to Quest 1 >>> Quest 2 because it's cheap.

Old School doesn't have to be old, were not talking stick figures and dotted black hallways here like the stigma suggest.  This stigma is something that you posters made up !!

It's sad that Brad and his team have to use kick starters as a formula for funding.  But this is the only option to keep the greedy investors from taking 80% of the pie.  Leaving the game with Quest 1 >>> Quest 2.

Hats off to Brad and Visionary Realms

Kyleran

If Brad is the last great hope of the genre then things must be pretty dire indeed.

As this game appears to be designed around PVE and not around territory and resource control it's not really a title I'm looking forward to.

If you are looking for a reincarnation of EQ1 this might be your game, if not other titles seem to hold more promise.

Let's hope at least some of these crowd funded titles succeed in revitalizing the MMORPG genre, IMO it is sorely needed.

swedago

I stopped playing MMOs this year after playing since 1999.  This game is definitely on my to try/buy list.

delete5230

People bring people, let me explain:

I've been doing kung fu for 25 years.  I've seen many high and low points at our school.  When the population is high around thirty students, others seem to join making it larger.  At times when were low, people seem to watch and leave keeping it at a low.

An mmo has to be well built and large from the start !......It's a fact, its how things work.

Kyleran, your right.  Pantheon will be designed around PvE. It's the smarter choice as its the most popular. Balancing around PvE is hard enough much less PvP.  PvP sets an entire new complicated equation.

If Pantheon is well made and large, it will be popular.  If Visionary Realms succeeds and REINVEST, I'm sure PvP will be added.

SpottyGekko

delete5230 said:

...

It's sad that Brad and his team have to use kick starters as a formula for funding.  But this is the only option to keep the greedy investors from taking 80% of the pie.  Leaving the game with Quest 1 >>> Quest 2.

...

Ironically, the end result doesn't seems to have changed much.

In the past, "investors and publishers took 80% of the pie", but the pie was quite big. With crowdfunding, developers get 100% of the pie, only problem being that the pie is only 20% as big as the old pie...

delete5230

One major downfall of SOE and Everquest 2.

Both EQ2 and World of Warcraft were fighting for first place.  One MAJOR difference is Blizzard reinvested and gave many years of free updates and content.  EQ2 and SOE, dident repair bugs, they looked ahead with only paid expansion's........Years later Blizzard did the same, always maintained quality standards from buggyness.  Blizzard waited until they were established !

Pala

Guys you dont seem to know how business and distribution works. The pie is split in many different ways. 

The government gets between 10-25% in VAT depending on the country, distribution and retail take arround 50%  from what is left. The publisher gets about 20-30%.

Almost all products on the shelves or digital if we use a simple rule of thumb have to be produced for around 30% of the final price. Even that is too high for some products, depending on quantity. But unless the product can be produced under 30% of the retail price it is not a viable product. It really doesnt matter if  you are using a publisher or not. Because the publisher doesnt just sit there and take their 30%, they invest in marketing, editing and improving the product, give you a distributive infrastructure.

When going alone you you have to do all this yourself and most of the time you cant be as cost effective as the publisher is so in the end its the same thing. 

Good publisher improves the quality of the product, not the other way around. I get pitched to publish books that were already self published and so far not one of those would have left us in the state that they were self published. Some needed a complete rewrite but I understand that the author working on his own without an editor, without the design and marketing team, without critical feedback will not see his own mistakes.

Reymond E. Feist who sold millions and millions of books makes a ton of spelling and grammatical mistakes, there are also continuation isssues (but the publisher helps him be the great writer that he undoubtedly is)


When you say publisher takes 80% you really dont have any idea whatsoever what you are saying. 

fodell54

delete5230 said:

One major downfall of SOE and Everquest 2.

Both EQ2 and World of Warcraft were fighting for first place.  One MAJOR difference is Blizzard reinvested and gave many years of free updates and content.  EQ2 and SOE, dident repair bugs, they looked ahead with only paid expansion's........Years later Blizzard did the same, always maintained quality standards from buggyness.  Blizzard waited until they were established !

The biggest issue with EQ2 was that at the time you almost had to build a new computer to play it. Unlike WoW that anyone with a computer could play. If you're talking about reasons a game didn't gain traction I think this is a much bigger reason then lack of content or bug fixes. Wow was littered with bugs that didn't get fixed. It all comes down to cost and what the average gamer at the time was willing to shell out. 

