dev are nto trerrible, well ok some shoudl consider blowing their headsoff but alot of have good potential . the issue is the biebering crowd of me now me now menowmenowmememwnownownowmememenownow
that want everything free now and expect a company to keep up with underpaid devs that have to work 60 hours a week for a hanfull of peanuts.
Hell yea, if others can deliver it for free they need to compete with free and if they cannot, they can seek other jobs where they can compete at. Great F2P product always beats great B2P/P2P product, ALWAYS.
a) "remember what they did to Ultima Online or this market will be soon like Trammel, A DESERT!"
As pointed out before, this is a bogus claim.
UO got more successful after Trammel and reached it's peak population 2.5 years later. Thus implying Trammel was the reason for UO nearly dying is a deliberate misrepresentation of reality.
Actually, the truth is that before Trammel, the game was hemorrhaging players fast, notably because competitors that don't force PvP on players arrived on the market (EQ and AC1). If anything, Trammel saved UO, as it was admitted by one of the lead developer, Raph Koster, in an article back then.
Trammel made UO reach his highest population after almost dying. Not bad for a desert.
I played long before and after Trammel and I, my guild and almost every player I knew back in the days completely disagree with you, sir.
Did you play it?
Don't let facts get in the way of your subjective and narrow point of view.
Sure, it reminds me of the Matrix saga, Matrix2 and 3 were much more succesful than Matrix1 in money incomes and people watching it at cinema but... You know what im going to tell you... Matrix1 is just one of the best films in human history, matrix 2 and 3 succes is just inertia effect.
Hmmmm Now I think I can use the Star Wars example too! Long live to JarJar Binks, hey, his film got more profits than Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back together...Such a great actor!
/irony off
Sometimes population peaks and profits doesnt mean that the product is better...
Hmmmm Now I think I can use the Star Wars example too! Long live to JarJar Binks, hey, his film got more profits than Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back together...Such a great actor!
/irony off
Sometimes population peaks and profits doesnt mean that the product is better...
And sometimes population does mean a product is better.
But that's why we dig deeper into things like the depth of a WOW PVE rotation and ask for examples of similar depth in other games to more directly compare how difficult the decisions are in that other game.
In this case you seem to want to believe that open world PVP is deeper, in spite of one decision ("bring more friends; go gank people") having a huge impact on success without requiring much skill. This is known as shallow gameplay.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I'll admit that I didn't read a third of the responses to this but I have to total disagree with this. It isn't the PVP most people play MMO's. In fact PVP drives away a majority of players because it only takes one bad player farmer lower players to give games a bad rep. I PVP myself but I have started to drift away from games where I don't have a choice today. Look at the facts most PVP centric games have struggled to keep a large player base, because the hardcore players get bored and start picking on newer players. PVP screws up most MMO's because they have to redo the archetypes so much because this class can destroy that class etc...If there wasn't PVP you could have a deep game with classes that should be stronger and weaker in areas. Now it is everyone is the same except which skill they use, they all do the same damage, which shouldn't be the case. An example, tanks shouldn't be able to hit for much damage at one time they should be meat shields, mages should destroy things at range but if caught close be two shot to death,......Can't have these in a PVP based game.
One of the biggest problems in the industry right now is the content locust that fly through a game without really playing it at all because they want to be the first to do everything. A lot of gamers play MMO's for the stories and fun getting to the end of them. If you are flying through quest no reading or listening why are you playing an MMO, better of playing a lobby game.
I'll admit that I didn't read a third of the responses to this but I have to total disagree with this. It isn't the PVP most people play MMO's. In fact PVP drives away a majority of players because it only takes one bad player farmer lower players to give games a bad rep. I PVP myself but I have started to drift away from games where I don't have a choice today. Look at the facts most PVP centric games have struggled to keep a large player base, because the hardcore players get bored and start picking on newer players. PVP screws up most MMO's because they have to redo the archetypes so much because this class can destroy that class etc...If there wasn't PVP you could have a deep game with classes that should be stronger and weaker in areas. Now it is everyone is the same except which skill they use, they all do the same damage, which shouldn't be the case. An example, tanks shouldn't be able to hit for much damage at one time they should be meat shields, mages should destroy things at range but if caught close be two shot to death,......Can't have these in a PVP based game.
