What do you think about Indie MMO ?

Grouroux

As an indie creator of a MMO, I am very interested to know what the term "Indie MMO" means to you.

For example what size team do you think that there is such a project ? Is this make you curious or it scare you? What kind of game do you expect to have? Do you consider projects like Albion Online or SoTA as indie games?

Thank you

flizzer

For me Indie has come to mean a Grade B MMO type experience.  Ive learned to stay away from Indie " For me only the big  companies are able to do justice to an MMO.  Inevitably the movement and combat in these indie type MMOs falls flat for me.  I know nothing about programming so maybe there is a simple reason for this, but as someone who just loves to play MMOs I find this true.  I have yet to find one of these indie games with combat as smooth as WoW or GW2. 

Size?  When I hear indie it is often one guy with some friends, or maybe half a dozen guys.  Inevitably you hear about his game and he is really excited .  The first few months there are lots of updates. I promise monthly updates.  Gradually this slows down as real life interferes and the person realizes they can't live up to all the promises they made. I saw this with Memory of Eldurm on Steam as well as Frontiers, both games that I found interesting but soon realized direction they would take.  The one guy even made a video of how overwhelmed he felt and depressed and how he was struggling to get updates out.  Apparently work limps on but Ive started losing hope. Project Gorgon was an indie type game I played for awhile and even chatted with the developer. Great guy but the game is moving at a snail's pace.  I love all these different in game skills such as psychology and mycology, but, again, the combat feels horrible and the game looks bad.

SoTA is being made by Richard Garriot, of course, and he has a long pedigree.  Not sure if someone with his experience is exactly Indie, but he was trying to fund the entire project or a good portion of the game himself so perhaps.  I don't know much about Albion Online.  Maybe one of those games will change my opinion about such games.

cameltosis

Indie just means independent, i.e. they are self funded. This has a few implications

1) Being self-funded, chances are the funding is much lower than other companies, thus the finished project will have a much smaller scope and / or lower quality. 

2) If you are indie, it means that the developers were unable to convince any publishers that their game was worth making. That means the idea is either bad or outside the box. 99% of the time, the ideas are just bad, but that 1% of ideas can produce some interesting games. 

3) Being independent means you retain complete control over your product. This can be a good thing (in comparison to having someone like EA screwing you over) but only if you have a strong vision. 



So, whenever I see an indie game, regardless of genre, my initial thought it to simply dismiss it. Every single indie game is either limited in scope or limited in quality so I'd rather seek out a "proper" game that isn't so limited. The only time this isn't true is when a company has been successful for long enough to be able to self-fund new games (but, most of these tend to be dual dev/publishers).

The only time I'll take note of an indie game is when the idea is out-of-the-box, i.e. doesn't have a mainstream equivalent. 


Looking at indie MMOs in particular, again, my initial thought is to dismiss out of hand. Given that most developers with many millions available still fail hard, I hold out little hope. Having said that, a lot of these indie MMOs fulfil the "out-of-the-box" criteria. They all seem to be sandboxes - some pvp, some pve, mixture of hardcore and casual, group and solo play. Being a sandbox, they are placing the emphasis on systems, rather than content, so essentially have smaller scope (have to build less stuff) which makes them more possible. 

My expectation is that most of the PvE indie sandboxes will fail. I think they're aiming for too much stuff which will either break or result in a boring gameloop. This will be combined with a lack of marketing and thus not enough players to sustain the games. 

I do think one or two might survive for a while. Chronicles of Elyria has a team behind it that has already made one MMO so even though the project is ambitious they do at least have a lot of experience. The same goes with Crowfall and Camelot Unchained and a few others - they either have leaders with a lot of experience or have hired developers with a lot of experience. This counts for a lot as regardless of how good or not the plans are for an MMO, experience counts for a lot when it comes to actually delivering. 


TL;DR: I expect most indie mmos to fail, but hold some cautious optimism for a few based on the teams previous experience and limited scope compared to mainstream MMOs. 

