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Why I think alot of new MMORPGs continually keep failing
Regal_TR
Member Posts: 249
Every company keeps trying to fix whats not Broken, breaking the leveling treadmill isn't the problem with mmorpgs, its their lifeline. Making the leveling treadmill fun is what needs to be fixed, not some way around it with speed leveling than having a bunch of high levels with NOTHING to do..So many games have gone to crap because of this imo..Shadowbane could of been great with longer leveling..
Comments
I presume when you say "failing" you mean "I don't like them", because to say they are failing is just silly. The bean-counters drool over annuitized products, especially annuities that reach numbers like $2-5 millin per month. But I digress...
Suggesting taking longer to level = perpetuating the level treadmill = same old song and dance = nothing new. I'm not sure there's a need to necessarily break the treadmill mold, but I do agree that simple "make it take 2x as long" ideas are tired and old and need rethinking. Let's face it, you're going to spend the majority of your time in these games running that treadmill...it would be nice if it was less tedious and more fun.
That's not to say I want these games to be easy. I want content that lasts for months on end, just like the developers want me to be paying for months on end. A company that can find a way to keep people engaged for many months without tedious treadmills is going to do pretty well.
OK, the only major MMOG I know of that has "failed" in the last 12 months is Motor City Online. So I am guessing the "failed" thing is just an oversimplification. While I won't make it quite as personal of an observation as ianubisi did, might I hazard a guess that when you say "failed" you're thinking more along the lines of "failed to make the impact many people thought they would"? As in, not as many new players as they thought.. see Earth and Beyond, The Sims Online, etc.. or didn't live up to most or all of the hype.. see Star Wars Galaxies, etc. But outright failed? The line isn't *YET* forming behind MCO.
(if any *major* MMOG outright fails in the next 12 months or so, I'd say it would be TSO.. but I'm not going to make some long doom-and-gloom rant about it.. especially not after chewing out the habitual doom-and-gloom types in the SWG section of this forum)
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-- Death to picture-sigs. --
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Wow, I actually beta tested and played MCO for quite a while, but then again I'm an old car buff, have a '69 Camaro SS, which was my biggest disapointment with the game really, but anyway, yeah, it failed majorly.
Kunou
GM - Desolation
www.desolation-guild.org/genforum
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
No magor MMORPG has failed to date. Meaning, turn of the lights and go home. Even SB has proven to be profitable.
I played SB for 3 months. In that time I got 3 r6 charaters and a number of r4 ones, owned a few buildings...ect. I think SB needed more content more than anything. But I can understand the sediment that it all comes to quick and you run out of goals quickly. I assume to this is what your refering. Although SB has some new Exp packs, it may be better now?
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"If you respawn then isn't permanent death, it's something else."
Bartle:
A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% Test learn what it means here.
Yee:
Ach: 85% GRE: 65% AFF: 15% Imm 15% test Click here to learn about it.
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Achievers realise that killers as a concept are necessary in order to make achievement meaningful and worthwhile (there being no way to "lose" the game if any fool can "win" just by plodding slowly unchallenged). -bartle
Bartle: A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% The Test. Learn what it means here.
SB's biggest failure was their inability to stop, or maybe the lack of caring to stop, the mass amounts of duping and such that took off in that game. I played SB for QUITE a while, my guild still has a presense there even tho I turned leadership over to one of my officers. Our city, which was planted mere days after launch still stands to this day, oldest tree on the server BY FAR. But the cheating/duping and just the overall lack of support by Wolfpack turned me off of the game majorly. And many others, I watched as our server went from 2500+ players almost 24/7 and 3000+ at primetime to barely 500 at primetime and maybe 100 in offhours. Granted, the game is prolly still making Wolfpack money, but I consider it a failure when you consider how much money they COULD still be making had they listened to the playerbase and fixed the apparent problems, ie content, balance, duping, etc.
So no, technically SB isn't a failure by the "official" definition, it IS a failure in many many ways.
Kunou
GM - Desolation
www.desolation-guild.org/genforum
Soc: 66% Exp: 66% Ach: 60% Kill: 6%
Richard J. Cox
"There were much of the beautiful, much of the wanton, much of the bizarre, something of the terrible, and not a little of that which might have excited disgust."
