In other words. People who "Don't like MMOs" are not only a relevant market. They are the only relevant market for anyone trying to build a new MMO. People who like the products currently offered in the MMO line have no reason to care, and a lot of good reasons not to switch.
That's the secret to how WoW is still king. Even a lot of WoW players hate their recent changes, but they aren't going to switch because thats where their characters are, and that's what their friends play.
Okay, so probably not when Walmart started, fine. I was wrong about that. But Chinese and otherwise Asian or simply non-American goods and backing by wealthy and powerful people is how Sam Walton's corporation cornered the retail market. It's a fact. Anyway, I wasn't the one that brought Walmart into this conversation. And Walmart was founded in 1962, not the 1950s.
"'Sam was an advocate of importing. It was his vision,' said a retired senior executive, who was a buyer in Wal-Mart's Hong Kong office in the 1980s, and who asked to keep his identity private. "Our first office was in Hong Kong, then Taiwan. Korea soon after. We'd visit factories, see how they store goods. You would look at every step of the process very carefully."
'From the beginning, Walton had bought goods wherever he could get them cheapest, with any other considerations secondary,' writes Bob Ortega, author of the Wal-Mart history, In Sam We Trust. By the early 1980s, Ortega reports, Walton "increasingly looked to imports, which were usually cheaper because factory workers were paid so much less in China and the other Asian countries."
According to Ortega, Walton himself estimated that imports accounted for nearly 6 percent of Wal-Mart's total sales in 1984. But another observer of that period, Frank Yuan, a former Taiwan-based apparel middleman, who dealt with Wal-Mart in the 1980s, puts the number, including indirect imports, at around 40 percent from 'day one.' Either way, Walton's vision was a harbinger of far vaster global sourcing today."
"Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.[8] (/ˈwɔːlmɑːrt/), doing business as Walmart, is an American multinational retailing corporation that operates as a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969. As of January 31, 2017, Walmart has 11,695 stores and clubs in 28 countries, under a total of 63 banners.
It's funny how people feel the need to make insults just because I get something wrong sometimes. Or make broad generalizations about me just because I get something wrong sometimes.
But, yeah, you're right. It's always better to be as accurate as possible when speaking about important subjects. Please forgive me.
The Wal Mart discussion is a bit of a sidetrack. I'm sure Wal Mart did some important things very different from their competitors to get where they are today but we're talking about MMOs here and not not retail outlets.
One store offers the same soda you buy at another store for 10 cents less per can or a similar soda you like slightly better for the same price. What do lose by switching stores? Nothing.
One MMO offers the same general game experience as another MMO for slightly less or a slightly better experience for the same cost. You are currently playing the MMO who's market share they are trying to steal. You actually enjoy that MMO so you've invested hundreds or thousands of hours into your characters there and built a solid network of contacts and friends. What do you stand to lose by switching MMOs? Everything.
Who is actually interested in your new MMO? People unsatisfied by their current MMOs. What do those people want? Something the MMOs currently on the market aren't able to give them.
"First assume a can opener"
Much of what you say is both rational and reasonable. Unfortunately consumers are quite often neither. Advertising (hype) can convince people they want, even need, something that they didn't want until the hype. The 'oh shiny!' factor has a lot of influence in the video game market.
Anyway, yes, let's stop talking about Walmart now, please. If you want to continue the discussion, feel free to PM me. Or if you really want, I'll give you my name, and we can chat on Facebook about it.
No stupid people put money into a model that only caters to a certain type of person, not all. SWTOR ran into the same roadblocks that all games do, reality vs what is promised for a game. A.Net did the same thing with GW2. Now we have SC, the boondoggles to end all boondoggles. I do not expect ANYTHING to come out of SC because they keep stretching goals while never really finishing anything. That is poor management and that is the key. For SWTOR, blame the developing company not the people who invested in the game. And if SWTOR did not do well, why would you think they would put money into something that has a niche market and has never done well.
Keep belittling people w/o giving constructive ideas is another reason why money people are staying away. They can make more money off of iPad Android games than a PvP centric game which caters to infantile people (there I said it). I HATE DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN A GAME. BORING REPETITIVE STUFF IS NOT FUN AND I PLAY GAMES FOR FUN. Right - freedom, after HOW many hours? 100 -200 hrs? When many people spend 3-4 hrs a week in a game that is a ridiculous amount of time to get any fun. Hell, they can go to work then, at least they get paid for that.
