LMAO that happened to me once too. I posted a huge defensive argument stating that console games aren't designed for noobs. It was like 7-8 paragraphs long, but it never posted ... DAM U MMORPG.COM !!!
I don't want to spout my own ego about my knowledge of mmo's,
No, go ahead. As long as you and I, and everyone else show good manners, then it goes with what this site mmorpg.com is here for - open, free flowing discussion.
but you dont seem to know much about mmo development, or game development in general.
Write/post on.....
Things that increase the time it takes to make an mmorpg from and RPG:
-Programming in the network
-Making the game playable by more then 1-8 people; even up to several thousand.
Those first 2 items are offset by items that decreases the time it takes to make a mmorpg and/or rpg take less time to develope.
-Making enough assets for a game that will attempt to hold a players interest for more then a month(Monsters, Quests, Area, Backstory, Skills, Character customizability)
This item is far more complex than you and I know. LOL! The main weapon vs this "problem" is that when a mmorpg is made, they must define their target market first. Casual players? hardcore players? SWG is one example. Hard core players went through the content when the game came out, in 1-3 months. Casual players took 6 months or more. The hardcore players complained about lack of content. The game DEVs said "hey, you are not our target market.".
EQ is another example. It catered more towards hardcore players. Plently of content in it when it first came out to keep players busy for more than 1 month heheh.
These elements easily add in years of development time since making a character well in 3d takes a day, and an area a week.
Yes, if you are doing it by yourself. But again, there is the thing that decreases developement time. Why did Shadowbane take (6 years if I remember right)? While DAoC took far less?
The problem with an oversaturation of theme in the game industry is being able to catch the players attention into playing your game. Like you said it will come down to gameplay.
It is nice that you and I fully agree here. See, we and everyone here can indeed have a nice mannered, open discussion.
With the fact it takes years to develop an mmo; in order to do well in a market with many pre-existing games of your theme you would have to enhance your mmo to surpass what is currently in the industry. You really can't attempt to evenly meet gameplay feature either because mmo's are addicting; and a player will not be convinced to change games if it is the same.
Each mmorpg has a hardcore following. Why do players still play the ancient UO? Or even AC? (Which has far more players than AC2 LOLOL!) Why do players still play EQ? Did you know players still play M59!? But you are correct that for a mmorpg to become a hit, it must go after more than just its hardcore followers.
For a new mmorpg to stand out, it must either have the same game features as others - but do it far better. And/or have new and different game features.
In order to create a mmo with greater gameplay then previous mmos, you would have to put your mmo into development even longer and spend more money. The upping of the gameplay will also increase the system needed to play the game; which will means even less people can play.
1. Game play does not increase system specs. It is graphics. EQ has far more gameplay than EQ2, SWG, yet it requires less system specs. 80% of the time, it is graphics that are the reason system specs are forced higher. (GeForce 5, 6, etc....)
2. In order to create a mmorpg with greater, better, gameplay, game fetures than previous ones, the power must swing back to the game devs.... and away from the moneymen, the suits and ties who do not care about mmorpgs but fund them. The gross failure of AC2 is the prime example.
3. There are too many clones, and semi-clones being made today. Reason? The suits and ties refuse to allow the game DEVs to take chances. Gone are the days when Lord British made his own hit game from his garage. (He is the one responsible for Ultima 0. Which led to UO, which led to mmorpgs being popularized.)
The easiest solution is to gimmick out your game by changing the theme.
I think players would be smart enough to see through that after playing for 1 week heheh.
This is why its suicide to make a medieval fantasy based mmo today, because in order to obtain the customers you must create something to draw in players from all the other medieval fantasy mmo's.
Pause for a moment. This is something very few people look deeper into. New mmorpgs do not need to take players from existing mmorpgs in order to succeed. Every year a whole new crop of young gamers appear. Plus there are already millions of existing gamers who do not play mmorpgs. SWG, WoW, are examples that proved this true. So it is not automatic suicide to make a new mmorpg set with medieval themes.
Now, if it does not have new, and/or different game features, then it will be as you said - automatic suicide.
This really means you will be spending alot more money and time to compete for a limited demograph.
