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Is it possible to revive a dying MMORPG?
Netzoko
Member Posts: 1,271
i honestly don't think so.
I recently read about Pirates of the Burning Sea's new avatar combat revamp. For those who missed that boat, PotBS was a very unique and interesting game, but failed to succeed because it really wasnt finished. The biggest cons were heavy instancing and crappy avatar combat. Now that one is being fixed, the devs are obviously looking for a revival. The game released January and is currently in cardiac arrest. They merged servers and are getting down to just one. Now, pirates isnt the only example of my point. If SWG released a miracle patch theres no way in hell it would come back.
What does everyone else thing? Once a game trips is it doomed for good? Every revival attempt I've seen has failed.
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Comments
i agree to an extent. If SOE rolled back their SWG servers to publish 9, they would get a huge influx of players. But i dont think it would last because it would still be extremely buggy as it used to be, and players wouldnt stay subscribed very long.
Also i think it is too late for POTBS to come back from the dead. I would be interested in trying it, but there is no uniqueness about it except ship combat. Crafters all create the same items, none of them can create a better item useing better resources.
And lastly, the only game i know of that has made a comeback, is Vanguard. It had a shitty launch, but i hear plenty of people are enjoying it. I myself would play it too, but SOE added Soulbound items wich turned me off completely
Playing: EVE Online
Favorite MMOs: WoW, SWG Pre-cu, Lineage 2, UO, EQ, EVE online
Looking forward to: Archeage, Kingdom Under Fire 2
KUF2's Official Website - http://www.kufii.com/ENG/ -
they can if they actualy listened to their user base for once..
you'll never see it people do not go for a damaged brand once you've had your fingers burned you dont go back to get your face burnt off by hot scolding water.. as the saying goes...
It's all Lies...
I think it's possible. For most older games that already have the good game play it'd just take updating graphics and a few expansion packs. As for current games I believe AoC has great potential, but they still have a lot of work to do. Everquest is another decent example. They must have lost a decent amount of players over the cash shop thing or realized how much they could cash in on the old school players wants since they will be opening a new server depending on what the players want.
Edit Add: Some games just didnt have the interesting game play to being with so while it is possible for some it isn't for all.
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A work in progress: (Update: 08/09/10)Easily find your favorite type of MMO
There is always a chance of revival if developers make the right decisions. Just look at Vanguard.
The trouble with MMORPGs is that if they don't capitalise and expand upon the numbers they get at release then they really have missed the boat (excuse the pun). Once a game drops out the sales chart it is less likely to attract new players that are vital for MMO's to remain succesful.
I would have to agree with you. It really doesn't matter if it's a relatively new game (say 3 months in ob or even final release) or an established one.
Either way the players that have invested their time and money into the game are not going to give it a second chance if it fails to deliver for too long (the case with a new game would be this) or if it's an established game that tries to do something new and fails.
Perfect examples of the latter are UO, SWG and any other established games that nerf some or all of it's established concepts and systems. I played UO and after the AoS expansion the game, for me, went to hell. It wasn't even the same game AT ALL. It is my understanding that the same thing happened to SWG.
I know that if UO said that they would FINALLY do a 3d version and go back to the way it originally was, I wouldn't even try it...and I loved UO.
The main problem is that game companies don't seem to get the fact that most people that play an mmo are playing it because of the persistant world part of it and if you change the reality of the world after people get used to it, people are going to quit. Companies don't realize that even though THEY created the world, a lot of people get used to it being a kind of "home" to them. Just because a place only exists in cyberspace does not mean that people can't get addicted to it. Hell most games DEPEND on the fact that people get addicted to it.
It's kind of like the real world, in my opinion, in this respect. Why do people move from the towns they love? If they truly loved it then the only reason they move is BECAUSE IT CHANGES in THEIR opinion. It's a matter of perception yes, but in an mmo, just as in real life...perception is really all there is.
Krystar Daymen (Old School UO player baby)
It depends on what one means by revival.
I think games can improve their subscriber numbers over time. We've seen that happen with several games over the years -- EVE is an example, as is EQ2, as is Vanguard now. So it *can* happen.
What I think can't happen is for a game that was expected to a blockbuster and fails to be one to ever come back from that and become a blockbuster again. So a game like VG or EQ2 may rebound from initial failure and slowly mount a smaller yet impressive player base, but I don't think you ever get a second chance at mega success. If you are expected to be a mega hit and you don't deliver, you may recover to modest success, but you won't ever be a mega hit.
It's a slippery slope.
One huge thing people look for in an MMO is population. Nobody wants to join an empty/dying game. So games that fail to instantly deliver get left in the dust...fast
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Also when the subscriber numbers vane, the more rabid, defensive and inbred the userbase gets. Good example is Ryzom in which any suggestion to change to game is met with barrage of "Go back to WoW" replies... In some cases, devs should just give the existing users a damn and think what changes would really give the title second possibility (or third).
Playing: AC2
Played: UO, DaoC, Horizons, Ryzom, WAR, LotRO, Eve, VG...
I agree. Once a game releases, gets bad reviews, it's doomed. It may be able to languish a while with low sub rate, but it's not going to make a come back.
There are so many MMORPGs on the market these days, and so many new releases that players will tend to try the next new thing, rather than go back and try something that's been patched and fixed up.
Well i think you have to look back and see if there was any mmo in the past that was horrible at release that came back from the dead to be successful. Your answer will probably be no. I think you can point to alot of factiors why but the bottom line is the "First Impression Factor". If a player has a bad first impression of the game when playing he or she will not risk their money again on a troubled game. Even if the devlopers fix issues, the majority of gamers will not come back.