As far as your last sentence, the shoe can be placed on the other foot as well. It is the PvP'ers that do not understand that others don't care to play a game where you have to sit brainlessly grinding to get stuff only for asshats, coming around killing people because they are max level (ant that is all they do is grind and go to max level). Even when there are consequences these asshats don't care and that is the real sad part.
Maybe you can finance the game and show everyone how it is done.
Obviously you've never taken a business or marketing class. I have. Almost half of my degree is business based. This is a concept you need to familiarize yourself with. You cannot create a successful product in an established market unless it is new and remarkable. No rehashing of WoW will ever be new or remarkable again. You will NEVER see another WoW clone succeed unless Blizzard makes a WoW2 and shuts WoW down to make market space for it. A game catered to a niche can at least succeed within it's niche because it's niche will care.
Gonna have to disagree with you there, you can very much become successful in an established market, simply by offering a better quality product or offering the same product at a cheaper price.
Case in point, Wal*Mart, didn't do anything new, Sears, Macy's, and a slew of other brands already had the super-center/Department Store idea down, where Wal*Mart simply offered the same things at a much cheaper price, in fact they were in direct competition with K-Mart, simply by taking what K-mart did, and focusing on doing that better, they overtook the market.
Same thing happened with HomeDepot, crushing out many other "Department Hardware Stores"
You so too can enter a market, and become vastly successful, without doing anything new, as long as what you do, you better then your competitors.
SWTOR was better than WoW in nearly every regard. Companions made it easier to level support characters. Flashpoints allowed you to replay lower level content at higher levels and get worthwhile rewards for it. PvP arenas were playable and fun at every level and twinks didn't exist. (Until max level at least. Max level areas are where the PvP gear really started to kick in and you were just fodder for the people who had it until you acquired it as well.) Graphics were better. Storylines were cool. Some really super awesome mini-games like the space combat. Just all around a better game by most criteria.
Except WoW had an established playerbase and more content.
There will never be a WoW killer until WoW kills itself through it's own slow decline, and if there is, it will be nothing like WoW.
But... did they make a better game?
See, I understand with what I used, as an example, it was simple, and only took in some minor factors. case in point being, you can sell a can of CokeCola in one store, and a can of Cokecola in another store for less, and people will buy it where it is cheaper, that's simple economics.
But, when you compare say, RC Cola to Pepsi, and while they are both a "cola" drink, people will pay more for the Pepsi, simply because they like that specific flavor.
Also, in the case of Cola, trying to invent a new flavor of cola, can be a hit or miss game, just because your idea is new, does not mean it is good, or that people will like.
No stupid people put money into a model that only caters to a certain type of person, not all. SWTOR ran into the same roadblocks that all games do, reality vs what is promised for a game. A.Net did the same thing with GW2. Now we have SC, the boondoggles to end all boondoggles. I do not expect ANYTHING to come out of SC because they keep stretching goals while never really finishing anything. That is poor management and that is the key. For SWTOR, blame the developing company not the people who invested in the game. And if SWTOR did not do well, why would you think they would put money into something that has a niche market and has never done well.
Keep belittling people w/o giving constructive ideas is another reason why money people are staying away. They can make more money off of iPad Android games than a PvP centric game which caters to infantile people (there I said it). I HATE DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN A GAME. BORING REPETITIVE STUFF IS NOT FUN AND I PLAY GAMES FOR FUN. Right - freedom, after HOW many hours? 100 -200 hrs? When many people spend 3-4 hrs a week in a game that is a ridiculous amount of time to get any fun. Hell, they can go to work then, at least they get paid for that.
As far as your last sentence, the shoe can be placed on the other foot as well. It is the PvP'ers that do not understand that others don't care to play a game where you have to sit brainlessly grinding to get stuff only for asshats, coming around killing people because they are max level (ant that is all they do is grind and go to max level). Even when there are consequences these asshats don't care and that is the real sad part.
Maybe you can finance the game and show everyone how it is done.
Obviously you've never taken a business or marketing class. I have. Almost half of my degree is business based. This is a concept you need to familiarize yourself with. You cannot create a successful product in an established market unless it is new and remarkable. No rehashing of WoW will ever be new or remarkable again. You will NEVER see another WoW clone succeed unless Blizzard makes a WoW2 and shuts WoW down to make market space for it. A game catered to a niche can at least succeed within it's niche because it's niche will care.
