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Niche Game?
SpectralHunter
Member UncommonPosts: 455
I'm sure this may have been discussed before but since all we can do is wait around till the game launches, might as well discuss our thoughts on the game.
AoC looks great and it seems like the devs are really trying to make combat different and give the game a different feel than the traditional MMOs we have seen. But is AoC too restrictive in two major categories in order to be a success as a AAA title?
What I am wondering about are:
1. Is the game too hardware intensive? People hate on WoW but I think everyone will admit, the ability for the game to be played on pretty much any computer really allowed it to be a success it is now. Making your game too graphics intensive immediately cuts off a chunk of the population...the ones you need to subscribe in order to keep your game afloat.
2. Is the M rating going to hurt it? Again, WoW is generally harmless (I choose WoW simply because it's the biggest out there) with a T rating so it doesn't restrict its market in any fashion. AoC on the other hand with its violence and sexual themes will reduce players. Course some will say it's a good thing because kids won't be spamming on the chat channels but it's a restriction nonetheless.
There's nothing wrong with AoC. If that's the way it wants to go, power to them. But will it only become a niche MMO simply because of its restrictive features? Will it struggle? I mean it seems like a lot of money went into development and I'm assuming the devs want a large playerbase to support it but can it? Can a true AAA title expect to succeed with high restrictions?
Comments
1.Time moves on and so do system requirements,Again if you dont have the system you wont be able to play but I think even a decent rig will be able to run AoC.
2.Nope i think many feel with it having that rating it will encourage kids to play it,Lets be honest if you have a kid who is maybe 12-13 and you rent an 18 rated action movie I would say 98% of the population would let them watch it,So why not let them play a game with that rating?This for me is a big fear for AoC it will be swamped with kids not the opposite.
If someone had came up to me in 1980 when I was on my Atari 2600 and said we will be playing games with thousands of people at the same time.I guess my response would have been,"but I only have 2 joysticks"
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/235780/page/8
I agree. From what I've seen of all the "boobies", I think this is definitely geared towards the kid crowd.... Errr. maybe the "I've never had a conversation with a girl except my mom" crowd too. I hope I'm wrong, though. It looks pretty cool otherwise.
2. Did the M rating and bad media hurt Grand Theft Auto? Most parents seemingly don't look/care about ESRB ratings. If a 12 year old kid is at Gamestop with his mom and he's got some cash in his pocket, I would think that alot(if not most) of the time the parent will let this kid buy the game regardless of the ESRB rating.
Keep in mind not only will this game attract veteran MMO players who are sick of the same old crap clone games and others but it will also attract Conan lovers around the world. This game has a pretty large hype level, if FunCom does it right this game will be big.
|Mortal Online|Gnostaria|
I suppose you could consider AoC as a Niche game.
That Niche would be the "Viable alternative to Warcraft". It just so happens that that niche market could be as larghe as 3 million players
I say, go for it AoC
Torrential
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
Niche game?
50+ million in development costs, which would put it as one of the 2-3 highest amounts spent to develop an MMORPG, behind the reported 70+ million to develop WoW. That kind of says to me that the dev's arent developing it to be a niche game, and the people who tok the 30 million placement of stock back in July/August dont think it will either.
That doesnt mean it's going to put up WoW-esque subscriber numbers. I'm also not going to pretend I know what Funcom needs as far as subs to make this a success, and what level of success each tier would be.
People keep repeating the system spec's, but I think we need to take that with a grain of salt, as there is a DX10 version, and DX9 version. When you consider it, of course to run the DX10 version, you'll need a hefty system, but I'd suspect a huge amount of people play it on the DX9 version, with what would probably be considered middling spec's of most systems today. Obviously this means no 9 million in subs, but if a game like Vanguard sold 200-240k boxes with it's horrible pre-release period, I'd suspect that plenty of potential MMORPG customers will have systems that are able to run the game. Enough for a profitable level? I think Funcom thinks it will.
M rating? If anything it'll generate a buzz on its own because of that, if it were to inhibit a small demographic from playing, it'll gain in others simply because of the rating. Last survey I saw was that the average age of MMO'ers was over 26.
To me, the ultimate niche style game might be Warhammer Online. It'll appeal to folks who want PvP, with a lot less to interest folks who dont enjoy PvP. It figures to be a well done game, and well polished, published by EA, who's got the bucks to promote it right, and Mythic as a team who can balance. That's a niche that is crying out for a good game, and with people introduced to MMO's from WoW, and wanting PvP, could easily attract millions of folks. Nothing wrong with a well done niche game. It's hard to make an offering that has dimensions for people who want both PvE and PvP.