WoW proved that the demograph is not limited. To this day, mmorpgs are still not popularly known. They are past infantcy, but not mature yet. The suits and ties are holding back mmorpg growth by not allowing the game DEVs to further push the mmorpg market. I still cannot believe SWG was not advertised with the new movie "Revenge of the Sith"!!! Meanwhile EQ, and MxO were advertiesed in movie theaters!
Sure alot of originally themed mmo's arent successful, but the most popular mmo's ever created arent Medieval Fantasy, and reach indescribable numbers that hasnt been seen in the Medieval mmo genre. Guess what they are Korean too.
I was waiting for you to mention Korean mmorpgs. I have posted about this before. And opened many eyes. The Korean marekt is unique. Here it is in a nutshell:
1. Korea has what are called "PC Bangs". Anyone age 4 to 100 can get on a computer anytime, any day. And not even have to buy any game. Korea leads the planet in computer access to the masses.
2. Korean mmorpgs exist in a vacume market. The same way Japanese rice farmers are "successfull" because American rice is not allowed to be sold in Japan. The same way every single white American basketball player was a "star" from the time basketball was created until around the 1950's because black Americans were not allowed to play. (There is even an upcoming movie soon to be released about this.) The same way Johnson was not allowed to box for more than a decade, while white fighters were the "champions" from the 1800's to early 1900's because they all boxed in a vacume.
3. Because Korean mmorpgs exist in a vacume market, they will be successfull or "successful". The Korean goverment makes it very hard for non Asian companies to enter their market. On the flip side, non Asian companies do not make an effort to enter the Asian market.
This is why Lineage FAILED twice when it tried to enter the non-Asian market. This is why 90% of all players in Korean mmorpgs are .... in 1 tiny country on the planet. Korea.
4. Koreans do not have to buy their mmorpgs. Everything is sooo hacked, cracked, etc... it is mindboggling. I sometimes go to Koreatowns in America. They have Diablo II hacked one can play it without using the CD LOL! Now imagine a PC Bang with 800 computers, all with the hacked game on it! With hundreds of hacked games on each and every computer! Open 24hours! If big-boy Blizzard cannot defeat Asian hackers, you know how good those hackers must be!
Now whats the number count on dead medieval fantasy mmos, and the dying? Cause the list is probably pretty big.
The examples you have listed have been dissected, and are all accounted for by by brief explanation of what is really going on in Korea, its vacume market, and PCBangs. I even got Sir Bruce to look at it, and he came to the same conclusions as me. He now has PC Bangs listed on his site.
Outside of Korea, the mmorpgs that are in every market, are all successfull, and are not dying. They have re-couped their developement costs, and are doing just fine. Not counting WoW, they all have roughly 1 million to 5 million players. None of them exist in a vacume market.
Originally posted by Harlequina wtf....I just posted, but no post is showing. Ah well, don't feel like writing all that again. Why is that its whenever I forget to copy text that the forum decides to not post my message?
Yeah this site has some kind of forum eating bug.
In the future, after you write everything, highlight it all, copy it. Then submit it. If it does not show, then paste it again.
Ohh I mistakened you for another one of those Korean mmo haters.
The reason in this situation why a Medieval MMO would have to surpass the existing medieval mmo is because it is trying to get customers from the same demograph. If the game as the topic and I suggest uses an Original theme then they would be able to target a different demograph.
Granted if this mmo started development a couple years ago they can get away with adding in a new innovative feature with the rest of the game being crap and get away with it; but today 90% of mmo's share the same theme so sifting through all the mmo's with one key feature difference excelling it above the others would be too much work for someone to quit thier existing mmo for.
Now it was innevitable for the mmo market to be flooded with medieval fantasy mmo's as they did with RPG; I agree with that. But just like in the RPG market, MMO's medieval fantasy based games will most likely be taken over by action-oriented MMO's. Like the popularity difference between Icewind Dale and Star Ocean. This is why mmo's need to change theme, because Medieval Fantasy arent popular with the mainstream and appealing only to a low demograph because of a pre-concieved notion that they are the only ones who will play an mmo should be changed.