Gonna have to disagree with you there, you can very much become successful in an established market, simply by offering a better quality product or offering the same product at a cheaper price.
Case in point, Wal*Mart, didn't do anything new, Sears, Macy's, and a slew of other brands already had the super-center/Department Store idea down, where Wal*Mart simply offered the same things at a much cheaper price, in fact they were in direct competition with K-Mart, simply by taking what K-mart did, and focusing on doing that better, they overtook the market.
Same thing happened with HomeDepot, crushing out many other "Department Hardware Stores"
You so too can enter a market, and become vastly successful, without doing anything new, as long as what you do, you better then your competitors.
SWTOR was better than WoW in nearly every regard. Companions made it easier to level support characters. Flashpoints allowed you to replay lower level content at higher levels and get worthwhile rewards for it. PvP arenas were playable and fun at every level and twinks didn't exist. (Until max level at least. Max level areas are where the PvP gear really started to kick in and you were just fodder for the people who had it until you acquired it as well.) Graphics were better. Storylines were cool. Some really super awesome mini-games like the space combat. Just all around a better game by most criteria.
Except WoW had an established playerbase and more content.
There will never be a WoW killer until WoW kills itself through it's own slow decline, and if there is, it will be nothing like WoW.
But... did they make a better game?
See, I understand with what I used, as an example, it was simple, and only took in some minor factors. case in point being, you can sell a can of CokeCola in one store, and a can of Cokecola in another store for less, and people will buy it where it is cheaper, that's simple economics.
But, when you compare say, RC Cola to Pepsi, and while they are both a "cola" drink, people will pay more for the Pepsi, simply because they like that specific flavor.
Also, in the case of Cola, trying to invent a new flavor of cola, can be a hit or miss game, just because your idea is new, does not mean it is good, or that people will like.
Just saying on that.
Except that in the real world that can of CokeCola may be bought from the more expensive store because people never go to the cheaper store, or don't like the store owner, or think that the cheaper can is stale or any of a thousand reasons that have nothing to do with 'simple economics'.
Or maybe they don't want to bother gaining another 50 or 60 or 70 levels in another game just so they can do basically the same things they can do in WoW at endgame?
"Have you ever raided, brah?" someone on this forum asked me last year.
At that time, I perfectly described to him what raiding was all about, even though I never raided in WoW or EQ2. One of my guild members in EQ2 was a veteran EQ player (actually I had 4 of them in my guild that I started). He explained to me exactly how it worked. At first I thought I would give it a try, but after mulling it over in my mind for a few months or so, I decided it was not worth the time and effort. After I got to max level in EQ2, I soon decided that endgame grind was not worth the effort period. At that point, I really didn't even know what all my hard work and effort in leveling in the game was really all about. I said, thanks, but no thanks.
I could only handle doing endgame content in Neverwinter for awhile because the action combat was fun sometimes. And I played different classes to keep things more interesting and less repetitive. After mod 6 came out, Elemental Evil, I tried the epic dungeons a few times with my paladin. I had done some epic dungeons with my rogue during mod 5, but they completely changed a lot of the game with mod 6. Once with a guild I completed Epic Cragmire Crypts after like 2 hours or so with my paladin (IL 2.2 at the time). The developers had screwed up mob Armor Penetration so bad at that time that any mob in an epic dungeon could one hit a tank (guardian fighter or oathbound paladin). And those two classes don't have the same kind of movement/dodging ability as other classes. We actually had to lure the boss, Traven Blackdagger, into a pit of spikes to kill him. Instantly, that was the good part. There was no other way for us to do it at the time. lol. So, yeah, I guess I basically did experience sort of what raiding can be like. Because the developers had accidentally or intentionally (I don't know) made 5-man epic dungeons into raids. I quit Neverwinter for five months not too long after that. There were other personal reasons why I quit though. I don't necessarily blame my leaving on the epic fail that was mod 6.
From what I've noted there is no community within the MMO industry more ignorant of what's going on in the rest of the MMO industry than WoW's community.
It's like the guy in TED talk said. He buys the cough syrup in the yellow bottle. He's always bought the cough syrup in the yellow bottle. He isn't looking for another kind of cough syrup. Why should he care about your product?
The flashy "New MMO" gimmick works for the first couple weeks of a game but it dies off real fast after that. WoW players may come and try your new product for a couple weeks, and then they'll be angry about missing features because your MMO is new, and they'll start missing their friends back on WoW, and within a month they will pretty much all be gone back to whatever game they came from after paying the cost to buy your game and one month sub fee.