One of the biggest problems in the industry right now is the content locust that fly through a game without really playing it at all because they want to be the first to do everything. A lot of gamers play MMO's for the stories and fun getting to the end of them. If you are flying through quest no reading or listening why are you playing an MMO, better of playing a lobby game.
Allow me to play devil's advocate. There are virtually no PvE only MMOs on the market, this clearly means that games with a PvP element to them have a much higher chance of succeeding than PvE only.
I don't personally believe either of these points are true. I love PvP, but like everything else it's only good if it's done right, same for PvE for that matter. You can't unilaterally love or hate any aspect of gaming unless you just have no taste IMO.
As to your second point, again I will play devil's advocate. One of the biggest problems in the industry right now is the development methodology of designers. They design games in a way that the content can be burned through too fast and doesn't have enough lasting depth for the player-bases. If the developers would shift from a design prospective where content is consumable in 10-30 minute chunks, games are all lobbies for the 1-5 legitimate endgame activities, worlds are ghost towns except capital cities, and top end gear is handed to you personally by Karl Marx the second you create your level 1 character, and just start making sandboxes again then we would all be better off.
Kind of funny because I think it at least show people like competitive pvp more than open world pvp.
There's absolutely no question of that. The amount of players playing competitive PVP (CoD, BF, MOBAs, etc) completely and utterly dwarfs the market for open world PVP.
CoD alone is many millions of players, while the most popular open world PVP game (EVE) only had about 500k monthly active players.
Is EvE billed as an action driven game with a focus on "seasons" and rankings for the sake of twitch stream and short term entertainment where all the activity and consequence is packed into ~15 minutes of play?
Apples and oranges seldom match up.
No. And that is the reason why it has no more than half a million players while other games boasted tens of millions.
In this case, oranges (eve) lose out because it is too sour. If a customer is eating an apple, he is probably not eating an orange.
I'll admit that I didn't read a third of the responses to this but I have to total disagree with this. It isn't the PVP most people play MMO's. In fact PVP drives away a majority of players because it only takes one bad player farmer lower players to give games a bad rep. I PVP myself but I have started to drift away from games where I don't have a choice today. Look at the facts most PVP centric games have struggled to keep a large player base, because the hardcore players get bored and start picking on newer players. PVP screws up most MMO's because they have to redo the archetypes so much because this class can destroy that class etc...If there wasn't PVP you could have a deep game with classes that should be stronger and weaker in areas. Now it is everyone is the same except which skill they use, they all do the same damage, which shouldn't be the case. An example, tanks shouldn't be able to hit for much damage at one time they should be meat shields, mages should destroy things at range but if caught close be two shot to death,......Can't have these in a PVP based game.
One of the biggest problems in the industry right now is the content locust that fly through a game without really playing it at all because they want to be the first to do everything. A lot of gamers play MMO's for the stories and fun getting to the end of them. If you are flying through quest no reading or listening why are you playing an MMO, better of playing a lobby game.
Allow me to play devil's advocate. There are virtually no PvE only MMOs on the market, this clearly means that games with a PvP element to them have a much higher chance of succeeding than PvE only.
I don't personally believe either of these points are true. I love PvP, but like everything else it's only good if it's done right, same for PvE for that matter. You can't unilaterally love or hate any aspect of gaming unless you just have no taste IMO.
As to your second point, again I will play devil's advocate. One of the biggest problems in the industry right now is the development methodology of designers. They design games in a way that the content can be burned through too fast and doesn't have enough lasting depth for the player-bases. If the developers would shift from a design prospective where content is consumable in 10-30 minute chunks, games are all lobbies for the 1-5 legitimate endgame activities, worlds are ghost towns except capital cities, and top end gear is handed to you personally by Karl Marx the second you create your level 1 character, and just start making sandboxes again then we would all be better off.
You see how this works now?
I would argue it doesn't matter how long it takes to complete if it isn't enjoyable.
Old MMOs survived on the premise that people would interact and create a lot of the fun for themselves (even if it took a long time to level).