I may have to rephrase. I didn't say the devs wanted AoC to be a niche game. What I feel is, due to the hardware requirements and the M rating, it may become one because those two things become restrictive.
I also do believe most forum posters and long time followers of any game tend to fall under the serious gamer type. Meaning they tend to upgrade their rigs on a regular basis and stay informed. But let's not kid ourselves. The majority, and I mean a gigantic majority of the population do not upgrade their rigs every year or even every other year. We are talking five year old rigs. WoW can run on those. I doubt AoC will.
You can tell those people to upgrade but most won't. That means most won't even bother to look at AoC.
As for the M rating, yes the kids will want to play it but AoC will be a subscription model. That means parents will have to usually pay for it and that should ease some of the concerns that the kiddies will overwhelm the population. There will be some since we all know there are parents who just don't care but you won't see as much.
I still think the M rating will hurt sales. As stated, it will stifle kids from playing the game. And it will prevent families to play as well. There's a slow but growing trend of parents playing games with their kids. None of those people will consider AoC due to the rating.
Again, I do think AoC will be a good game but I don't think it will be a giant hit. I do think ultimately it will be a niche game for the reasons I stated. The costs are huge and I wonder if the sub base will be able to please the financial backers. AoC isn't Vanguard but it needs to perform exceptionally well because of the costs or there will be a fallout.
I also want to add some anecdotal observations to AoC. I know that there have been female gamers on this forum who support AoC but my experience and conversations with my female gamer friends (who play MMOs) dislike the setting and find it sexist and will not bother to even try it.
They may be wrong or right but that's not the point. Is AoC alienating a growing population of female gamers due to the their content?
I don't think it alienates females at all, infact it gives the female player more empowerment. As soon as we start seeing females in, in-game videos and more in depth female character creation media with in the next 7 weeks. I believe the customizability that AoC offers in this area will be a massive appeal to female gamers, along with how good the female models look and their ability to be on an even keel in beating up male barbarians
The thing to remember is not to treat female gamers any different than male gamers in regard to how we play games.
I can name at least 20 female gamers who are eagerly awaiting this game in real life and in my guild.
There are quite a few out there interested.
As for hardware intensive, just make sure you have a shadel model 2 compatible video card and away you go. That tech been out years now.
As for being Niche - not so much so from my point of view. Just because the combat system is different doesn't mean the game offers content all the regular content you will find in a traditional mmorpg. So really it offers traditional content in a new way, in a setting / from a background lore 75 yrs old, without going totally mainstream in the way its presented. Just because 75 yrs ago people viewed gender differently doesn't mean it will play out in game like that. You should read on the official site the news about female avatars, and about thier direction they wish to take them.
Well, to each their own. I think the way you are looking at the info available is a little shortsighted, but that's just my opinion.
System Spec's
Now, lets have a look at system spec's. We can use the System Requirement Labs as a guideline, since those arent offical either, and we wont have those until much closer to release. Let's also realize a couple of things. The high end, the recommended is based on the DX10 version, with a video card that handles that. I dont expect everyone to have that, and neither does Funcom, which is why they also have a DX9 version. Without having played it, no way to know how much you'll need to play it at an "enjoyable" level, and who knows how far the min will get you, but let's look...
CPU- Pentium 4/Athlon XP or better
CPU Speed- 3 ghz
System RAM- 1 GB
Operating System-Win XP or Vista
Video Card- 128 MB DirectX 9.0c Graphics Card with Shader 2.0 support (NVIDIA GeForce 6800+ / ATI Radeon 9800+)
128 MB Video Ram
Pixel and Vertex Shader 2.0
Sound Card
DVD Player
Now note, the ATI Radeon 9800+ has been out for just over 4 years, so it's not a top of the line video card anymore, and not brand spanking new technology. In fact, you could reasonably guess that most new systems purchased in the last 2-3 years would have cards at least that good. Now, obviously WoW system spec's are much lower, a big reason why they can have 9 million sub's, just about anyone can play it. Will AoC be limited because of it's spec's? Sure, the upside wont be 9 million, but 3-4 million isnt unreasonable. (that's who could play it, not that will play it.
Take a look at Vanguard:Saga of Heroes. People felt it's system specs would seriously hurt who could play it. However, despite the horrible reviews, the slew of problems, and the attrocious beta reports, they still sold between 200k and 240k copies the first month of release. Combine the poor reputation it was earning, and it's utter lack of press and advertisement and you'll realize that's actually a fairly substantial number. Imagine how many copies it could have sold if it was being promoted, and was getting some good press, and had positive reports from it's beta testers. Think 500k would be unreasonable for first month sales? That would have actually made it one of the top 10-11 games in terms of population. ( linkage how many it would have retained is something else, and I know that, we were just talking about limits based on computer system, and if you cant run it, you dont buy it usually.)