That is part of the reason MMOs do the WoW model actually. It is a halfway decent recipe to recoup your development losses and maybe even make a profit on gullible fools. Then you can lay off most of your developers, toss the game in the free to play bin and forget about it almost entirely aside from occasional expansions.
It's not a recipe for a sustainable MMO which will succeed in the long run. The kind of people who are going to forgive your shortcomings and become your longterm community. Here's a post I'm going to shamelessly rip off an old topic on these boards that kind of shows the issue:
"These games have a huge spike and then a huge drop off. So whats happening? Whats happened is the MMO player community has become populated with people that are masters of theme park gaming and they come to your game with all of the knowledge of all of the things that you are likely to have done. They probably understand your game better than you do.
They chew through the content that you have laboriously spent 3-5 years building in about 90 days. A lot of times they just ignore the stuff that you thought was going to be really cool like, the texts and the quests and the lore and the backstory. They just say "Screw it, tell me which rats to kill and I will kill them".
So they burn through all of your content in a really short amount of time, they hit the level cap and go back to playing World of Warcraft.
The alternative is the sandbox graph. This is the subscription graph for Eve Online. Basicaslly what this shows is that a sandboxy game has this completely atypical subscriber trend where you start really small, but you grow steadily over a long period of time because there is no way to get to the end. So once a player becomes vested in this game, there is no offering, there is no point where they get to it and say "Oh I am done now I can quit" right."
Or maybe they don't want to bother gaining another 50 or 60 or 70 levels in another game just so they can do basically the same things they can do in WoW at endgame?
"Have you ever raided, brah?" someone on this forum asked me last year.
At that time, I perfectly described to him what raiding was all about, even though I never raided in WoW or EQ2. One of my guild members in EQ2 was a veteran EQ player (actually I had 4 of them in my guild that I started). He explained to me exactly how it worked. At first I thought I would give it a try, but after mulling it over in my mind for a few months or so, I decided it was not worth the time and effort. After I got to max level in EQ2, I soon decided that endgame grind was not worth the effort period. At that point, I really didn't even know what all my hard work and effort in leveling in the game was really all about. I said, thanks, but no thanks.
I could only handle doing endgame content in Neverwinter for awhile because the action combat was fun sometimes. And I played different classes to keep things more interesting and less repetitive. After mod 6 came out, Elemental Evil, I tried the epic dungeons a few times with my paladin. I had done some epic dungeons with my rogue during mod 5, but they completely changed a lot of the game with mod 6. Once with a guild I completed Epic Cragmire Crypts after like 2 hours or so with my paladin (IL 2.2 at the time). The developers had screwed up mob Armor Penetration so bad at that time that any mob in an epic dungeon could one hit a tank (guardian fighter or oathbound paladin). And those two classes don't have the same kind of movement/dodging ability as other classes. We actually had to lure the boss, Traven Blackdagger, into a pit of spikes to kill him. Instantly, that was the good part. There was no other way for us to do it at the time. lol. So, yeah, I guess I basically did experience sort of what raiding can be like. Because the developers had accidentally or intentionally (I don't know) made 5-man epic dungeons into raids. I quit Neverwinter for five months not too long after that. There were other personal reasons why I quit though. I don't necessarily blame my leaving on the epic fail that was mod 6.
If you were never banned (as you said in the last version of your story) and if you so clearly recollect the events and conversations from last year on a different account. Why are you now using a new account (created in March)?
Could it be that you just imagined that conversation and events?
In a certain important way no one has made a better Everquest, Everquest 2, or World of Warcraft. In those games you have good and evil factions. You also have different starting locations depending on race and faction and somewhat different questlines. That's more than most recent EQ/WoW clones and imitators offer these days.
And players are, or should be, sick to death of the Everquest/WoW 'endgame' concept.
Do you even raid, bro?
First, you almost always have to deal with elite pricks that think playing MMORPGs and raiding should be a full-time job. Then you have to do the same hard as nails raids over and over and over waiting for your turn to get gear. And that's if something drops that you can use. Sometimes you help someone else get all the gear they need, then they quit and don't help you or anyone else. It's not that raiding can't be fun. It's just that's pretty much all that endgame is about. And you will probably always have WoW or another WoW clone to do that on if that's all you think you want to do in an MMORPG.