New MMOs are trying to entertain people with solo content and even group content that is very linear. Drawing that out won't make it any more enjoyable.
There are two ways to do it in my opinion. You either let the players control things or try to make a more dynamic world. Quests in MMOs right now are very static. It's like reading the same book over and over and over again with little variation. That can be enjoyable for a time, but eventually it gets stale.
I also believe PvP does have a large impact on PvE. The main impact is classes are all combat and balanced to be effective against each other in combat. In PvE games all you have to balance is that the class/skill is useful in some situation in the game.
As far as the PvP/PvE argument....I think old SWG did it best in terms of those mechanics. It allowed players of the same type on the same server through covert/overt etc. Despite all its flaws, I think this would make for the healthiest server populations in a given game where both styles are an option.
As far as the PvP/PvE argument....I think old SWG did it best in terms of those mechanics. It allowed players of the same type on the same server through covert/overt etc. Despite all its flaws, I think this would make for the healthiest server populations in a given game where both styles are an option.
It also allowed for folks to essentially be mercenaries and align with either side for a fight.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
As far as the PvP/PvE argument....I think old SWG did it best in terms of those mechanics. It allowed players of the same type on the same server through covert/overt etc. Despite all its flaws, I think this would make for the healthiest server populations in a given game where both styles are an option.
It also allowed for folks to essentially be mercenaries and align with either side for a fight.
It took awhile to change faction though and with one character per account, your name was everything.
I would argue it doesn't matter how long it takes to complete if it isn't enjoyable.
Old MMOs survived on the premise that people would interact and create a lot of the fun for themselves (even if it took a long time to level).
New MMOs are trying to entertain people with solo content and even group content that is very linear. Drawing that out won't make it any more enjoyable.
There are two ways to do it in my opinion. You either let the players control things or try to make a more dynamic world. Quests in MMOs right now are very static. It's like reading the same book over and over and over again with little variation. That can be enjoyable for a time, but eventually it gets stale.
I also believe PvP does have a large impact on PvE. The main impact is classes are all combat and balanced to be effective against each other in combat. In PvE games all you have to balance is that the class/skill is useful in some situation in the game.
FWIW I was just making those arguments to prove a point about how to formulate a sensical argument, hence the 'devil's advocate' parts.
I agree with you about questing and pacing, generally speaking. The part about PvP affecting balance is something that has always irked me. Do people want to play a game that is balanced or not? If the presence of PvP in a game reveals an imbalance why do players get upset when developers correct it? I'm not sure I buy the 'balanced for PvE, not for PvP' argument.
Of course you can easily solve that problem by not having classes at all.
I would argue it doesn't matter how long it takes to complete if it isn't enjoyable.
Old MMOs survived on the premise that people would interact and create a lot of the fun for themselves (even if it took a long time to level).
New MMOs are trying to entertain people with solo content and even group content that is very linear. Drawing that out won't make it any more enjoyable.
There are two ways to do it in my opinion. You either let the players control things or try to make a more dynamic world. Quests in MMOs right now are very static. It's like reading the same book over and over and over again with little variation. That can be enjoyable for a time, but eventually it gets stale.
I also believe PvP does have a large impact on PvE. The main impact is classes are all combat and balanced to be effective against each other in combat. In PvE games all you have to balance is that the class/skill is useful in some situation in the game.
FWIW I was just making those arguments to prove a point about how to formulate a sensical argument, hence the 'devil's advocate' parts.
I agree with you about questing and pacing, generally speaking. The part about PvP affecting balance is something that has always irked me. Do people want to play a game that is balanced or not? If the presence of PvP in a game reveals an imbalance why do players get upset when developers correct it? I'm not sure I buy the 'balanced for PvE, not for PvP' argument.
Of course you can easily solve that problem by not having classes at all.