I consider a game a failure when it has 500ish people primetime and only a few servers running and it is STILL losing customers, SB,AC2...SWG will get there soon unless the space expansion is a miracle..Anyways, all im saying is, All these companies trying to please casual gamers is not the answer, hardcore gamers are the lifeline, not the people who log in for 5-10 hours a week.
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Killer 86%, Socializer 53%, Explorer 33%, Achiever 26%
Motor.
City.
Online.
Failed.
Large publisher, (EA) ad campaigns, apparently had a maximum of 30-40,000 subscribers at some point. Yep, I'd say it qualifies as a major MMOG failure.
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-- Death to picture-sigs. --
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I think what he means, is that no mmorpg in the last while has broken into the mainstream , or made a big revolution in the indutry.
after 6 or so years, I had to change it a little...
The initial poster, or the guy I replied to just above your post? The latter made it quite clear what they meant.
If "breaking into the mainstream" is the model for success, then.. a few news bites aside, ALL MMOGs are failures. Yes, even Evercrap.
How so? Exceptions (coughSimscough) aside, most PC games aren't mainstream. Even among other gamers, can you honestly say you don't get looked at a bit funny more often than not when you mention that you play a MMOG?
(none of these are endorsements, just observations) GTA.. that's mainstream. (infamy) Mario's mainstream. (overexposure) Sonic, perhaps. (cartoons, etc.) Mortal Kombat.. (movies) Street Fighter.. (movie.. come back to us Raul, Hollywood sux without ya man) Tomb Raider. (psycho-skank movie) Doom, even. (people blaming it for everything but the common cold, years after everyone stopped playing it) But tell the average person outside of near-hardcore gaming that you play a MMOG, even Evercrap, (maybe especially Evercrap) and they'll more than likely look at you as if you just said "My friends and I sneak into the park after midnight and beat the crap out of each other using 1x2s as swords, trashcan lids as shields, and handfuls of sugar and glitter as magic spells! Aren't we kool? Can your cat be my familiar..?".
(P.S.: One prominent baseball player playing Evercrap doesn't make it mainstream.. hate to burst your bubble, if you were about to reply with that)
Nothing wrong with MMOGs as a whole.. this isn't a knock on them.. I just felt compelled to address the "mainstream" comment appropriately.
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-- Death to picture-sigs. --
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I don't think MCO counts as a MMORPG. It was MMO, but hardly RPG. You raced cars, you charater has a very minor or no effect on the way cars drive. You win trials and races for points and cash to buy cars and parts.
It was less of a MMORPG than D2.
Yes, MMO's have failed, and I'm sure a number of MMORPG will fail, but they have proven to be very reselant. And a very profitable gener is you can off the ground.
Mainsteam on this site is in referance to MMORPG's market. Everquest is household word. I'm not sure how you can that's not mainstream, it's know among people that don't play PC games. I'd say EQ is as mainsteam and any vidoe game can be.
-=-=-=-=-
"If you respawn then isn't permanent death, it's something else."
Bartle:
A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% Test learn what it means here.
Yee:
Ach: 85% GRE: 65% AFF: 15% Imm 15% Test Click here to learn about it.
-=-=-=-=-
Achievers realise that killers as a concept are necessary in order to make achievement meaningful and worthwhile (there being no way to "lose" the game if any fool can "win" just by plodding slowly unchallenged). -bartle
Bartle: A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50% The Test. Learn what it means here.
____________________
-- Death to picture-sigs. --
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I didn't say The Sims was the only mainstream game. Several have achieved that level of saturation in the public consciousness. (I left Myst off the list to save everyone a little shred of their sanity) Evercrap isn't yet one of those games, console crap or cellphone garbage notwithstanding. It might be in the near future, with a few more nerdy commercials and with more people losing the stigma of the swords-and-sorcery crap being for freaks. (I'm not the only one remembers how hated and/or ridiculed the term "D&D" was for a LONG time.. having been both a D&D softcover and an AD&D 1st Edition player when I was a teen.. and a little bit of that 2nd Edition crap when it first came out)
Saying something is or isn't mainstream isn't a knock against it, by the way. Yes, I knock Evercrap because I'm sick of hearing about it from other gamers.. SWG players whining that such-and-such was thusly in Evercrap and not in SWG, etc.. and as I said in my first new thread here, I am beyond burned out on the fantasy, swords-and-sorcery bit. This isn't an attempt to equate the calling of EQ "Evercrap" to the it's-not-yet-mainstream thing.