This is why I mention Korea. Also I shouldnt have mentioned the numbers when I talked about their MMO's but rather profit margins, and current people actively Online. Like Ragnarok Online make over a billion US dollars since release on a 500k US dollar game with 700k active online users at the same time when it was popular. It was so popular it stemed the clones that we generally associate to Korean games.
Whats being developed in Korea now are different mmo themes and styles that arent even being attempted in the US; like Huxley and Grenado Espada. I wouldnt call these games mere EQ clones as you associate to them especially since most of the crap we see coming out of Korea arent. RF Online-based on Sci-Fi, Gate to Heaven- Based on a theme similiar to Final Fantasy, Gunbound- Based on worms, Gunz the Duel- Based on the modern age, Fung Wan Online- based on ancient China. The real EQ clones are what we see coming out of America today, like Irth.
Comments
LMAO that happened to me once too.
I posted a huge defensive argument stating that
console games aren't designed for noobs.
It was like 7-8 paragraphs long,
but it never posted ... DAM U MMORPG.COM !!!
The examples you have listed have been dissected, and are all accounted for by by brief explanation of what is really going on in Korea, its vacume market, and PC Bangs. I even got Sir Bruce to look at it, and he came to the same conclusions as me. He now has PC Bangs listed on his site.
Outside of Korea, the mmorpgs that are in every market, are all successfull, and are not dying. They have re-couped their developement costs, and are doing just fine. Not counting WoW, they all have roughly 1 million to 5 million players. None of them exist in a vacume market.
-Personal Website (A Work still in progress):
http://www.geocities.com/xplororor/index.html
-AC, AC2, AO, EQ, Freelancer, SWG:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor
-More SWG:
http://community.webshots.com/user/captain_sica_xol
-More EQ, Dungeon Siege, *UXO*, Diablo II:Lords of Destruction:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_archives01
-EverQuest II, Horizons:
http://community.webshots.com/user/xplororor_eq2archives01
-EVE Online !!!
http://community.webshots.com/user/sica_xol_archives01
-DAoC
http://community.webshots.com/user/sica_xol_archives02
-Coming sooner or later... CoH, WoW, MXO, UO, GW, As3, RS
Yeah this site has some kind of forum eating bug.
In the future, after you write everything, highlight it all, copy it. Then submit it. If it does not show, then paste it again.
Ohh I mistakened you for another one of those Korean mmo haters.
The reason in this situation why a Medieval MMO would have to surpass the existing medieval mmo is because it is trying to get customers from the same demograph. If the game as the topic and I suggest uses an Original theme then they would be able to target a different demograph.
Granted if this mmo started development a couple years ago they can get away with adding in a new innovative feature with the rest of the game being crap and get away with it; but today 90% of mmo's share the same theme so sifting through all the mmo's with one key feature difference excelling it above the others would be too much work for someone to quit thier existing mmo for.
Now it was innevitable for the mmo market to be flooded with medieval fantasy mmo's as they did with RPG; I agree with that. But just like in the RPG market, MMO's medieval fantasy based games will most likely be taken over by action-oriented MMO's. Like the popularity difference between Icewind Dale and Star Ocean. This is why mmo's need to change theme, because Medieval Fantasy arent popular with the mainstream and appealing only to a low demograph because of a pre-concieved notion that they are the only ones who will play an mmo should be changed.
This is why I mention Korea. Also I shouldnt have mentioned the numbers when I talked about their MMO's but rather profit margins, and current people actively Online. Like Ragnarok Online make over a billion US dollars since release on a 500k US dollar game with 700k active online users at the same time when it was popular. It was so popular it stemed the clones that we generally associate to Korean games.
Whats being developed in Korea now are different mmo themes and styles that arent even being attempted in the US; like Huxley and Grenado Espada. I wouldnt call these games mere EQ clones as you associate to them especially since most of the crap we see coming out of Korea arent. RF Online-based on Sci-Fi, Gate to Heaven- Based on a theme similiar to Final Fantasy, Gunbound- Based on worms, Gunz the Duel- Based on the modern age, Fung Wan Online- based on ancient China. The real EQ clones are what we see coming out of America today, like Irth.