Loke666

I kinda feel that Shards at least deserves a mention if we are talking about going back to oldschool and then evolving it in a different direction. Garriot is as much a vet as Brad (more so really) and he is taking a very different approach to anything we seen before, far more different than Pantheon.

That said, Pantheon seems so far to be a very nice game and I am really looking forward to try it.

Also, the is Camelot unchained and Crowfall. They will be more PvP focused though but also look interesting and are made by experienced devs. Not all of those 4 games will succeed but one would be enough. We really do need at least one of them to do really well or I think it will be some time before we see any future western MMOs with a good budget. The genre is too interesting to stay buried but we might get stuck with Asian games the next 10 years otherwise.

delete5230

Pala said:

Guys you dont seem to know how business and distribution works. The pie is split in many different ways. 

The government gets between 10-25% in VAT depending on the country, distribution and retail take arround 50%  from what is left. The publisher gets about 20-30%.

Almost all products on the shelves or digital if we use a simple rule of thumb have to be produced for around 30% of the final price. Even that is too high for some products, depending on quantity. But unless the product can be produced under 30% of the retail price it is not a viable product. It really doesnt matter if  you are using a publisher or not. Because the publisher doesnt just sit there and take their 30%, they invest in marketing, editing and improving the product, give you a distributive infrastructure.

When going alone you you have to do all this yourself and most of the time you cant be as cost effective as the publisher is so in the end its the same thing. 

Good publisher improves the quality of the product, not the other way around. I get pitched to publish books that were already self published and so far not one of those would have left us in the state that they were self published. Some needed a complete rewrite but I understand that the author working on his own without an editor, without the design and marketing team, without critical feedback will not see his own mistakes.

Reymond E. Feist who sold millions and millions of books makes a ton of spelling and grammatical mistakes, there are also continuation isssues (but the publisher helps him be the great writer that he undoubtedly is)


When you say publisher takes 80% you really dont have any idea whatsoever what you are saying. 

Sounds complicated, expensive and over my head none the less.......Hence, the western sucks.

Kyleran

delete5230 said:

People bring people, let me explain:

I've been doing kung fu for 25 years.  I've seen many high and low points at our school.  When the population is high around thirty students, others seem to join making it larger.  At times when were low, people seem to watch and leave keeping it at a low.

An mmo has to be well built and large from the start !......It's a fact, its how things work.

Kyleran, your right.  Pantheon will be designed around PvE. It's the smarter choice as its the most popular. Balancing around PvE is hard enough much less PvP.  PvP sets an entire new complicated equation.

If Pantheon is well made and large, it will be popular.  If Visionary Realms succeeds and REINVEST, I'm sure PvP will be added.

Well, if they are smart, they'll stick to their core niche and cater only to it, a la EVE, regardless what naysayers say about what other direction the design "should" take. 

Chasing after new niches while alienating the original base has been a chronic problem in the genre for many years and many games........ you really can't have it all.

ThexReporter

Looks like another game that will end up free to play in 6 months.

Pala

@skadad its not corporate bullshit, even if you sell the product digitally steam and gog take their cut, unless you are suggesting just selling through your own website but that doesnt work so well. Creating an audience on your website and marketing the product is expensive and not what game developers know how to do. Its usually counterproductive, you keep a larger percentage from much less money.

There are loads of quality products that you have never heard of, fighting for market presence is usually more expensive than making the product.

However, I am talking about your run of the mill publisher not giants like EA who function a little differently I guess. They are probably investing in all sorts of games just to stop others and also probably have some internal development which your average publisher wouldnt have. If I was EA I would look to generate income in various ways from a product so probably merchandise, bundles and so on are all publisher driven.

Also if you have a good product with a big potential audience you can use the publishers to your advantage, they are all hunting for the next big thing and you can screw them as much as they screw you. If you are begging them then you will get what they want to give you. Both sides need each other so there is a common ground to work on.

Hrimnir

I couldn't agree more delete5230, PVE is the way to go, its far more popular.

CrazKanuk

With all due respect, there are a plethora of games that crowdfunding has enabled which "matter" in the grand scheme of things. @Loke666 makes a good point about Shards Online. Shards could be the most flexible of "old school" games. There's Albion Online, The Repopulation, SotA, PFO (if that's still a thing), CU, Crowfall. 

