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Whats wrong with Developers?
Corevenis
Member Posts: 4
Whats wrong with developers these days?
Why can they not create a really good game? I mean there are alot of games out there that if combined would have the best gameplay experience ever.
An example of this would be, End game content of World of Warcraft (dungeons, boss fights, etc.).
A fully interactive world like ShadowBane. Where you can (after you have reach 20 and adventured beyond newbie island) Build your own cities in just about any location and design it to be to your guild liking.
A combat system like a lot of single player games. A good example of this would be Assissins Creed. It would be nice to see a combat system focus more on the abilities of the player and less on the equipment that character is wearing. A level 20 should be able to kill a 50 if he or she knows how to play thier character.
An interesting and continuesly progressing story line INGAME would be nice. I don't want to spend precouis playing time reading lore on a website. A decent to date example of this is AOC IMO.
A PVP system that promoted active PVPing for those that wanted it and disciplined those that "picked on" lower lvl characters. Again with the combat system I purposed would help here greatly.
Finally, A well balanced economic system would be great to have. If you make your game focus more on player ability and less on the items they have, then you cut out a lot of unneccessary spending and thus making less likely to have player relying on 3rd party farmers to get anywhere in this game.
Well, this has been my opinion and I appreciate my time!
Thanks,
Corevenis
BTW, I know im not a grammar major! So please go easy on me... 
Comments
"What prevents high level players from rampaging through the low level open field RvR areas?
High rank players cannot enter low rank Scenarios. The system prevents that from happening. If they enter a lower teired Battlefield (open field), though, they instantly turn into a giant chicken and can't do anything except for run around and peck people for 1 point of damage."
http://warhammerinfo.com/gamesdaychicago.shtml
Copied from this OP:
http://www.mmomaven.com/forum/showthread.php?t=4886
This is NOT proper PvP. What you describe is PKing. Proper PvP would be with equal characters - like in GW. No wonder people don't like PvP.
Otherwise I do agree with you. I too would like to see a game with story and characters like in Mass Effect, the feel like in ES3: Morrowind or the battles like in Mount & Blade (Google it. Best 16$ I've spent in my life). Problem is: it's never going to happen!
You have to do with what you get - like the rest of us.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I am in the same boat with you. Too many developers have this "mind set" about how and what an MMORPG should look and feel like. You have a player, an environment, NPCs, and some story. The player is of course, the player. The envionment, which really is not much a problem these days. You can find everything under the sun these days and the genre is maturing much better in this department. NPCs is lacking in terms of innovation and progressiveness. Very few games have made steps foward. Ryzom is a good example of this. The creatures you fight have unique AI to them. Maybe this creature hurds with others of its kind and will help protect each other if attacked. TCoS also has moved foward in this department as creatures in this game are rarely alone. Especially sentient creatures, like a magic user will always try to stay away from the player to utilize their spells, a tank will try to keep LOS blocked between his target and his healers/magic users, healers will engage depending on the situation, the AI seems to react to its environment according to the situation at hand and who it is (spellcaster/tank/ect). Story, like mentioned above, can be really hard to implement without implementing just some text and some NPCs and actions in the world that correspond to the text. What is really missing here is live events sense EQ. I have not been in a single live event with any other MMO except in EQ. Now seasonal events do count at live events in definition but there is not much interaction. I like the idea of invading elementals from another dimension, and depending on the out come, either now those elementals inhabit the area they invaded or they where drove out by NPCs and/or players. WoW did introduce more interactive events like these but they were not world effecting.
Either way, you get my picture and I do agree, developers really need to find some way to innovate and progress the genre in ways nobody else has. We need to get away from MMOs that has the latest graphic algorithms and focus on art, gameplay, and community. These are what makes a MMO unique, leave the graphics to the FPS market.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
The problem is, what one person thinks is a good idea another does not. Just because you like the color green, someone might like the color purple more.
Companies are only interested in making money, with that rare small company that wants to bring something new to the table. Problem is, they need so many loans, they usually have to find a cheap publisher that will not pay them what WoW or even VG would, and they get stuck with them. The publisher also gets the rights to change things as they see fit, and usually a small legal battle gets fought (usually the dev gets a lil more money). It happens all the time, but you don't hear about it too often. Thus ideas that were though innovative, turn into little more than "WoW Clones" or "Korean Grindfest".
