If an indy created an MMO, what would it take to get you to try it?

l2avism2

If a small time independent developer created an MMO on anemic budget, what would it take to make you interested in playing it?
Being small time, there would be the usual limitations that you'd expect like mediorcre graphics and royalty free third party artwork and audio and no tech support and limited documentation.

rojoArcueid

If those are the conditions for a small indie team to make an mmo, why take such big risk of losing everything when they can create a small but much better non-mmo game?

EDIT: when indie devs eat more than they can chew, they are asking for trouble. Walk first before trying to fly is what i'm saying.

maskedweasel

There are several Indie MMOs in development... the super hero ones specifically are the ones I'm waiting for, and I would try them based on the genre.  But what is really considered an "indie" mmo these days?  Nowadays crowd funding can take an indie developer to the upper echelons of funding.  I guess it just depends on the studio.

iixviiiix

The game must be smooth is the minimum require .
Well , as #2 said , making normal game is safer compare to making MMO .

First of all , if you are small , try to be cute , not being cool . Play colorful and don't try to dark . Being simple and not go complex .
But after all , it depend on the fund anyway .

A smooth game and bug free is most important .

Quizzical

It would take the same it did with the indie MMOs that I've played in the past:  a game that looks like it would be fun to play and isn't a knock-off of something else that I've already played until I was sick of it.

MadFrenchie

maskedweasel said:

There are several Indie MMOs in development... the super hero ones specifically are the ones I'm waiting for, and I would try them based on the genre.  But what is really considered an "indie" mmo these days?  Nowadays crowd funding can take an indie developer to the upper echelons of funding.  I guess it just depends on the studio.

One of my most enjoyable MMORPG moments came from CoH pre-release, drumming up origin stories, heroes, and even team-up and superhero group RPs with folks on a site that eventually became CoHGurus (IIRC).  I remember a Charon, Octagon, and Randomus among many others who were really into creating comic book-worthy storylines for the heroes we hadn't even had a chance to create yet.  We coalesced these stories into the full backstory of our heroes after release, forming the supergroups we had naturally created through the RP fan-fiction we all wrote prior to release.

Coincidentally, I still use my first hero's name (Mahaf) as a username when MadFrenchie won't do.  I was just a kid then, but it was a lot of fun.

Wizardry

On an anemic budget,nearly impossible to get me to even take notice let alone try it.

It is possible but devs seem to have no clue how to do it right and on a low budget.By low you still need a decent budget so using the term "anemic" means a budget that is NOT good enough so the game won't be good enough.
On a decent budget you aim for a smaller world but you still need to add in all the bells and whistles and DEEP systems.
The game should feel well designed where everything fits together and doesn't look like a bunch of systems and content just tossed in there to say "we have content".

That means if your a MMO,PLAY like a MMO,if you have an economy keep it in the game and NOT in a cash shop.

Loke666

A low budget game needs to offer something different then the AAA games. A unique system that actually is fun to play is the way to go.

And it has been done before, Eve online started out as a low budget indie game with 25K subs. And while Guildwars wasn't indie since NC Soft funded it the game was made on a really small budget but offered a unique gameplay that made it immensly popular (yeah, it wasn't exactly a MMO but a CORPG).

Anyways, give us an experience we can't get in another game, that is a good start. If you can manage that and make it fun as well then I will play. 

Most low budget MMOs fail miserably though, usually because they aren't fun enough to play.

And stay away from copying older MMOs, be that UO, EQ or Wow. It have been tried more then a few times before and always end in failure.

Ungood

l2avism2 said:

If a small time independent developer created an MMO on anemic budget, what would it take to make you interested in playing it?
Being small time, there would be the usual limitations that you'd expect like mediorcre graphics and royalty free third party artwork and audio and no tech support and limited documentation.

make a zombie survival game like Day Z, that does not suck.. and I'd back it.

Akulas

Some of the best MMORPGs I played was by hobbyists if counting 26 concurrent players online as massive. (Terra World, RPGWO, EUO, Astonia 1, chipped dagger etc) They survived for years. Good community is a good incentive to come back. That's it. Unless they can actually make a good game. I'm happy with small slow updating games as long as it doesn't die or get abandoned. The long surviving small time games ends up the same 3 people sad that the game has been dieing for years.

Eldurian

l2avism2 said:

If a small time independent developer created an MMO on anemic budget, what would it take to make you interested in playing it?
Being small time, there would be the usual limitations that you'd expect like mediorcre graphics and royalty free third party artwork and audio and no tech support and limited documentation.