I think balanced for PvE works. Old school games proved that point. For instance you could have a Mage, Thief, Cleric, and Warrior. Not all of them were equally balanced in combat, but they all offered something important. The Mage would take care of many different things from AoE damage, to CC, to utility, to debuffs. The Thief wasn't too useful in combat, but was essential for disarming traps, unlocking chests, and possible stealing if you wanted to role play that. The Cleric was obviously for things like healing and curing poison/disease and potentially buffing. The Warrior was there to project others in the group by trying to block enemies from getting to less combat oriented friends. Overall not all are equal in combat, but they all provide something useful.
Hmmmm Now I think I can use the Star Wars example too! Long live to JarJar Binks, hey, his film got more profits than Return of the Jedi and Empire Strikes Back together...Such a great actor!
/irony off
Sometimes population peaks and profits doesnt mean that the product is better...
I don't even know what you are talking about since I don't watch star wars.
But go back to your first post, Archeage & Blade and soul are actually doing pretty well. You claim it is not.
It's really a math problem. If sales > expense the developer did the right thing.
No. And that is the reason why it has no more than half a million players while other games boasted tens of millions.
In this case, oranges (eve) lose out because it is too sour. If a customer is eating an apple, he is probably not eating an orange.
If I open a restaurant and I make more than I loss, I'm happy. Infact Eve probably make much more than it loss (if it didn't invest in world of darkness).
Comparing success elements of MOBAS vs MMORPGs is a bit like comparing the success of orange juice vs prune juice.
You nailed it. There's a lot of hypocrisy in the OPs post. If anything is going to kill Archeage and B&S, it's the PvP, and yet he blames the PvE carebears for the impending demise of MMORPGs. An MMORPG without content is not an MMORPG, its a console FPS game.
Last I looked there are a whole many more PvE centric MMORPG's succeeding than there are PvP centric MMORPG's. The only thing that developers, and PvP centric folk, are not getting is that PvE and PvP do not mix in an MMORPG. PvE MMORPG's can survive just fine without PvP. The same can not be said the other way 'round.
Yes.
The recent crop of "sandbox" games are all PvP centric. I am reminded of one particular developer promising good PvE elements so that PvP players would have a target "rich environment". Somehow the developer missed the part about PvE players not really wanting to provide that "rich environment".
This kind of nails it on the head but for a deeper reason than probably intended.
I would argue it doesn't matter how long it takes to complete if it isn't enjoyable.
Old MMOs survived on the premise that people would interact and create a lot of the fun for themselves (even if it took a long time to level).
New MMOs are trying to entertain people with solo content and even group content that is very linear. Drawing that out won't make it any more enjoyable.
There are two ways to do it in my opinion. You either let the players control things or try to make a more dynamic world. Quests in MMOs right now are very static. It's like reading the same book over and over and over again with little variation. That can be enjoyable for a time, but eventually it gets stale.
I also believe PvP does have a large impact on PvE. The main impact is classes are all combat and balanced to be effective against each other in combat. In PvE games all you have to balance is that the class/skill is useful in some situation in the game.
FWIW I was just making those arguments to prove a point about how to formulate a sensical argument, hence the 'devil's advocate' parts.
I agree with you about questing and pacing, generally speaking. The part about PvP affecting balance is something that has always irked me. Do people want to play a game that is balanced or not? If the presence of PvP in a game reveals an imbalance why do players get upset when developers correct it? I'm not sure I buy the 'balanced for PvE, not for PvP' argument.
Of course you can easily solve that problem by not having classes at all.
I think balanced for PvE works. Old school games proved that point. For instance you could have a Mage, Thief, Cleric, and Warrior. Not all of them were equally balanced in combat, but they all offered something important. The Mage would take care of many different things from AoE damage, to CC, to utility, to debuffs. The Thief wasn't too useful in combat, but was essential for disarming traps, unlocking chests, and possible stealing if you wanted to role play that. The Cleric was obviously for things like healing and curing poison/disease and potentially buffing. The Warrior was there to project others in the group by trying to block enemies from getting to less combat oriented friends. Overall not all are equal in combat, but they all provide something useful.
But balanced for what type of PvE? Group or solo?
Your example of mage, thief, cleric and warrior all providing something important is true, but that is balancing for PvE group content. It doesn't work if your game is mostly solo.