Companies worry about money. They don't want to be broke, they don't want to be middle class. The top dogs want to be people that can afford anything at anytime with no consequences. Thus money becomes the big issue in games, unless some 'underground' game comes out. Usually that 'underground' game has it's guts ripped out, and features 'edited' into other games.
The point is, unless some gamer wins the lotto, starts a company, gets a ton of hype for a new company (good luck with that), there won't be many changes to the formula.
Someone rich needs to make a change, the little men can not do it. Open source games and other 'underground' games only get so popular, and as I said it has its guts ripped out into other, larger named games.
EDIT Grammar
http://spellborn.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
This is NOT proper PvP. What you describe is PKing. Proper PvP would be with equal characters - like in GW. No wonder people don't like PvP.
Otherwise I do agree with you. I too would like to see a game with story and characters like in Mass Effect, the feel like in ES3: Morrowind or the battles like in Mount & Blade (Google it. Best 16$ I've spent in my life). Problem is: it's never going to happen!
You have to do with what you get - like the rest of us.
Somebody posted while typing my essay up there
but really, this will have to happen something in the future, or the MMO genre will not exist. As with everything in life, we all move foward, and those who do not (or can not) usually get left behind.
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
Everyone and my dog is jumping on the WoW success bandwagon.
Is like everyone doing CS clones after counterstrike. ( COD4 is the lates of this familiy )
Or everyone doing Warcraft clones after Warcraft. ( Read Alert 3 is the latest of this one )
Or everyone doing Diablo clones after Diablo. (the latest is Hellgate london)
We have everyone doing Everquest/Wow clones after WoW. The lastest is ... Age of Conan Anarchy Online ArchLord Asheron's Call City of Heroes City of Villains D&D Online Dark Age of Camelot Dark and Light EVE Online Everquest Everquest II Face of Mankind Final Fantasy XI Guild Wars Hellgate: London Istaria: Chronicles of the Gifted Knight Online Lineage II Lord of the Rings Online MapleStory Phantasy Star Universe RF Online Ragnarok Online Roma Victor The Saga of Ryzom Second Life Shadowbane Silkroad Online Star Wars Galaxies Tabula Rasa Ultima Online Vanguard: Saga of Heroes World War II Online World of Warcraft Aion Champions Online The Chronicles of Spellborn Darkfall Earthrise Fallen Earth SUN Star Trek Online Stargate Worlds WAR (Warhammer Online) ...and a zillion others.
I hate this, but is also predictible. Blizzard is doing a mountain of gold, and others want it too. Most people will fail.
There will be always the clones, and there will be always the original games.
Stuff like Eve, Planetside, Ryzom ( Runscape-ish games ), PoTBS, etc... add something, others not.
Even a original game can be boring, because is hard to make a good MMO. Maybe is something that need tons of money, luck, and really good professionals. Maybe theres not enough money and professionals out here, or people ready to hire the right people.
I'd rather move away from the "EQ clones" slowly but surely instead of trying to leap ahead with "revolution and innovation". See AoC. We're damn picky gamers, us MMOers, so why wouldn't developers be a little intimidated? If you were trying to sell a game to people who would pick on a game because they don't like the art style, would you really try something you yourself aren't sure is going to work? I wouldn't, if I wanted to make any money.
Ya, money and time to invest is a HUGE factor in how far foward you can progress. Its a sad state, but a real state, so somebody will have to step up to the plate sometime! Also, this usually does not happen all at once, it usually happens over many years. If the MMO genre is still around in lets say...20 or 30 years, who knows what MMOs might look like. Heck, the Earth might not even exist or the moon will have cities on it!
MMOs Played: I can no longer list them all in the 500 character limit.
Personally, I think the MMO problem is such an issue because it is so new. Most of the developers working on these probally don't have experience with a wide varity of MMO's.
Maybe someone should get a grp of gamers together and let them brain storm a game into production instead of developers that are used to one kind of play style.