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-- Death to picture-sigs. --
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I beg to differ. The vast majority of players are casual gamers. Casual gamers usually have a life, ya know jobs,family, Real Live friends. Casual gamers put just as much money into the game as the hardcore, but not the time. For the casual gamer their gametime is usually a break from the every day grind.
So gaming companies want to appeal to them why? Because you make your game based on the hardcore gamer, the causal gamer is never going to experince all the cool things of higher levels. In all likelyhood the casual will bore and wonder off to a new game.
Hardcore gamers push the game, yes. But it is the casual gamer that gives the larger percentage of the income for these games. And what is the most imortant thing to the gaming companies? The players? Not likely it is the money. These games will not be made for the minority of hardcores for sheer pleasure, they will be made for causal gamers that help pay the bills.
*A game does not rule all other games...espcially if it hasn't been released yet.*
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If toast always lands butter-side down, and cats always land on their feet, what happens if you strap toast on the back of a cat and drop it?"
I beg to differ. The vast majority of players are casual gamers. Casual gamers usually have a life, ya know jobs,family, Real Live friends. Casual gamers put just as much money into the game as the hardcore, but not the time. For the casual gamer their gametime is usually a break from the every day grind.
So gaming companies want to appeal to them why? Because you make your game based on the hardcore gamer, the causal gamer is never going to experince all the cool things of higher levels. In all likelyhood the casual will bore and wonder off to a new game.
Hardcore gamers push the game, yes. But it is the casual gamer that gives the larger percentage of the income for these games. And what is the most imortant thing to the gaming companies? The players? Not likely it is the money. These games will not be made for the minority of hardcores for sheer pleasure, they will be made for causal gamers that help pay the bills.
No way, Everquest is 90% people who put in 25+ Hours a week..that game is succesfull..DAoC also mostly 20+ hours a week..these people chew threw content. SWG was made for casual gamers, can you say failure?? they are bleeding money right now, they had a huge dev team and everything ready for it, you think those few months with 200,000 people made up for the development costs and licensing costs?? no sir it didnt..Casual gamers who feel they get shafted if the hardcore gamer is always better than them in a game do not belong in the MMORPG market, so many nice games were ruined by this.
Perhaps SW:G didn't live up to the bloated and wild expectations of its pre-release fanbase, but I would hardly call it a financial failure. Their subscriber base is netting them over $2 million per month. Do you understand how many companies would die for that kind of revenue?
If you want to talk about these things in terms of failure, define what failure means. Saying flatly "it failed" is exceptionally subjective and riddled with ripe for opinion...the point of the message gets lost.
Who ever pays the most to have people post bogus reviews is the winner. You cant find legitimate reviews these days so many of these games aren't even being tried. People are reading the reviews and which ever ones have the most bad reviews they seem to be taking that opinion onto themselves as there own, without even playing the game. Every bad review seems to say "dont buy this game.....Its nothing compared to EQ or UO or yada yada yada" The whole reason I'm looking into getting into another MMORPG is because the old ones are.....well.....OLD. I want something new and challenging. Can't find something new and challenging when every single game review is negative. Even the ones rated above average have horrible write ups. Maybe its easier for people to write negative reviews because they've "wasted" their money on them. People who are happier with games never post. I really want to play Horizons, EVE, Shadowbane, StarWars, or daoc, but I'm not buying any of them because the reviews are horrible. So all of those games have "failed" with me. All because of either negative reviews.....or bogus reviews. I could ask right now, whats a good game that has great crafter characters and great RPG roles. I'll get back so many answers that its about impossible to choose.<?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />
SWG is still losing customers faster than they are gaining..They still havent paid off development costs, IT IS A FAILURE. It could of been sooo much better..
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-- Death to picture-sigs. --
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