The problem of how to balance is a major reason why specifications / templates / talent trees etc exist. It is a way for the developers to balance the solo content around one spec, the group content around another spec, and sometimes balance pvp around another spec.
The only time I think that PvP balance negatively affects PvE balance is when balancing for group content. When balancing for solo play, its relatively simple: damage vs survivability. The types of enemies you are fighting solo and your approach to it is roughly the same between pve and pvp.
When it comes to group content, the mechanics are just totally different. Group PvE usually involves single bosses with massive HP and complex mechanics, so balance becomes about buffs, debuffs, threat and all that lovely stuff, but CC is usually useless. Conversely, CC is immensely important in PvP but its more about burst damage rather than sustained damage, less about buffs/debuffs and more about positioning and range.
Currently Playing: WAR RoR - Spitt rr7X Black Orc | Scrotling rr6X Squig Herder | Scabrous rr4X Shaman
I would argue it doesn't matter how long it takes to complete if it isn't enjoyable.
Old MMOs survived on the premise that people would interact and create a lot of the fun for themselves (even if it took a long time to level).
New MMOs are trying to entertain people with solo content and even group content that is very linear. Drawing that out won't make it any more enjoyable.
There are two ways to do it in my opinion. You either let the players control things or try to make a more dynamic world. Quests in MMOs right now are very static. It's like reading the same book over and over and over again with little variation. That can be enjoyable for a time, but eventually it gets stale.
I also believe PvP does have a large impact on PvE. The main impact is classes are all combat and balanced to be effective against each other in combat. In PvE games all you have to balance is that the class/skill is useful in some situation in the game.
FWIW I was just making those arguments to prove a point about how to formulate a sensical argument, hence the 'devil's advocate' parts.
I agree with you about questing and pacing, generally speaking. The part about PvP affecting balance is something that has always irked me. Do people want to play a game that is balanced or not? If the presence of PvP in a game reveals an imbalance why do players get upset when developers correct it? I'm not sure I buy the 'balanced for PvE, not for PvP' argument.
Of course you can easily solve that problem by not having classes at all.
I think balanced for PvE works. Old school games proved that point. For instance you could have a Mage, Thief, Cleric, and Warrior. Not all of them were equally balanced in combat, but they all offered something important. The Mage would take care of many different things from AoE damage, to CC, to utility, to debuffs. The Thief wasn't too useful in combat, but was essential for disarming traps, unlocking chests, and possible stealing if you wanted to role play that. The Cleric was obviously for things like healing and curing poison/disease and potentially buffing. The Warrior was there to project others in the group by trying to block enemies from getting to less combat oriented friends. Overall not all are equal in combat, but they all provide something useful.
But balanced for what type of PvE? Group or solo?
Your example of mage, thief, cleric and warrior all providing something important is true, but that is balancing for PvE group content. It doesn't work if your game is mostly solo.
The problem of how to balance is a major reason why specifications / templates / talent trees etc exist. It is a way for the developers to balance the solo content around one spec, the group content around another spec, and sometimes balance pvp around another spec.
The only time I think that PvP balance negatively affects PvE balance is when balancing for group content. When balancing for solo play, its relatively simple: damage vs survivability. The types of enemies you are fighting solo and your approach to it is roughly the same between pve and pvp.
When it comes to group content, the mechanics are just totally different. Group PvE usually involves single bosses with massive HP and complex mechanics, so balance becomes about buffs, debuffs, threat and all that lovely stuff, but CC is usually useless. Conversely, CC is immensely important in PvP but its more about burst damage rather than sustained damage, less about buffs/debuffs and more about positioning and range.
I suppose that is something to consider when you design the game. Personally I think combat should take a back seat to having fun classes.
For solo a Thief could spend their time finding different ways to improve their thieving skills like pickpocket, acrobatics, opening locks, all to get richer.
I don't think it's that important that every class can solo in combat great. If people want to solo in combat they can pick a specific class to play. That's the way it was always done in older games and it worked fine.
This is a whole issue with the way MMOs are designed in general IMO. They shouldn't be designed around specific ideas like solo, group, raid. They should instead be a world like the Elder Scrolls games which you can jump into and find things to do that would be similar to living in such a world.