So realistically, when you compare it to WoW, no, it wont have that upside because of lower system specs that makes it accessible to everyone, but it's upside is fairly substantial, and could easily give it potential to be one of the top 5-10 MMO's based on subscribers (note I said could, not would)
M Rating
Are you aware that as of September '07, the best selling game in the United States is Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas? Over 20 millions units were sold, 8.6 million of them in the United States. Linkage Yep, you guessed it, an M rating to it. Should we really believe that all 20 million units were sold to people over the age of 18? How many sales do you really think that they lost simply because of the M rating?
Are you aware that the average age of an MMORPG player is actually 26 years old? Linkage In fact, only 25% of MMORPG players are teenagers, and how far do you think games like Toontown Online, and even World of Warcraft skew that number? That being said, the M rating has zero impact on 75% of all people who play MMO's. The M rating really did not hurt GTA, what makes you think it will really discourage all that many under the age of 18 to purchase and play it? When you look at it, the 26+ demographic are also the folks who are mostly likely to have disposable income to spend to upgrade a PC, but that's a whole 'nother argument not worth having. After all, the average playtime an MMO player is 22 hours a week.
Impact on Women
This is one that I actually see your point. If you take the time to visit the official forums, you'll find some an awful large group of women who are excited to be playing, who are active posters, and are as excited as any guy. (see Pandora and Naniloa and ask them this question, and you'll get an earful of differing opinion, and you'll find out why Age of Conan appeals to them.) My wife on the other hand has had mixed opinions, because for her, she isnt sure if that's the way she wants her avatar to look, and she was actually debating rolling a male avatar just because of that. A fairly recent Friday Update covered the Funcom decisions on "Women in Hyboria" and it had some screenshots that definitely were more appealing that objectifying.
The catch is, and LordOrion (Erling Ellingsen} explained that they have focused on this because it's something that they feel makes AoC different than other games. He also admitted that they may have said different things in the wrong way, and they would have to think about how they'd present it, because it was coming off as juvenile as opposed to mature.
I'd be surprised if anyone makes it this far thru this wall of text! Seriously though, I'm under no illusions that Age of Conan is going to put up World of Warcraft type subscriber numbers, there are definitely limits put on by it's rating, it's world, and it's system spec's. The thing is, World of Warcraft introduced how many people to the genre? Right now 9 million subs and rising, and how many people do you know who have already left the game? Think about it, WoW was able to replace those subscriptions and continue to add. The pool of people being familiar with MMO's, and willing to play them is deeper than ever. I'd be surprised if AoC ever hit 3-4 million subs, but I dont see any evidence that any of the things you mentioned would relegate it to "niche game" status. I get the vibe that it'll probably start in the 350k-400k area, and rise, and how much it rises depends on the quality of the game at release, and Funcom's commitment to making it a satisfying place for consumers to spend their dollars. (remember, 55 million to do that) Sorry, I just dont see the reasons you presented as standing up, a few months ago based on what they saw, and the projections, Funcom was able to place 30 million in an investment, those folks are armed with far more facts than we are, and are in a much better place to make an intelligent decision, and they did.....now if it's a good one, we'll see.
This isnt 3 or 4 years ago when MMO's were just starting to really get going and the internet was just seriously becoming a behemoth. Which certain games and other internet sites took advantage of and today is even bigger than ever.
You can get a computer that blows anything out of the water that was needed for games back then for 500-900$ (or less).....heck the one i play most new games with was 1400$ when it first came out 5 years ago , still it runs things pretty good with only a video card change and its not even close to the latest.
Most computer owners will probably have upgraded for other games or software since tech is cheaper than ever and also more sophisticated.
So all that remains to be seen is if the gameplay and content/polish are enough to really make it popular.
I don't think it will be a niche game. In fact, if they time it right (isn't there another Conan movie due soon?) it might blow up.
The sad thing is ... large numbers will inevitably remove the "coolness" of the game. The designers will have to start guarding against that teenager who managed to buy the game, convinced their parent to give up the credit card without paying attention and then get flashed a boob shot while in parental view (who all of a sudden starts paying attention).
I really think that it will be fun at the beginning but fade fast. A people that want to approach the game as mature people will have to hide themselves in guilds of like minded people and then deal with the "ZOINKS .. She's got cleavage!" crowds when they try and go any where else. I think that will burn players out fast.
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0485621/
|Mortal Online|Gnostaria|
Will Conan be a niche game?
I sure hope so.