@craftseeker - Looks pretty imagined to me. Total sidetrack from the conversation and should have been taken to PMs but I guess you can let everyone watch you be wrong publicly if that's your thing.
No stupid people put money into a model that only caters to a certain type of person, not all. SWTOR ran into the same roadblocks that all games do, reality vs what is promised for a game. A.Net did the same thing with GW2. Now we have SC, the boondoggles to end all boondoggles. I do not expect ANYTHING to come out of SC because they keep stretching goals while never really finishing anything. That is poor management and that is the key. For SWTOR, blame the developing company not the people who invested in the game. And if SWTOR did not do well, why would you think they would put money into something that has a niche market and has never done well.
Keep belittling people w/o giving constructive ideas is another reason why money people are staying away. They can make more money off of iPad Android games than a PvP centric game which caters to infantile people (there I said it). I HATE DOING THE SAME THING OVER AND OVER AGAIN IN A GAME. BORING REPETITIVE STUFF IS NOT FUN AND I PLAY GAMES FOR FUN. Right - freedom, after HOW many hours? 100 -200 hrs? When many people spend 3-4 hrs a week in a game that is a ridiculous amount of time to get any fun. Hell, they can go to work then, at least they get paid for that.
As far as your last sentence, the shoe can be placed on the other foot as well. It is the PvP'ers that do not understand that others don't care to play a game where you have to sit brainlessly grinding to get stuff only for asshats, coming around killing people because they are max level (ant that is all they do is grind and go to max level). Even when there are consequences these asshats don't care and that is the real sad part.
Maybe you can finance the game and show everyone how it is done.
Obviously you've never taken a business or marketing class. I have. Almost half of my degree is business based. This is a concept you need to familiarize yourself with. You cannot create a successful product in an established market unless it is new and remarkable. No rehashing of WoW will ever be new or remarkable again. You will NEVER see another WoW clone succeed unless Blizzard makes a WoW2 and shuts WoW down to make market space for it. A game catered to a niche can at least succeed within it's niche because it's niche will care.
Gonna have to disagree with you there, you can very much become successful in an established market, simply by offering a better quality product or offering the same product at a cheaper price.
Case in point, Wal*Mart, didn't do anything new, Sears, Macy's, and a slew of other brands already had the super-center/Department Store idea down, where Wal*Mart simply offered the same things at a much cheaper price, in fact they were in direct competition with K-Mart, simply by taking what K-mart did, and focusing on doing that better, they overtook the market.
Same thing happened with HomeDepot, crushing out many other "Department Hardware Stores"
You so too can enter a market, and become vastly successful, without doing anything new, as long as what you do, you better then your competitors.
SWTOR was better than WoW in nearly every regard. Companions made it easier to level support characters. Flashpoints allowed you to replay lower level content at higher levels and get worthwhile rewards for it. PvP arenas were playable and fun at every level and twinks didn't exist. (Until max level at least. Max level areas are where the PvP gear really started to kick in and you were just fodder for the people who had it until you acquired it as well.) Graphics were better. Storylines were cool. Some really super awesome mini-games like the space combat. Just all around a better game by most criteria.
Except WoW had an established playerbase and more content.
There will never be a WoW killer until WoW kills itself through it's own slow decline, and if there is, it will be nothing like WoW.
But... did they make a better game?
See, I understand with what I used, as an example, it was simple, and only took in some minor factors. case in point being, you can sell a can of CokeCola in one store, and a can of Cokecola in another store for less, and people will buy it where it is cheaper, that's simple economics.
But, when you compare say, RC Cola to Pepsi, and while they are both a "cola" drink, people will pay more for the Pepsi, simply because they like that specific flavor.
Also, in the case of Cola, trying to invent a new flavor of cola, can be a hit or miss game, just because your idea is new, does not mean it is good, or that people will like.
Just saying on that.
Except that in the real world that can of CokeCola may be bought from the more expensive store because people never go to the cheaper store, or don't like the store owner, or think that the cheaper can is stale or any of a thousand reasons that have nothing to do with 'simple economics'.
Well yes, typically you would say "All things being Equal" which, as you pointed out, I did not say. My fault there.