Combat would just be one thing you could do in such a world.
Group and Raid are just deep rooted ideas originally created by the community, but in fact have segregated it and fantasy world deeply.
Weather a class can perform incredible in combat shouldn't even be a major concern.
In this case you seem to want to believe that open world PVP is deeper, in spite of one decision ("bring more friends; go gank people") having a huge impact on success without requiring much skill. This is known as shallow gameplay.
Because 3 on 1 never happens in a 5v5 match.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make him drink...
You talk about open world this and that... well there are a plethora of MMOs with an open world... players just choose not to go out in it.
PVP... more people despise it than like it.
Hard content versus easy... MMOs that try to do "hard" haven't managed to find all those hard core types that seemingly beg for such content.
In a nutshell, what people say and what people do are often entirely different... thus whatever anyone is begging for is usually the last thing they want... OP's conclusions included.
Well, the reason players don't play the open world so much probably more have things to do with it being a rather boring grind nowadays.
And the hard content is usually only set in raids and a few endgame dungeons, the people who like hard content usually tired way before that. I can't think of any game with a hard open world (or even moderatly challenging) since 2004 so there isn't exactly much proof either way. The hardest right now is probably GW2 HOT and it is only for max level players and still is pretty popular.
The PvP thing is true, most people do despice PvP but I wonder if it isn't because MMOs always makes a rather bad job with PvP. The person with highest level or best gear wins automatically anyways in 95% of all fights and that isn't very exiting so most people who like PvP plays other genres and many people who probably would enjoy good PvP ignore the nad ones most MMOs have.
Now, I don't really agree with OP either. My experience is that people who complains about carebears enjoy games where they constantly can win most fights without any real effort and I don't really see the point of that, unless a combat can go either way I don't really enjoy myself no matter if I kill trashmobs or other players. It just feels pointless.
And to be fair is the easy MMOs losing players as well now. MMOs needs more combat that can go either way no matter if we are talking PvE or PvP. An open world where you can max out a new character without dying unless you really botch up isn't fun for me and I have a feeling that more and more players are agreeing with me now.
I think the genre both need a couple of easy and a couple of hard MMOs or 2 different serversets for it (with better loot on the hard one to get risk Vs reward right) because right now we are losing many good players. The open world needs a lot of improvements or they can just skip it and make CORPGs like Guildwars with no open world, it is just not good enough in most games compared to the resources they put into it.
When all games focus on people enjoying the exact same type of gameplay the genre gets really vulnerable.
In this case you seem to want to believe that open world PVP is deeper, in spite of one decision ("bring more friends; go gank people") having a huge impact on success without requiring much skill. This is known as shallow gameplay.
Because 3 on 1 never happens in a 5v5 match.
If you have 3 on 1 in one place, you have 4 on 2 in other area.
In esports, you'll hear that 1 person try to kite those 3 person as long as possible so his team have advantage in other area.
I have nothing against open world pvp. My only thought is there are games like that on the market. People just choose not to play them. They get the illusion developer only make certain kind of games, because all the top games are of that type.
Those people probably just hate all games anyway, because there are non that reach their expectation.
No. And that is the reason why it has no more than half a million players while other games boasted tens of millions.
In this case, oranges (eve) lose out because it is too sour. If a customer is eating an apple, he is probably not eating an orange.
If I open a restaurant and I make more than I loss, I'm happy. Infact Eve probably make much more than it loss (if it didn't invest in world of darkness).
You don't have much ambition, do you? Most in business don't want to just break even and call it a day. They want to make it big, and be the leader of the industry.
Certainly companies like Blizz would not have such uninspiring goals.
A couple of poster kinda nailed the key points (I won't quote because I don't want to spam an entire page of quotes) but I will elaborate some.
The 'glory days' of MMOs (pre-WoW) wasn't about how many perfect MMOs there were in the market or how each one out-polished the last one (remember that buzz word); it was about there being a wide range of distinct quality MMOs that offered new experience and potential homes to a wide audience of players. The 'sameness' created by one juggernaut game suffocated all of that space, not because fans no longer wanted it but because developers chased a unicorn.