GeezerGamer

Give me a few examples of some decent titles.

Grouroux

Realm of the Mad God.
Star Sonata.
Dofus (they really start as indie)

But these games are not presented as "Indie" MMO.

IAmMMO

Darkfall is a example of a great indie MMO.  It's combat is far from lacklustre.  Very few MMO's has the technology Darkfall does to pull off mass realtime battles in a beautiful handcrafted seamless world.  Now the license for the game IP in the hands of two companies doing their own vision of the game the future looks good. Just pick your version Darkfall New Dawn or Darkfall Rise of Agon.  2 different games developed from the same base by two different companies.

DKLond

It means limited budget and limited scope.

Sulaa

I will be brutally frank.

I am not interested in Indie MMORPGs or even AA ones for that matter.

I just cannot go back to non-AAA graphics, content quality, animations, sound, overall polish, support quality, etc in MMORPG if I ever decide to play one again that is.


Interesingly enough I am okay with single player and non-MMO multiplayer Indie games - I do play them, but I just cannot stand indie MMORPG.


-------

Yes SotA and Albion obviously are Indie.   

Phaserlight

I've been playing and loving an indie MMO for 13 years.  It's at the heart of this genre.

holdenhamlet

Only really good indie MMO I've played was Darkfall.  As people mentioned, normally the gameplay is lackluster in indie MMOs, but Darkfall's gameplay was pretty good.

What I hope for from an indie dev team is new ideas and good gameplay.  If they can do that, they could have a successful MMORPG (although honestly MMORPGs seem like such monumental undertakings, I'd probably try to make a different type of game if I was an indie dev team).

Myrdynn

Indie to me means, tons of promises (also known as wishes) that they can never even come close to, followed by some ideas and a kickstarter, that promises even more, soon followed by an extremely long closed NDA alpha and an eventual cancellation. 

I personally can't think of any indie project I would call a success, and probably at least 90% of them never even see launch day

Dullahan

I don't think indie has to mean grade B at all. Perhaps in an MMO, it can mean less of something, but theres no excuse for what they do have to be lower quality if they have talented people.

DKLond

To me, it doesn't mean it has to be a bad MMO at all. That depends on things like realistic design, scope and the level of talent involved.

However, due to how reality works in terms of time and resources, the chance for a game of the kind of ambition I, personally, prefer is all but non-existent.

So, I will almost certainly not care about an indie MMO much at all.

gervaise1

To most potential purchasers "indie" doesn't mean anything. This doesn't just apply to games.

Purchasers are usually are interested in price and reviews about e.g. the quality of the product.  

Brand name awareness i.e. not indie but "tried and tested" can be a positive. It can convey an expectation of "quality", "customer service", "support" and so on. The converse is also true hence "I'll never buy from ..... "

"Indie" in that sense simply means unknown.

Even though it may simply be a "unknown company name" owned by a big brand that - maybe - wants to dissociate itself from negative feedback or give out an edgy vibe or whatever i.e. marketing strategy. Or it could be an overseas company unknown in the overseas market. 

At the end of the day though its the product that has to do the talking.

GeezerGamer

I am not really familiar with many of the examples presented. As for an Indie MMO, I have not been impressed with what I have seen so far, which isn't much. 

When you take the methods that have been used, I think they are a recipe for failure. Combining Crowd Funding with Early Access with extended development timelines, and you pretty much have a dead game that no one cares about after before it actually releases. I think The Repop is a good example of what not to do. The game started off with great ideas and caught everyone's attention. Over time, everything just kind of worked against them. Players just lost interest. It's still in development, but not it appears it will be a shadow of it's former self which wasn't going gangbusters to begin with.

I get it. What are you supposed to do then? I don't know, but I do believe opening the doors too soon isn't the right way to do it......Especially if the game is going to take a long time to release.

ApexTKM

Indie MMO to me simply means, mmos that are out of the "supposed norm" of what mmos are like today. Majority Percentage are just a bunch of WoW style mmos. Indie MMOs are a smaller percentage of mmos.