But you do bring up a solid point, "reputation", which, Blizzard has a really.. really.. good one. Given that it pumps out top selling AAA quality games, like, recently, "Overwatch"
I liked Starcraft. Warcraft 1 & 2 I played a bit. Played Warcraft III, but I didn't finish because I didn't want to play as zombies. Tried Starcraft 2 but didn't keep going. I had already had enough of all that from the first one. Didn't like playing the Zerg in the first Starcraft either, but I managed to force myself through, so I could play the Protoss campaign.
If I could (I'm locked right now), I would change the thread title and OP to the following:
PVP and the Future of MMORPGs
Originally entitled "Why Do You Never Want Your Character to Be Killed By Another Player Character", then changed to "Why Do You Hate for Your Character to Be Killed By Another Player Character?"
I believe an Open World PvP/PvE Realm vs. Realm Sandbox is the future of Medieval Fantasy MMORPGs and MMORPGs in general. I also believe that the aforementioned type of game is the only way to possibly create a realistic, dynamic, true role-playing game online. However, I would definitely not use the customary type of vertical level progression or vertical basically unlimited/infinite gear progression. It is impossible to make a good pvp game that way. I would use some skill and ability progression, but without the ability for any characters to master more than a few. How many they could master would be determined by a particular character's intelligence and wisdom. The main forms of progression I would use are the advancement of one's particular Realm and the advancement and continuation of one's family line. This would simulate how real people tend to progress in the real world more accurately. Or at least some of the principal ways our ancestors measured progression in the past
I have details about how I would go about creating one in other threads.
Comments
That's the secret to how WoW is still king. Even a lot of WoW players hate their recent changes, but they aren't going to switch because thats where their characters are, and that's what their friends play.
"'Sam was an advocate of importing. It was his vision,' said a retired senior executive, who was a buyer in Wal-Mart's Hong Kong office in the 1980s, and who asked to keep his identity private. "Our first office was in Hong Kong, then Taiwan. Korea soon after. We'd visit factories, see how they store goods. You would look at every step of the process very carefully."
'From the beginning, Walton had bought goods wherever he could get them cheapest, with any other considerations secondary,' writes Bob Ortega, author of the Wal-Mart history, In Sam We Trust. By the early 1980s, Ortega reports, Walton "increasingly looked to imports, which were usually cheaper because factory workers were paid so much less in China and the other Asian countries."
According to Ortega, Walton himself estimated that imports accounted for nearly 6 percent of Wal-Mart's total sales in 1984. But another observer of that period, Frank Yuan, a former Taiwan-based apparel middleman, who dealt with Wal-Mart in the 1980s, puts the number, including indirect imports, at around 40 percent from 'day one.' Either way, Walton's vision was a harbinger of far vaster global sourcing today."
from - http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/walmart/secrets/wmchina.html
"Wal-Mart Stores, Inc.[8] (/ˈwɔːlmɑːrt/), doing business as Walmart, is an American multinational retailing corporation that operates as a chain of hypermarkets, discount department stores, and grocery stores. Headquartered in Bentonville, Arkansas, the company was founded by Sam Walton in 1962 and incorporated on October 31, 1969. As of January 31, 2017, Walmart has 11,695 stores and clubs in 28 countries, under a total of 63 banners.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walmart
It's funny how people feel the need to make insults just because I get something wrong sometimes. Or make broad generalizations about me just because I get something wrong sometimes.
But, yeah, you're right. It's always better to be as accurate as possible when speaking about important subjects. Please forgive me.
"First assume a can opener"
Much of what you say is both rational and reasonable. Unfortunately consumers are quite often neither. Advertising (hype) can convince people they want, even need, something that they didn't want until the hype. The 'oh shiny!' factor has a lot of influence in the video game market.
But... did they make a better game?
See, I understand with what I used, as an example, it was simple, and only took in some minor factors. case in point being, you can sell a can of CokeCola in one store, and a can of Cokecola in another store for less, and people will buy it where it is cheaper, that's simple economics.
But, when you compare say, RC Cola to Pepsi, and while they are both a "cola" drink, people will pay more for the Pepsi, simply because they like that specific flavor.
Also, in the case of Cola, trying to invent a new flavor of cola, can be a hit or miss game, just because your idea is new, does not mean it is good, or that people will like.
Just saying on that.
Maybe a lot of people don't think a better WoW has been made.
Except that in the real world that can of CokeCola may be bought from the more expensive store because people never go to the cheaper store, or don't like the store owner, or think that the cheaper can is stale or any of a thousand reasons that have nothing to do with 'simple economics'.
"Have you ever raided, brah?" someone on this forum asked me last year.