So Pantheon isn't the only game that matters, but I think that the next generation of games will put the "old school" argument to rest once and for all. Is it something that people want? Can it survive today? 

Personally, I think that the issue isn't with the games. They're niche and they'd probably find a small, loyal audience. However, they're also based on community. They're social games, not solo games, and the biggest difference between today and a decade ago is things like Twitch, YouTube, social media. Everyone is a newscaster now and, as we've learned from newscasters in the past, news stations play blood and gore, not fluff pieces, they need to be controversial or they're irrelevant. So we've got an entire world of people who want to make it their job to be asshats. I feel like this is a huge issues with these up-and-coming games, since they do rely so heavily on social gameplay. 

Sinist

Kyleran said:

Well, if they are smart, they'll stick to their core niche and cater only to it, a la EVE, regardless what naysayers say about what other direction the design "should" take. 

Chasing after new niches while alienating the original base has been a chronic problem in the genre for many years and many games........ you really can't have it all.

Exactly. I have seen this so many times. Use the niche to ride a game into release, then it gets popular with mainstream and they then drop the niche crowd and market/monetize on the mainstream until the game is dead.

They have to stick to a very solid and focused direction or this will end up like every other game out there. I know it is enticing when all those "potentials" come flooding in making demands about "their favorite mmo", but if you cater to "all", you produce for "none".

I think Brad realizes this though, as he honestly believes that given the chance, people who normally wouldn't at first consider such, will come to enjoy it. I believe this to an extent as well, but I also know there are some you can never please, and they will be the loudest and most disruptive.

Amsai

Just gonna throw this out there. YES the focus will absolutely be PvE. However they did say that eventully they might do alternate server rules. Which included PvP rulesets. Nothing else said on that aside from it wont effect PvE balance at all. 

jesteralways

DMKano said:

Hrimnir said:

I couldn't agree more delete5230, PVE is the way to go, its far more popular.

I disagree - MOBAs and arena fps shooters are all PvP games and are FAR more popular than all MMORPGa put together.

The key difference is short session gameplay which both MOBAs and FPS arena shooters nail in a huge way.

The feature that old vets want the most (spending 100's of hours in a virtual world) is exactly what masses don't want. This is what's keeping mmorpgs niche.

I do want to spend hundreds and thousands hours in a virtual world but i don't want to spend my time in meaningless hours of grinding same group of mob over and over again just to get 10% advancement toward level up after 6 hour. And on top of that, if the so called challenge end up being giving mobs outrageous amount of hp and damage so that i am forced to group, giving them only 1 or 2 ability which almost all the time end up being aoe and no real intelligence to actually counter players, it is even worse. Those were what wrong with "old school" mmorpg. i don't want those shit again. But i will wish goodluck to pantheon team and their fans, hope they enjoy the game enough so that they won't have to come into a themepark discussion and bash themepark games for not being sandbox.

GeezerGamer

So far the number of crowd funded MMORPGs that actually matter are?
(Hint: zero)

When this game releases........IF this game releases......THEN we will see how  much it matters.And it's not just this game, It's all of them. MMORPGs are just too dam big to be crowd funded properly. And on top of that, it's by a guy with a history of not being able to manage a vision.


Too many things have to happen between now and "matters".
Like
1. releasigthe game.
2. releasing the game that actually works.
3. Releasing a game that actually delivers what was promised.

Fully funded studios can't seem to manage that......how's a guy with limited funding and a bad track record going to fare?

Scorchien

DMKano said:

Hrimnir said:

I couldn't agree more delete5230, PVE is the way to go, its far more popular.

I disagree - MOBAs and arena fps shooters are all PvP games and are FAR more popular than all MMORPGa put together.

The key difference is short session gameplay which both MOBAs and FPS arena shooters nail in a huge way.

The feature that old vets want the most (spending 100's of hours in a virtual world) is exactly what masses don't want. This is what's keeping mmorpgs niche.

   Well if you stayed on topic , you wouldnt disagree, this thread and the op are all speaking of MMORPGs its very easy to see that and discussing PVE PVP realative to that genre not MOBAS and FPS , which have absolutley nothing to do with this ...

   I digress, PVE is the way to focus for Pantheon for sure, particularly for the crowd that BM and his team are trying to attract ..

Ginaz

If Brad McQuaid is the last hope for MMOs then the genre is truly dead.  He's one of the growing list of former celebrity now has been developers who hasn't done anything meaningful or successful in over 10 years (looking at you too Richard Garriet), who's fame and cult following stems from their one hit wonder that old nerds look back to lovingly.

