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Success or Fail - We as players should....
Teala
Member RarePosts: 7,627
Success or Fail - We as players should really be hoping that MMORPG's do "not" fail...but succeed. Why you may ask. Because that is what will drive this game genre forward and bring more investors into it so that more MMORPG's will see the light of day. When we the players make comments like I really wish that game would fail...and some rightly deserve to fail...we really shouldn't be wishing it because in essence when an MMORPG does fail or doesn't make that big of an impact of the genre (D&DO, Tabula Rasa, RF, Vanguard, Matrix...) then we, the players of these games are the ones that are potentially loosing future development of new MMORPG's because investors are less likely to spend money on such a huge risk.
Pray that WAR , AoC, Aion, and TCoS do well and are big hits. If they are we may see even bigger and better MMORPG's in the future.
Comments
I see where your coming from, but you really haven't thought about it enough.
Think about this, when were all the good games released? In the beginning. Ok. When have most of the crap games been released? After WoW.
I don't care if there is one game on the market (and there always will be at least 1 game) as long as it's a good game. The Genre will keep going forward. Ever since WoW hit the scene the genre has actually been moving BACKWARDS as far as content and gameplay are concerned. Everyone wants to make the next WoW, but what they don't realize is that there may NEVER be another WoW and if there is it will only be after the 10mil subscribers get bored with the game, years and years from now.
Everyone now is trying to compete with WoW, a very simplistic game that will draw in the most people. Nobody cares about gameplay now, they only care about subscribers. They use an X + Y / Z formula to get the subsribers that the mathematicians at Blizzard created.
In short, I hope every game for the next 3 years is a complete and utter failure. Then maybe they will start thinking about creating one from scratch instead of using a cookie cutter they bought from the WoW Corporation.
There is no such thing as guaranteed success in capitalism.
Games are a artificial form of life, that I call "Macro-Virus", because are made of viral features.
One game invent a feature, like housing, and all other MMO's clone that feature, maybe enhance it, maybe get it worse, but he feature is "transmited" in a viral way.
A game can be unsucesfull finnancially, but add to the gene pool a new viral feature, that will spread quickly to other games.
So, what game invented /bow? What game invented the secondary target? What game invented the assist window, the agro concept? What game invented the rest-px? What game invented RvR? What game invented perks, traits, skill trees, quest icons, crafting systems, etc..?.
These games are sucesfull in a way: inyected a feature on the gene pool, that is transmited to all other MMO's.
Even WoW is a sucess in that way, because has invented some new features that will spread.
Success or failure of games is dependant on people buying the game and paying for subscriptions.
So, in essence, you are telling us all to go out and buy every game whether we like it or not just so the gaming companies can feel all safe and warm.
Should we buy games even if they are buggy and incomplete?
Should we buy games even if the gameplay is unappealing to us?
Should we buy games that incorporate game design elements that we greatly dislike?
Sorry but that is a load of crap. In fact, I believe that the very reason the mmorpg genre is so stagnate right now and the reason it hasn't been moving forward is specifically because people are too willing to pay for any old garbage that developers shovel our way. We need to be more discriminating not less discriminating.
People shouldn't pay for half assed, incomplete, cobbled together messes.
People should research games to find out details of design elements that they may or may not agree with before they spend a penny on them. People should ask developers hard questions about their games and not settle for vague, non-specific answers.
The genre won't really start moving forward untill we STOP paying for the same old crap over and over again. People are always screaming for innovation and yet they reward non-innovative developers by throwing money at them. What sense does that make?
People complain about design elements in games and yet they keep paying subscription fees for those games and when another game comes out with the same exact design elements they fork over more money and go through it all again. What sense does that make?
So don't tell people that blindly paying for any game that comes out will move the genre forward. That's exactly the reason why the genre hasn't been moving forward.
I think the problem is with the education system. I too have a hard time reading, although, I think I can understand a little better. I'll put it into words that people like us can understand.
The OP said 'hope' not pay.
Personally I don't think I'm skilled enough to make a post for you to understand the concept but I'd just walk away and do something else more constructive.
I hope bad games - fail.
I hope good games - succeed.
EA is setting the standards, as well as Blizzard, for what succeeds and fails. The bar is growing, but the creativity is lowering. GTA IV is a game that shows what "gamers" really want: 1) great storyline; 2) openness and freedom in a world; 3) nice visuals and audio; 4) multiplayer; 5) non-forced, linear gameplay. Nevertheless, I hope EA fails at everything (its earnings show that it is).