I find it just that the longest consistently successful MMO throughout the WoW-era (besides WoW) is Eve, which is about as far away from the WoW/EQ/traditional MMO model as a game can get. Now just imagine a world where there were 4 or 5 equally distinct and populous MMOs coexisting simultaneously and you will start to realize the older MMO players point of view.
Comments
dev are nto trerrible, well ok some shoudl consider blowing their headsoff but alot of have good potential . the issue is the biebering crowd of me now me now menowmenowmememwnownownowmememenownow
that want everything free now and expect a company to keep up with underpaid devs that have to work 60 hours a week for a hanfull of peanuts.
Great F2P product always beats great B2P/P2P product, ALWAYS.
But, but, but he attacked me when I was low life!
Yes, HE DID, why you cant do the same to him?
Uf that will take me a lot of time...
HERE IS YOUR QUEST!
/irony off
Sometimes population peaks and profits doesnt mean that the product is better...
But, but, but he attacked me when I was low life!
Yes, HE DID, why you cant do the same to him?
Uf that will take me a lot of time...
HERE IS YOUR QUEST!
But that's why we dig deeper into things like the depth of a WOW PVE rotation and ask for examples of similar depth in other games to more directly compare how difficult the decisions are in that other game.
In this case you seem to want to believe that open world PVP is deeper, in spite of one decision ("bring more friends; go gank people") having a huge impact on success without requiring much skill. This is known as shallow gameplay.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I don't personally believe either of these points are true. I love PvP, but like everything else it's only good if it's done right, same for PvE for that matter. You can't unilaterally love or hate any aspect of gaming unless you just have no taste IMO.
As to your second point, again I will play devil's advocate. One of the biggest problems in the industry right now is the development methodology of designers. They design games in a way that the content can be burned through too fast and doesn't have enough lasting depth for the player-bases. If the developers would shift from a design prospective where content is consumable in 10-30 minute chunks, games are all lobbies for the 1-5 legitimate endgame activities, worlds are ghost towns except capital cities, and top end gear is handed to you personally by Karl Marx the second you create your level 1 character, and just start making sandboxes again then we would all be better off.
You see how this works now?
In this case, oranges (eve) lose out because it is too sour. If a customer is eating an apple, he is probably not eating an orange.
Old MMOs survived on the premise that people would interact and create a lot of the fun for themselves (even if it took a long time to level).
New MMOs are trying to entertain people with solo content and even group content that is very linear. Drawing that out won't make it any more enjoyable.
There are two ways to do it in my opinion. You either let the players control things or try to make a more dynamic world. Quests in MMOs right now are very static. It's like reading the same book over and over and over again with little variation. That can be enjoyable for a time, but eventually it gets stale.
I also believe PvP does have a large impact on PvE. The main impact is classes are all combat and balanced to be effective against each other in combat. In PvE games all you have to balance is that the class/skill is useful in some situation in the game.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
I agree with you about questing and pacing, generally speaking. The part about PvP affecting balance is something that has always irked me. Do people want to play a game that is balanced or not? If the presence of PvP in a game reveals an imbalance why do players get upset when developers correct it? I'm not sure I buy the 'balanced for PvE, not for PvP' argument.
Of course you can easily solve that problem by not having classes at all.
I don't even know what you are talking about since I don't watch star wars.
But go back to your first post, Archeage & Blade and soul are actually doing pretty well. You claim it is not.
It's really a math problem. If sales > expense the developer did the right thing.
If I open a restaurant and I make more than I loss, I'm happy. Infact Eve probably make much more than it loss (if it didn't invest in world of darkness).
This kind of nails it on the head but for a deeper reason than probably intended.
PVEers are the PRODUCT, not the audience.
Nobody likes to be a product.
Your example of mage, thief, cleric and warrior all providing something important is true, but that is balancing for PvE group content. It doesn't work if your game is mostly solo.
The problem of how to balance is a major reason why specifications / templates / talent trees etc exist. It is a way for the developers to balance the solo content around one spec, the group content around another spec, and sometimes balance pvp around another spec.