At that time, I perfectly described to him what raiding was all about, even though I never raided in WoW or EQ2. One of my guild members in EQ2 was a veteran EQ player (actually I had 4 of them in my guild that I started). He explained to me exactly how it worked. At first I thought I would give it a try, but after mulling it over in my mind for a few months or so, I decided it was not worth the time and effort. After I got to max level in EQ2, I soon decided that endgame grind was not worth the effort period. At that point, I really didn't even know what all my hard work and effort in leveling in the game was really all about. I said, thanks, but no thanks.
I could only handle doing endgame content in Neverwinter for awhile because the action combat was fun sometimes. And I played different classes to keep things more interesting and less repetitive. After mod 6 came out, Elemental Evil, I tried the epic dungeons a few times with my paladin. I had done some epic dungeons with my rogue during mod 5, but they completely changed a lot of the game with mod 6. Once with a guild I completed Epic Cragmire Crypts after like 2 hours or so with my paladin (IL 2.2 at the time). The developers had screwed up mob Armor Penetration so bad at that time that any mob in an epic dungeon could one hit a tank (guardian fighter or oathbound paladin). And those two classes don't have the same kind of movement/dodging ability as other classes. We actually had to lure the boss, Traven Blackdagger, into a pit of spikes to kill him. Instantly, that was the good part. There was no other way for us to do it at the time. lol. So, yeah, I guess I basically did experience sort of what raiding can be like. Because the developers had accidentally or intentionally (I don't know) made 5-man epic dungeons into raids. I quit Neverwinter for five months not too long after that. There were other personal reasons why I quit though. I don't necessarily blame my leaving on the epic fail that was mod 6.
It's like the guy in TED talk said. He buys the cough syrup in the yellow bottle. He's always bought the cough syrup in the yellow bottle. He isn't looking for another kind of cough syrup. Why should he care about your product?
The flashy "New MMO" gimmick works for the first couple weeks of a game but it dies off real fast after that. WoW players may come and try your new product for a couple weeks, and then they'll be angry about missing features because your MMO is new, and they'll start missing their friends back on WoW, and within a month they will pretty much all be gone back to whatever game they came from after paying the cost to buy your game and one month sub fee.
That is part of the reason MMOs do the WoW model actually. It is a halfway decent recipe to recoup your development losses and maybe even make a profit on gullible fools. Then you can lay off most of your developers, toss the game in the free to play bin and forget about it almost entirely aside from occasional expansions.
It's not a recipe for a sustainable MMO which will succeed in the long run. The kind of people who are going to forgive your shortcomings and become your longterm community. Here's a post I'm going to shamelessly rip off an old topic on these boards that kind of shows the issue:
If you were never banned (as you said in the last version of your story) and if you so clearly recollect the events and conversations from last year on a different account. Why are you now using a new account (created in March)?
Could it be that you just imagined that conversation and events?
@craftseeker - Looks pretty imagined to me. Total sidetrack from the conversation and should have been taken to PMs but I guess you can let everyone watch you be wrong publicly if that's your thing.
I stand corrected. I was wrong I misread your date of joining. I was wrong about that.
Well yes, typically you would say "All things being Equal" which, as you pointed out, I did not say. My fault there.
But you do bring up a solid point, "reputation", which, Blizzard has a really.. really.. good one. Given that it pumps out top selling AAA quality games, like, recently, "Overwatch"
So, fair point.
PVP and the Future of MMORPGs
Originally entitled "Why Do You Never Want Your Character to Be Killed By Another Player Character", then changed to "Why Do You Hate for Your Character to Be Killed By Another Player Character?"
I believe an Open World PvP/PvE Realm vs. Realm Sandbox is the future of Medieval Fantasy MMORPGs and MMORPGs in general. I also believe that the aforementioned type of game is the only way to possibly create a realistic, dynamic, true role-playing game online. However, I would definitely not use the customary type of vertical level progression or vertical basically unlimited/infinite gear progression. It is impossible to make a good pvp game that way. I would use some skill and ability progression, but without the ability for any characters to master more than a few. How many they could master would be determined by a particular character's intelligence and wisdom. The main forms of progression I would use are the advancement of one's particular Realm and the advancement and continuation of one's family line. This would simulate how real people tend to progress in the real world more accurately. Or at least some of the principal ways our ancestors measured progression in the past
I have details about how I would go about creating one in other threads.