If I were to create an MMO on an anemic budget I wouldn't create an MMO. I would create something smaller. An arena combat game, a dungeon crawler, whatever. I would focus on making whatever it is a really great game, and not market it as an MMO, but design it in such a way that all of it's systems could be used in an MMO.

If the original game was successful I would take a portion of my profits and use it to build more systems into the game that could also be used in an MMO. Crafting systems etc.

Once my system for arenas, dungeons, and crafting were inside the game I would add cities were you could buy property, trade goods, meet other players etc. I would expand a ton upon the game world's lore at this point as well.

Finally, I would create a world around those cities, where players could freely roam and interact with the environment, turning my multiplayer game, into an MMO.

Lithuanian

2 moments:

1) indie mmo, what about me trying it? Well, it should have free to play option, avoidable pvp and something different from other games. Are you a Goblin fighting evil Humans? A tree defeating some invaders? Lonely zombie trying to survive apocalypse (just because those pesky zombie-hunters want to kill you)?  Or maybe just a peasant on a quest to find your prized Runaway Piglet? What about humoristic approach, like planet where you meet tens of Gandalfs, then run into force-chocking darth vaders and noobish yodas?

2) if I had to create such game? I probably won't even try. Small budget  - little chance to success. Oh well, I could design some Farmville-type Facebook game...

BruceYee

Games Workshop are experts at getting indy studio's to make their games so I'd like to see a isometric MMO of either regular Warhammer or 40k. It can have a limited to number of players per zone/server for technical reasons and even be hub based like MH or even a lobby game. The only thing I'd want is for the game to have meaningful progression and good/fun combat. They can even sell DLC like crazy seeing as GW loves to do that. The thing I find most annoying with modern indy crowdfunded MMO's is promising the moon with features that will never be made or aren't very good just to get player funding. I only speak for myself when saying that if game companies focused more on what made the original MMO's fun then they would be successful but they always contaminate the well by getting too fancy or think they need to do things that aren't really needed. Many games that aren't MMO's are very successful because they adopted just one or two core MMO features and just ran with them. Many mobile games are extremely successful for that reason.

Scot

I think we have to face up to the fact that anaemic budget = anaemic game.

nynniva

To answer the original question -
As long as it isn't ffa pvp garbage, I'll try most anything.
Look for freeform/classless skill development and heavy emphasis on character progression, and strong tradeskill/crafting system.  There's some real gems out there done by 1-man teams that have deep and insightful systems that break the mold - like Mage online for example (nobody's heard of this, but it has all sorts going on).  Project Gorgon is another example of a small team making something amazing.  I would love to see what these folks could do with serious funding.

Scot

Rhoklaw said:

Scot said:

I think we have to face up to the fact that anaemic budget = anaemic game.

Makes you wonder why Minecraft did as well as it did and perhaps still does

Because it was so revolutionary, you do get exceptions but if that is the bar the OP is setting then you are not going to get many that can jump that high. It is not a MMORPG, but as some sort of combination of gameplay like that with a MMORPG is a dream of mine it gets a conditional pass.

Scot

Jean-Luc_Picard said:

Scot said:

Rhoklaw said:

Scot said:

I think we have to face up to the fact that anaemic budget = anaemic game.

Makes you wonder why Minecraft did as well as it did and perhaps still does

Because it was so revolutionary, you do get exceptions but if that is the bar the OP is setting then you are not going to get many that can jump that high. It is not a MMORPG, but as some sort of combination of gameplay like that with a MMORPG is a dream of mine it gets a conditional pass.

Everquest Next could have been "that game". Minecraft with smooth voxels and massively multiplayer. Landmark had its flaw, but the smooth voxel engine and the things players built with it were impressive.

I had my eye on Landmark, Minecraft graphics are too simplistic, Trove is not quite there for me. But if you can get building into a MMORPG you could have a ground breaking winner.

4507

A cheap banner ad saying "New MMO: No cash shop whatsoever" would get me to visit the website.

Descriptions of interesting, innovative mechanics would get me to play the free trial. 

Enjoyable gameplay would get me to buy.

Ungood

4507 said:

A cheap banner ad saying "New MMO: No cash shop whatsoever" would get me to visit the website.

Descriptions of interesting, innovative mechanics would get me to play the free trial. 

Enjoyable gameplay would get me to buy.

So you expect a game company to give you the game for free, and have no means to generate income.

Good luck with that search.