My friend and myself sit around all the time and brain storm what is missing from this and that. Now I know we should be happy with what we have, but if everyone kept thier mouths shut and didn't provide feed back of any kind, then nothing would ever progress.
A group of about 25 gamers locked in one room for days would either come up with the best game ever or kill each other trying IMO.
Corevenis
They are stuck in the WoW haze. They don't know what do to to balance the hardcore powergamer who burns through starter areas in 3 minutes and the casual cruisegamer who takes 6 minutes to get through a starter area. They can't see past the ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ? ! ?
Don't be terrorized! You're more likely to die of a car accident, drowning, fire, or murder! More people die every year from prescription drugs than terrorism LOL!
Money is the key to this. Maybe we should put some money together and give it to some promising developers with a message: "Don't publish until its ready!"
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Modest subscription fee?? 15 x oh lets say even a low number of 100,000 each month? I think that equal around 1.5 mil $ per month umm times 12 = like 18 mil $ per year... Not to mention physical disc sales for those 100,000 accounts at 30 - 50$ a pop. Thats what... 3 - 5 mil $ in it's self.
So, lets take WoW for example... roughly 250,000 - 300,000 active accounts x 15$ a month x 12 months in a year = 45,000,000 $ just on subscription fees... Not to mention all of the account keys they have sold.
Lets not forget murchandising... Cause you all know thats where the real money is made... How many tee shirts alone do you think Blizzard has sold? A 2-3 $ tee shirt + about 50 cents worth of silk screening selling for around 25 - 35 $. I really don't think ( in money aspects) that companies like Blizzard are hurting for cash flow to be able to produce a quality gaming experience.
Seriously,
Making is not as easy as you all make it sound like. There’s so much I could say in order to give an example but NDA prevents me and yeah well… that’s my RL job lol. However, many many games before they are announced have been in devellopement many years prior.
Honestly everyone, the folks out there making games are doing what they can with the resources they have. Most of them are actually getting burnt out at times due to the extremely picky communities in recent years. A game always starts out with tons of great features and gets cutdown by almost 60% everytime. Technology constraint, engine problems, deadlines of the stupid publishers, leaks, incomes...
If ever you get a job in game devellopement, you'll quickly realize that things are not as they seem....
I don't think some people are understanding that everyone in that company gets a cut out of the sub fees. It pays for a lot. The box fees do not all go to blizzard, there are shipping fees, production fees, retail fees, etc.
The thing is the big wigs don't want an average profit per game. They can get that from insured bonds and such. No, they want not 100% gain, but 100000% gain. That way they can make even more money investing otherwhere jsut incase... yes just incase they lose that one penny somewhere.
People don't usually get rich from being nice, and handing things over at a reasonable price. Nor do they stay rich long.
http://spellborn.wikia.com/wiki/Main_Page
I wasn't trying to be argumentative, I'm just giving my honest opinions and showing that we all want different things. If a game had many (not all) of the features you describe, you might find it an excellent game but I wouldn't play it because of those features. The result of this is that many games fall in the middle, making them not great for either of us.
You all have made excellent points in this discussion. I wasn't trying to complain A WHOLE LOT in regards to the games that are available todaybut it would be nice to see someone take interest in our ideas instead of what they think will make them some cash because it made someone else some.
Who knows, maybe someday someone will take that chance and we will have the next great WoW... In my experiences WoW took MMO's in directions that others had not ventured yet. In turn has made a lot of people very very wealthy.
This thread was mostly to see if the general population agreed with me that it would be nice to a MMO's with a fully interactive enviroment, a faster pace and more player based combat system and some good progressive story based content.
I would to thank AoC for releasing a game that is graphically pleasing even if it is full of bugs. Also like to thank WoW for numerious nights of fun dungeon raids even though your graphics (Character clothing mostly) left something to be desired. Also quit Fin with the paladins!
Hopefully, WAR will bring about new adventures and entertainment for years to come.
Good luck to you all in your gaming indevers(spelling is probally way off)
Corevenis
If you had infinite time and infinitite money, you could get a game like that. Otherwise you're stuck with what you've got.
