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What exactly does it mean to be "niche"
The new word for everyone who hopes for the demise of Darkfall is "niche"
What exactly does it mean to be niche in Darkfalls case?
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You led a great life.
Rest in Peace.
Laura "Taera" Genender 2008
Mount and Blade. Great Game
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/mountandblade/index.html?tag=result;title;0
Comments
I think they mean that it won't appeal to the majority of MMORPG players.
A lot of people won't play games with full loot and free for all pvp for various reasons.
Eve online is often described as niche, it has about 250k subs of very dedicated players but a lot of people don't like it.
being a niche game is not a bad thing. all it is saying is that the game will appeal to a certain fan base. in this case it will appeal to the hardcore pvper that is looking for an open world game. one with very few if any restrictions. you become what you want how you want when you want. the market is there i hope they pull it off. i am skeptical, but i hope they do.
probly best to say the average WoWhead is not gonna like this game.
<img src='http://lotrosigs.level3.turbine.com/0320200000031cd29/signature.png'></img>;
In Darkfall's case it means that it will only appeal to the "Hardcore PvP" crowd. This is not true as it will also appeal to the "Sandbox" crowd and the "MMORTS" crowd as well. Add to this the "I'm so sick of WoW/EQ clones I could just puke" crowd and the 'Niche" grows ever larger. Basically a Niche game is only supposed to apply to one small group in the gaming comunity. The only problem with this applying to Darkfall is the game covers several niches so I think it will have a little more appeal than the nay-sayers give it credit for. Only time and Beta will tell for sure at this point however.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}
Pfft. Even fanboys admit it'll be a niche game, not only trolls.
Niche means it fills a little sliver of the MMO gamers' market. Nothing like WoW or any of the AAA MMOs. Think EVE. It's more complex and has more harsh penalties, thus more risk. That obviously means it's not for everyone. Darkfall will be like this because they claim it'll be filled with risk and reward. You spend hours crafting and you get one-shot and lose your stuff, oh well, that's life.
That obviously won't appeal to many of the WoW people, as you can imagine.
But it does appeal to MMO vets and the like. So, they'll be much more likely to play it.
being a niche game is not a bad thing. all it is saying is that the game will appeal to a certain fan base. in this case it will appeal to the hardcore pvper that is looking for an open world game. one with very few if any restrictions. you become what you want how you want when you want. the market is there i hope they pull it off. i am skeptical, but i hope they do.
probly best to say the average WoWhead is not gonna like this game.
so then..., its probably best to say that the average AOC player is gonna like this game.
--------------------
You led a great life.
Rest in Peace.
Laura "Taera" Genender 2008
Mount and Blade. Great Game
http://www.gamespot.com/pc/rpg/mountandblade/index.html?tag=result;title;0
Yeah I agree with this.
Simply defined, it means you either hardcore like the game (fanbois
) or you hate it 
.
No in between
.
I do not feel obliged to believe that the same God who has endowed us with sense, reason, and intellect has intended us to forgo their use. - Galileo Galilei
being a niche game is not a bad thing. all it is saying is that the game will appeal to a certain fan base. in this case it will appeal to the hardcore pvper that is looking for an open world game. one with very few if any restrictions. you become what you want how you want when you want. the market is there i hope they pull it off. i am skeptical, but i hope they do.
probly best to say the average WoWhead is not gonna like this game.
so then..., its probably best to say that the average AOC player is gonna like this game.
yes the average pvper is gonna like this game, or at least try it if it makes it out.
<img src='http://lotrosigs.level3.turbine.com/0320200000031cd29/signature.png'></img>;
the second most successful P2P MMO in the western world is niche, its not something bad per say.
going after a smaller market, in hopes of a dedicated following is how a niche game survives. EVE went after a small group, with a completely different game than anything else on the market. and years later the game is still slowly growing with hardcore dedicated fans.
Darkfall has features most people dislike, but a few people really like, and thats why its niche.
this means the game will never see WoW-like success, but that isn't a bad thing, it can still be an EVE-like success. so yeah, don't go expecting millions of subs to a game like darkfall.
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
I've been waiting a long time for a game like this to come out. I'll be happy that it wont be like WoW. I think WoW is so dumbed down that it appeals to a vast majority of players. I'll be happy to play a game that isint linear by any means.
This is sorta true, however, there is a slight implication that if a person likes a sandbox and pvp, they will end up in Darkfall. EvE Online might be the game for soemone looking for a game like this. An emu project of a once popular game might be a solution for some. So, the niche is still a niche when you get down to it. That said, there will always be the people who play who don't fit a specific target demographic.
If you think about Darkfall as an ongoing product, you also see that it will need to continue to compete and offer a better product as it ages. It's first challenges might come in the form of Mortal Online or Earthrise. Sure some people will pay for multiple subs, but there may be a large number who don't. These will controbute to the niche concept. For example; person who likes sandbox, pvp, and medieval setting vs. sandbox, pvp, and sci-fi or some similar breakdown.