GeezerGamer

DMKano said:

Hrimnir said:

I couldn't agree more delete5230, PVE is the way to go, its far more popular.

I disagree - MOBAs and arena fps shooters are all PvP games and are FAR more popular than all MMORPGa put together.

The key difference is short session gameplay which both MOBAs and FPS arena shooters nail in a huge way.

The feature that old vets want the most (spending 100's of hours in a virtual world) is exactly what masses don't want. This is what's keeping mmorpgs niche.

"keeping"?
They always were, and probably always will be. What we have seen and labeld as a failure in the genre, is games being marked to the wrong crowd and the "exodus" that followed was nothing more than a "normalization" With very few exceptions. And selling millions of boxes doesn't count if players weren't retained. It just means a niche game was able to capitalize on hype.

Sinist

GeezerGamer said:

DMKano said:

Hrimnir said:

I couldn't agree more delete5230, PVE is the way to go, its far more popular.

I disagree - MOBAs and arena fps shooters are all PvP games and are FAR more popular than all MMORPGa put together.

The key difference is short session gameplay which both MOBAs and FPS arena shooters nail in a huge way.

The feature that old vets want the most (spending 100's of hours in a virtual world) is exactly what masses don't want. This is what's keeping mmorpgs niche.

"keeping"?
They always were, and probably always will be. What we have seen and labeld as a failure in the genre, is games being marked to the wrong crowd and the "exodus" that followed was nothing more than a "normalization" With very few exceptions. And selling millions of boxes doesn't count if players weren't retained. It just means a niche game was able to capitalize on hype.

Exactly! MMORPGs and PC gaming were always a niche crowd. WoWs millions of subs was a fad anomaly formed of the console crowd and the "oh, you can play a game on the internetz with other people? That's fancy!" Now that crowd is moving on to the next fad and the market is starting to fall back to its previous numbers (thankfully).

Sinist

GeezerGamer said:

So far the number of crowd funded MMORPGs that actually matter are?
(Hint: zero)

When this game releases........IF this game releases......THEN we will see how  much it matters.And it's not just this game, It's all of them. MMORPGs are just too dam big to be crowd funded properly. And on top of that, it's by a guy with a history of not being able to manage a vision.


Too many things have to happen between now and "matters".
Like
1. releasigthe game.
2. releasing the game that actually works.
3. Releasing a game that actually delivers what was promised.

Fully funded studios can't seem to manage that......how's a guy with limited funding and a bad track record going to fare?

I think your assessment of Brads history and ability in the industry is a bit biased to a given position.

Sinist

Ginaz said:

If Brad McQuaid is the last hope for MMOs then the genre is truly dead.  He's one of the growing list of former celebrity now has been developers who hasn't done anything meaningful or successful in over 10 years (looking at you too Richard Garriet), who's fame and cult following stems from their one hit wonder that old nerds look back to lovingly.

The genre is truly dead, for those who there will be no loss when they leave. Nothing good came from the masses who destroyed not only the MMO market, but the PC gaming market with their entitled mentalities and shallow game play desires. They will not be missed.

They have a new fad now in the mobile market. Companies are sure to get ridiculously rich on marketing PTW carrot gimmicks to the sheep.

GeezerGamer

Sinist said:

GeezerGamer said:

So far the number of crowd funded MMORPGs that actually matter are?
(Hint: zero)

When this game releases........IF this game releases......THEN we will see how  much it matters.And it's not just this game, It's all of them. MMORPGs are just too dam big to be crowd funded properly. And on top of that, it's by a guy with a history of not being able to manage a vision.


Too many things have to happen between now and "matters".
Like
1. releasigthe game.
2. releasing the game that actually works.
3. Releasing a game that actually delivers what was promised.

Fully funded studios can't seem to manage that......how's a guy with limited funding and a bad track record going to fare?

I think your assessment of Brads history and ability in the industry is a bit biased to a given position.

well
He can design a game.
He can't run a business.

That's my assessment.

I have my doubts about this game as well as Star Citizen. I'd love to play both of those dreams as pitched. Unfortunately, I'm too damned cynical to believe we will ever get those dreams. Oh sure, I've no doubt we'll get to play a space sim called Star Citizen and maybe even an MMORPG called Pantheon. But I doubt they will be the games as they are currently hyped.