Games are already becoming ridiculously expensive. Look at how little content there is in the 60 million dollar MMO AoC. The starter area is brilliant, no doubt. But the rest of the game is promise of what could be and no delivery of what was promised. Now, AoC is an extreme example of lack of content, but you get the point.
It's actually not the developers, it's their bosses who dictate how a game should be made. Instead of giving the devs complete creative license, they conduct focus groups and try to figure out what the masses want based on questionaires. Unfortunately, that doesn't work. What it does is break the game down into little parts instead of looking at it as a whole. To be successful, an MMO should be mapped out from start to finish and its development should adhere to that formula. So as long as the no experience bosses continue to stick their noses into the devs business, another great game is unlikely.
Everyone has to take their share of the blame. Gamers ask alot and some companies give their best but can't satisfy all the wants we have. Having said that, it would be nice to play something different.
There needs to be a decent sci-fi or moder-day fantasy MMO if you ask me. Just having them would go a long ways to developing the genre.
1, Lack of funds - Most companies when developing games run out of money which bascially boils down to poor business planning resulting in unpolished games.
2. Developers think like developers not like gamers. Sometimes they develope some really cool things but in the end it isn't what the gamers want. It seems they never study the gaming market. They will tell you they do but the end result shows they do not.
3. Player expectation - Players today want the best of this and that in their games. Sorry but you can't have the best of everything all the time. It costs way too much to give a game the best of everything which makes the game not as marketable. Developers want to make money not split even.
The developers are doing fine, except a select few idiots. Anyone who is a lead developer in a game company has a big passion for games and knows what people really want. Company execs are the biggest enemy of developers. Games with an explosion of ideas are dumbed down to just one or 2 new features. There are times when a game will not be successful, even when developed well. Rest in Peace Clover. We loved Okami. Rest in Peace vagrant Story, you were drowned out by FF tactics.
Take note that Mythic signed up for one hell of a deal before they let EA steal their souls. They basically said, "If you get our souls we want creative freedom to make this MMO for you. We don't want to hear your bullshit of deadlines and investors and how your company is hurting so bad for money. We are not going to use the standard robot customer service voice when adressing our audience either, and we won't hold back any info to them either. You have billions of dollars and you can afford us to spend time to make a good game. Trust us and well make a game that sit within the top 5." EA agreed, and hence Warhammer is now a very decent game with a lot of hype.
I personally think Game development went down the drain when the Playstation jumped into the market. Companies like Sega, Ubisoft, Nintendo took great care and time into making a unique and solid game experience with each new title.
Then Playstion allowed everyone and their mother to make games for them. The market got flooded with crap, but there was lot's of choice amongst that crap. It dorwned otu most of the good companies. Now only a few of those companies remain.
everything in the gaming market is rushed out. Gamers whine at companies like Blizzard and Konami because they take so long to make games. That is because there is so much crap that needs to be ironed out in every game in this day and age. Graphics are near movie quality. Complex stories that are engaging with lots of choices and lack of loopholes must be present. Gameplay must be smooth and immersive. thgere has to be some new gimmick to set your game apart from the others. there must be around 24+ hours of content in a game to make a gamer feel like the game was worth its money. (If you don't you get quick hits like Full Spectrum Warrior and Fable). When you enter the MMO market you have to make sure the game runs on as many PC setups as possible. Lastly everything must be tested.
The current equipment used to make games (in my opinion) is behind the times for making a game with movie quality graphics and all the features listed above. so it takes 5 years to make a AAA hit game. Look at Spore. within 5 years, new technology could introduce itself rendering your game obsolete. Looks at Blizzard games and Dikatana.
The MMO market needs a company to make a good clean game engine to sell to other companies. Notice in the FPS market many games look really solid. That is because most of those games use the Unreal 3 engine, or the half life 2 engine. This means the developer only has to worry about adding their unique features and constructing the game content. The graphics proccessor and gameplay code are already there in the their basic form.
Just imagine if the MMO market had a company like Blizzard, Sony, or NC Soft make an engine and license it to other startup comapnies. First, the game development time would be cut in half. Instead of the usual 5 years development, it would be 2 or 3 years. Second, many more games would have flawless gameplay and many more sweet special features. We would probably see games with smooth launches.