SEANMCAD

So projects that are run by one person do make me nervous however the evidence suggests that they can often be very good even with just one person.

I have been following this game and its amazing how much one person has been able to do  
http://store.steampowered.com/agecheck/app/345010/

Wurm which is likely my favorite 'MMO' of all time has been mostly created by one person.

Gaendric

I don't care if a game is indie or not, I only care about how fun it will be.
Indie doesn't have to mean much lower quality, it can also mean smaller scope and more focus, which in my opinion is a good thing. Several upcoming mid budget MMOs look interesting.

On the other hand, if I see a small unexperienced team claiming to make the next "big thing" that will do everything better than anyone ever did, then yes, that's a huge red flag.
Being reasonable and setting the scope correctly is part of being a professional dev. If someone fails at these basics I don't see much chance of them actually ever finishing a decent MMORPG. But hey, I wish everyone luck, I just won't give such projects my money. 

I also agree to the last point GeezerGamer said, long dev cycles plus very early access can have a negative effect.
A big chunk of the crucial (because they would be the ones helping with the launch hype and providing a healthy launch population) core audience will join very early and probably burn out and move on before the game ever gets finished or even starts reaching a bigger audience. They will likely burn out quite a bit faster than they would if they'd actually played the game in it's finished state with more depth, less bugs, more content, healthier population, higher polish and better balance.
The very early access kinda spreads out and separates the available audience, making it harder for the game to reach critical mass and become a real success.

postlarval

Indie...


Envision new, innovative ideas: Great

Passion for building a great game: Great

Ability to execute: Fair

Ability to successfully market: Poor to fair

Ability to run the ongoing business side of the game: Abysmal to poor

Grouroux

Sorry I made some mistakes with the thread (little bit noob with this forum). Anyway your answers are really interresting. Thanks a lot!

Gamer54321

My biggest imaginary gripe with indy mmo's (I only know of one):

• Because big gaming companies imo seem to be generally unable to grasp the finer aspects of game design, I HIGHLY doubt that some go-getting indy dev that want to simply create some stuff have his/her shit together.

If I was an independent MMO dev, I would make sure to try focus on the positive sides of game design:
• substance (mood, charm, theme, genre, originality, richness, environment)
&
• player options (multiple variables for the player to work with)

Bad things, would be focusing on: gimmicks, simplicity & lack of artistic merit

I strongly suspect that a big issue with game developers in general, is a lack of communication skills, as well as not quite understanding their own ideas as well as they should. The problem of communication would be come a serious issue I can imagine, when ideas are to be expanded upon, or, defended against ill willed critics and nay sayers.

mmoguy43

Indy MMO- Ballsy with a varying amount of brains.
I don't like to generalize and it makes me cringe when others do with limited knowledge. Developers are people with a wide range of talent and skills. When independent rather than being lorded over by a producer, they primarily have more options and freedom to do the game they want. There are also AAA talent indy studios and the other. Independent doesn't mean lack of quality but it can mean not forced to make a high quality and profitable game by a producer.

Vidir

I absolutly love Project Gorgon.

waynejr2

AAA game companies have a lot of resources to create an incomplete game.  Indies have less resources to do that.

Grouroux

waynejr2 said:

AAA game companies have a lot of resources to create an incomplete game.  Indies have less resources to do that.

The amount of ressources is not important. The most important is how to use these ressources you have to reach your goal.

The reality is less ressources you have and more creative you need to be.
(It doesn't mean the result will be better than a AAA production, but just very different)

waynejr2

Grouroux said:

waynejr2 said:

AAA game companies have a lot of resources to create an incomplete game.  Indies have less resources to do that.

The amount of ressources is not important. The most important is how to use these ressources you have to reach your goal.

The reality is less ressources you have and more creative you need to be.
(It doesn't mean the result will be better than a AAA production, but just very different)

And you don't complete the game, your a failure.  See, resources didn't matter! hahahaha