That said, I don't think niche is neccesarily a negative thing. This game may have limited appeal to the masses who currently enjoy games designed for more casual experiences, however, those people who do gravitate toward this game will likely be loyal customers and that's never a bad thing to have.
-mklinic
"Do something right, no one remembers.
Do something wrong, no one forgets"
-from No One Remembers by In Strict Confidence
Niche means the game is aimed towards a smaller player base than a mainstream game.
Real Time combat is aimed towards a niche market
Sandbox gameplay is aimed towards a niche market
item loot is aimed towards a niche market
FFA PvP is aimed towards a niche market
Even if Darkfall is the perfect game with no big issues it is aimed at maybe 200K players tops, it can't hope to compete with WAR or WoW or most likely even LOTRO or AOC simply because the design choices they went for are not the choices that most players want.
I wouldn't be surprised if got more than that. There's an entire generation of gamers who haven't seen the likes of this before and have only had themepark mmo's.
It would have to be bug/lag free of course.
To be honest I'll be shocked if it breaks 100K at peak. The average gamer is a complete wuss these days and won't stand for anything that is remotely challenging. They want an easy going, no challenge type of game. Item loot itself probably kills the game from a mainstream standpoint and limits it to 200K or fewer players.
darkfall isn't the first sandbox and it won't be the last. EVE is an incredibly well made sandbox that has become an incredible success, but it had to claw its way there.
It had no publicity, came from some no-name dev in iceland and was nothing like the other stuff on the market. it started out with almost no subs at all and has grown into what it is today. sound familar? no name dev trying something different?
Don't expect darkfall to be an overnight success, it won't be. It may not be a success at all, it may flop or never come out.
Games with a LOT of hype start out big and then they lose people, look at AoC, look at LoTR and soon WAR. games without hype start Small and either die, or slowly grow. but they have to be good to grow, they have to give people something they are willing to pay for they can't get elsewhere.
darkfall break 1million subs? not going to happen. WoW was a fluke, nothing else has come close to it, and nothing will for a long time to come. darkfall will be niche, the BEST it can hope for is EVE-level success, which is nothing to laugh about!
Everything creates huge amounts of negativity on the internet, that's what the internet is for: Negativity, porn and lolcats.
Eve would get a lot more subscribers if it wasn't point and click, that puts a lot of people off including me. If it had controls like the game Elite it would be near to my perfect game.
Thats why I think a more interactive game with similar metagame aspects, which hopefully is what this will be, might do quite well if it doesn't have problems with bugs ect.
Darkfall with be a niche game strictly because it is quite hardcore when comparing to the other market mainstays. That alone ensures a limited audience. The average MMO player will abhor losing his +1 sword of slashing. It only takes a few loses like that to convince many to stop playing.
It really depends on how well Adventurine payed attention to the past MMO's. If they allow special weapons and armor to be too powerful, it will have a large detrimental effect on the game. One of the strengths of UO was that smith made weapons and armor was not that expensive yet it was almost as good as top end items. It was not a big deal if you lost everything, it could be replaced. Hopefully the dev team at Adventurine realizes this.
compared to WOW it will be niche probably. But as someone said EVE is often described as niche also, with 250K subs
250K subs was what the biggest and most successfull mmorpgs had 10 years ago.
So if DF gets that it will be a success.
Khael[SUN]
SUN - peekayin since pong
Webdeveloper on:
http://www.guildofsun.com
http://www.bloodmonarchy.com
This is sorta true, however, there is a slight implication that if a person likes a sandbox and pvp, they will end up in Darkfall. EvE Online might be the game for soemone looking for a game like this. An emu project of a once popular game might be a solution for some. So, the niche is still a niche when you get down to it. That said, there will always be the people who play who don't fit a specific target demographic.
If you think about Darkfall as an ongoing product, you also see that it will need to continue to compete and offer a better product as it ages. It's first challenges might come in the form of Mortal Online or Earthrise. Sure some people will pay for multiple subs, but there may be a large number who don't. These will controbute to the niche concept. For example; person who likes sandbox, pvp, and medieval setting vs. sandbox, pvp, and sci-fi or some similar breakdown.
That said, I don't think niche is neccesarily a negative thing. This game may have limited appeal to the masses who currently enjoy games designed for more casual experiences, however, those people who do gravitate toward this game will likely be loyal customers and that's never a bad thing to have.
Well My post was in no means trying to say that Darkfall will have millions of subs or that it's going to kill WoW. That just wouldn't be realistic. It was only supposed to indicate just what it says, that it will be a little more popular than the 'niche' nay-sayers claim it will be as most of them are predicting sub numbers around 20-50k at most. I see DF having at least 100-300K subscribers if the game is at least decent and gives the playerbase all that it has promised. This is not bad for a small indy developer's game to have and would make DF a very successful game. As I've said many times before on this forum, only time and Beta will tell for sure at this point in time.
Bren
while(horse==dead)
{
beat();
}