Eldurian

Buy to play isn't a sufficient revenue source for a game on the scale of an MMO on it's own. Every single subscription only title has been forced to move to a freemium with cash shop model. EVE and WoW were the last holdouts and they've both dropped their sub-only model in recent years. No other even semi-successful game that requires a sub to play is left.

Saying you want an MMO to be buy-to-play or sub-only without a cash shop may not be directly saying "I want my game to be free", but unless the sub you have in mind is substantially more than 15/mo you might as well just say that. Even just adjusted for inflation 15$ in 2004 now is worth a bit over 20$ and our expectations for an MMO these days are far higher.

Not to mention with so many free-to-play options on the market when you decide whatever sub fee you need to keep a game running these days (30$ a month or whatever) most people won't be willing to pay it.

The days of sub-fee only MMOs are well and truly dead, and I don't think there is any hope they will ever return.

krgwynne

i am yet to see a indi mmo come out that has been good for more than a casual look at. Most have not even made it to release due to using low quality game engines and just bad mechanics.

4507

Eldurian said:

Buy to play isn't a sufficient revenue source for a game on the scale of an MMO on it's own. Every single subscription only title has been forced to move to a freemium with cash shop model. EVE and WoW were the last holdouts and they've both dropped their sub-only model in recent years. No other even semi-successful game that requires a sub to play is left.

Saying you want an MMO to be buy-to-play or sub-only without a cash shop may not be directly saying "I want my game to be free", but unless the sub you have in mind is substantially more than 15/mo you might as well just say that. Even just adjusted for inflation 15$ in 2004 now is worth a bit over 20$ and our expectations for an MMO these days are far higher.

Not to mention with so many free-to-play options on the market when you decide whatever sub fee you need to keep a game running these days (30$ a month or whatever) most people won't be willing to pay it.

The days of sub-fee only MMOs are well and truly dead, and I don't think there is any hope they will ever return.

I'm assuming you were responding to what I said, so...

By "buy" I meant "spend money", whatever the game's model is. I've said several times on this forum that I would be quite glad to pay $30/month+ for a game that went that route, and I quite strongly believe that as long as there's a free trial, there are enough people unhappy with what the genre has become in the post-sub era to pay it along with me.

Whether that amount of money is actually necessary for the game to keep running or just make it competitive with the profits brought in by F2P games of similar size, however, is another question entirely.

Quizzical

Rhoklaw said:

The current stigma of crowdfunded MMOs...

#1 - No accountability

#2 - No timeline

#3 - No refund in some cases

It's not about whether people would be willing to support, donate or play a crowdfunded game. It's about whether or not said indie developers can be trusted to deliver on their promises in a timely manner. Star Citizen is by far the most successful crowdfunded campaign in gaming history, but, it's not a finished product. In fact, after 5+ years of development and nearly $180 in crowdfunds, it's still in ALPHA.

When Ultima Online and EverQuest launched, people weren't waiting around 5+ years for it. It was produced and worked on, mostly in-house until it was ready for release, at which time marketing and advertisement started.

So, in essence, the biggest obstacle for crowdfunded games is anticipation or rather the lack of patience gamers have. Basically, you are supporting a game that, much like Star Citizen has shown us, will be years in the making. We barely even have any successful kickstarter games to use as a reference on whether or not this will be successful.

Do gamers want crowdfunded games? Of course, because we all know companies like EA who claim to know what we want really don't have a friggin clue. So in conclusion, to answer your question, I would say, yes.

Those are problems of paying for a game long before you can play it.  If established game studios asked you to buy games several years before they launched, you'd run into those same problems.

However, those are only problems before a game launches.  Once the game is launched, you like it or you don't, and it no longer matters how it was funded.

Amathe

I would play an indie game under the same conditions as any other game, those being: (a) they finish and release it and (b) it doesn't suck. 

Mendel

l2avism2 said:

If a small time independent developer created an MMO on anemic budget, what would it take to make you interested in playing it?
Being small time, there would be the usual limitations that you'd expect like mediorcre graphics and royalty free third party artwork and audio and no tech support and limited documentation.

Ultimately, it comes down to two things.

A finished game.  Don't ask me to fund your concept of an ideal game.  I've got my own idea of a perfect game that I can't afford to fund.  I really have no interest in financing your dreams when my own are neglected.

At least one new idea.  Don't just clone something entirely.  Add something new or tweak an existing idea in a different way.  Originality is a key for me, even if it falls flat on its face.

JeffSpicoli

I already did, its called Project Gorgon and its fantastic but the graphics are beyond poor and im a shallow prick with a 980 ti so i stopped playing. I need the whole package to be entertained