You've got it backwards...content and gameplay has increased dramatically since UO. Considering EQ, UO and AC had basically zero content, had lousy control, UIs and had gameplay designed to stretch out every play session and slow down advancement to a crawl...the genre has moved forward quite a bit. Its the old vets who can't let it go already and realize just how badly designed the original MMOs were.
People are allowed to be picky now, because we have options. Back with the original 3, there were few options. Which buggy unfinished game did you want to play back then, because they all had problems that current gamers won't tolerate now.
If Dark & Light or Vangaurd were released in 99, they would be successes. Now they're deemed failures. Wonder why?
You make a good point, but when I say content I mean as far as things you can do. Think about what all you could do in EQ and try to see if you can do it in WoW... It's not there. Same thing with AC and UO, they had much more to do in the game than WoW does. WoW has two options: Raid or PVP Grind. Crafting is there, but completely pointless.
Also, you only focused on one word "content". What about gameplay? Some of the things you hit on are not restricted to the MMO Genre, but all games in general. Gameplay plays an important role for me in games. I like games that challenge my mind, not just numb it. In the current crop of MMOs a mind numbing experience seems to what they go on and thrive on. I understand I'm not a normal gamer, I see things in games that 90% of the general non-gamer population sees and I want things they don't want. I understand that. But there are happy mediums, which are not being put out at the current time.
Content and Gameplay kinda go hand in hand as well. Sure, some of these MMOs have lots of places to go, but big deal. That's not content, that's filler. Content, to me, means somewhat of a sandbox... even if the game isn't considered a sandbox. Back in UO, I could come up with all kinds of things to do and was happy. In WoW there are just a handful, I mean I can do lots of things but the game has evolved to where those things just don't matter. WoW should have been a spectacular game, the Original Designers had alot of great ideas, the bad thing is that the game has got nothing more than a spectacular amount of subscribers. But, that alone doesn't mean it's a good game. NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys sold many MANY more records than copies of WoW, I don't find them good and I've never found anyone willing to admit that they like them.
IMHO, the greatest thing WoW has brought to the Genre is a playable game on most systems. Unfortunately, most developers don't see this key feature of the game. I can play WoW on my Laptop, my friends laptop from 2003, or even my grandpa's computer he bought in '01 (with a simple RAM Upgrade, trust me... I played it on it).
The problem with alot of these games is that fact and that fact alone. I played Vanguard and I LIKED IT! But the problem lies in the fact that when I got around other people my computer lagged way down. And that was my gaming machine. I'm in the Army and spend most of my time on my laptop that's no where near the power of my game machine.
I agree, you do have a hard time reading. But blaming the education system for your failings is a cop out.
Given that the success of games is dependant on people buying the games and paying for subscriptions, when the OP, or anyone else, "hopes" that a game will succeed; what are they actually hoping for? They are hoping that people will "pay" for those games.
But since that concept seems to be too difficult for you to grasp I'll just demonstrate my worth by hoping that you spend lots and lots of money investing in undersea hog farming because I "hope" that undersea hog farming will succeed. See what a great guy I am?
Its not our problem anymore if their company sink.. We are just player, we play what we see that's good.. If they have released a game that interest us gamers then its good for them(We shouldn't think what will happen to their company) and if their game sux we ignore it (still we shouldn't care about them)..
I think the only time we should care about this developers is if we loved their game and got hooked with it then there will be an news that the game would be stopped on running because of low number of player and game profit..
All I am trying to say is....pray that the upcoming games are "good" games...not "bad" games. Sure there are bad games that deserve to fail. I'll be the first to push it over the edge into the gamers abyss of bad games if I feel a game really deserves it . However, it really does make an impact on the genre when a game does fail and fail badly (Tabula Rasa, Vanguard), because potential investors will be less likely to part ways with their money if they see it as to high of a risk.
I am not telling anyone to pay for a bad game. Not at all. I am actually saying...lets hope the games coming out in the near future are "good" games and do well on the market and do not crash because they are lousy games that nobody wishes to play.
I do not think that people really want a game to fail. It's just that is it is a regular, WoW clone, then why not express our opinions about the game. I mean, if I play a game and point out places where it sucks, then that is in no way saying that I hope it fails, but just that it is not for mee and needs to improve on certain points.
Same goes with a game in development. If I look at a game and I see some flaws, then I wil point the flaws out. I do not want the game to fail, but to ix on places it needs improvement, so it will be more of a success when it releases.
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In memory of Laura "Taera" Genender. Passed away on Aug/13/08 - Rest In Peace; you will not be forgotten