The only time I think that PvP balance negatively affects PvE balance is when balancing for group content. When balancing for solo play, its relatively simple: damage vs survivability. The types of enemies you are fighting solo and your approach to it is roughly the same between pve and pvp.
When it comes to group content, the mechanics are just totally different. Group PvE usually involves single bosses with massive HP and complex mechanics, so balance becomes about buffs, debuffs, threat and all that lovely stuff, but CC is usually useless. Conversely, CC is immensely important in PvP but its more about burst damage rather than sustained damage, less about buffs/debuffs and more about positioning and range.
For solo a Thief could spend their time finding different ways to improve their thieving skills like pickpocket, acrobatics, opening locks, all to get richer.
I don't think it's that important that every class can solo in combat great. If people want to solo in combat they can pick a specific class to play. That's the way it was always done in older games and it worked fine.
This is a whole issue with the way MMOs are designed in general IMO. They shouldn't be designed around specific ideas like solo, group, raid. They should instead be a world like the Elder Scrolls games which you can jump into and find things to do that would be similar to living in such a world.
Combat would just be one thing you could do in such a world.
Group and Raid are just deep rooted ideas originally created by the community, but in fact have segregated it and fantasy world deeply.
Weather a class can perform incredible in combat shouldn't even be a major concern.
That is just my opinion on it though.
"The knowledge of the theory of logic has no tendency whatever to make men good reasoners." - Thomas B. Macaulay
"The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance, it is the illusion of knowledge." - Daniel J. Boorstin
And the hard content is usually only set in raids and a few endgame dungeons, the people who like hard content usually tired way before that. I can't think of any game with a hard open world (or even moderatly challenging) since 2004 so there isn't exactly much proof either way. The hardest right now is probably GW2 HOT and it is only for max level players and still is pretty popular.
The PvP thing is true, most people do despice PvP but I wonder if it isn't because MMOs always makes a rather bad job with PvP. The person with highest level or best gear wins automatically anyways in 95% of all fights and that isn't very exiting so most people who like PvP plays other genres and many people who probably would enjoy good PvP ignore the nad ones most MMOs have.
Now, I don't really agree with OP either. My experience is that people who complains about carebears enjoy games where they constantly can win most fights without any real effort and I don't really see the point of that, unless a combat can go either way I don't really enjoy myself no matter if I kill trashmobs or other players. It just feels pointless.
And to be fair is the easy MMOs losing players as well now. MMOs needs more combat that can go either way no matter if we are talking PvE or PvP. An open world where you can max out a new character without dying unless you really botch up isn't fun for me and I have a feeling that more and more players are agreeing with me now.
I think the genre both need a couple of easy and a couple of hard MMOs or 2 different serversets for it (with better loot on the hard one to get risk Vs reward right) because right now we are losing many good players. The open world needs a lot of improvements or they can just skip it and make CORPGs like Guildwars with no open world, it is just not good enough in most games compared to the resources they put into it.
When all games focus on people enjoying the exact same type of gameplay the genre gets really vulnerable.
If you have 3 on 1 in one place, you have 4 on 2 in other area.
In esports, you'll hear that 1 person try to kite those 3 person as long as possible so his team have advantage in other area.
I have nothing against open world pvp. My only thought is there are games like that on the market. People just choose not to play them. They get the illusion developer only make certain kind of games, because all the top games are of that type.
Those people probably just hate all games anyway, because there are non that reach their expectation.
Certainly companies like Blizz would not have such uninspiring goals.
The 'glory days' of MMOs (pre-WoW) wasn't about how many perfect MMOs there were in the market or how each one out-polished the last one (remember that buzz word); it was about there being a wide range of distinct quality MMOs that offered new experience and potential homes to a wide audience of players. The 'sameness' created by one juggernaut game suffocated all of that space, not because fans no longer wanted it but because developers chased a unicorn.
I find it just that the longest consistently successful MMO throughout the WoW-era (besides WoW) is Eve, which is about as far away from the WoW/EQ/traditional MMO model as a game can get. Now just imagine a world where there were 4 or 5 equally distinct and populous MMOs coexisting simultaneously and you will start to realize the older MMO players point of view.