In a word, no.
IMHO, their downward spiral can be arrested but thats about it. No MMO has ever made a rebound.
I know some of you have sited Vanguard as a game that "recovered" no, it was rescued from death. I played VG for about 8 months total. its a fine game but I wouldn't say it has "recovered" at all.
Technically it has "recovered", most of its issues are long gone however the bitter taste lives on and it is very unlikely that the bulk of the 200k players who tried it at launch and subsequently abandon it, will ever come back en' mass.
First impressions are everything in this industry. That is something western devs have yet to figure out. Once you shoot your foot off, its usually destroyed and you gotta limp around crippled the rest of your life thinking "if I only hadn't shot my foot off".
I agree with the poster about SWG, there would be a mad rush if pre-CU opened up then after everyone saw the reality of what that turd was without the benefit of their rose colored glasses, it would be an abandon wasteland again within a few months.
I think a MMO on it's last legs could be saved but it would take,IMHO,a surge of players.
MxO i believe would be a good example...now if everybody who played that game in the past all re-subbed again and went back to it it would catch SoE/WB and Rarebits eye to be sure...a game with about 30k subs jumps to at or over 100k?...oh yeah.
At the very least, SoE would get move devs on MxO.
Best analogy of the year award goes to Torak.
NO NO NO NO NO. No. Never crap on the people that pay you. Look how that turned out for SWG.
I think MMOs can be revived in certain situations. If SOE rolled back to classic servers for SWG, their subscription base would INSTANTLY double, and probably rise even more than that.
Tried: LotR, CoH, AoC, WAR, Jumpgate Classic
Played: SWG, Guild Wars, WoW
Playing: Eve Online, Counter-strike
Loved: Star Wars Galaxies
Waiting for: Earthrise, Guild Wars 2, anything sandbox.
NO NO NO NO NO. No. Never crap on the people that pay you. Look how that turned out for SWG.
I think MMOs can be revived in certain situations. If SOE rolled back to classic servers for SWG, their subscription base would INSTANTLY double, and probably rise even more than that.
Exactly, People are attracted to a title for the gameplay experience it provides not a half arse version of someone elses title.
Why would Ryzom change to match a game that already has millions of loyal players? THIS is the fatal mistake many MMO's have made in recent years changing their core gameplay to attract another titles players. In the end you STILL don't get those players and you've trashed a loyal base.
Ask EQ2 how dumbing down their core gameplay to attract WOW's players worked out?
Dutchess Zarraa Voltayre
Reborn/Zero Sum/Ancient Legacy/Jagged Legion/Feared/Nuke & Pave.
Well 1000's of people wanted Classic EQ but the SOE execs have there head up there rears so far. This is an example of when customers want to spend money on so called "Dead" games and the companies just keep ruining them with more nerfs, patches and changes simply because one company does it that way and the rest just follow them thinking it's the right way to keep a MMO operating.
Really you cant use Vanguard as a game that came back from the dead even.....We really dont know how many of their subs are Station Access Passes that play all the SOE games....... They are counted as a sub even though they are not subbing to that individual game.
Well it is possible to revive a dying game, if they updated old games which used to have a big playerbase you could make them work, but you would completly have to remake the graphics then. The reason so few players play EQ is that it looks and feel so dated.
But games like POTBS is doomed, I don't think Vanguard ever will get revanch for the crappy launch either. WAR and AoC might make it but they never were down to the numbers of the other 2 games. A crappy launch will kill a normal game and cripple a good one today, there was a time when it didn't matter so much but now it does.
The only way to save games like Vanguard and POTBS is making them F2P, the market there is a lot easier and the games in themselves are not bad so the companies could probably get in some good money on it then.
I agree with this completely.
If you hype your game to be the "end all discussions" game (and many have) first of all, you're setting yourself up to disappoint the players. Why? Because the majority aren't going to buy into the hype. In fact, the only reason they'll buy into it is to see that they were right in thinking that the game would indeed suck (and many have.)
Once a game loses it's blockbuster status, it will never make a comeback. It might make modest and even sustainable levels, but it will never get that status back.
However, I think it is completely possible for a game to continuously grow in such a way that it can be a real dark horse game. What I mean is, that it can come from nothing, and gain that status, but only if the stars allign correctly lol. And by that I mean, the devs have to be VERY positive that they know their design is solid and sound. They must always be improving the game, and never doing anything that would warrant mass disapproval. It's possible, I beleive, but the odds are against the grain on this one...
I don't think it's ever been done before but they can try. I think the answer is partly why did the game subs fall off to begin with. If it's content or game mechanics that people don't like then it probably won't happen. If it's because the game was released buggy but had some good ideas then they maybe able to recover some people.
It's bad cycle that's difficult to break once a game starts to spiral downward, people won't resub because not enough people are playing, but not enough people are playing because people won't resub.
Game companies also have to keep in mind that players probably found a new game shortly after they left and won't leave just to give a game they've tried and disliked another shot.
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
No, not really. Bottom line is, once a game gets the reputation that its "old" or "dieing" people avoid it like the plague. They don't want to risk investing time in something that might shut down soon, nor do they want to be left with the most uber level 100 character on a completely empty server. Once a game has announced it's closing at the corporate level, there is zero chance of it coming back despite efforts of the community, because the paperwork has usually been drawn up at that point, and short of a MASSIVE windfall of profits, nothing is going to make them change their decision. It's a combination of corporate philosophy and community caution. Basically, once it gets the stamp, there isn't much that can be done.
Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.
EAT ME MMORPG.com!
how about simply lowering the sub price on older games with dwindling populations? Do some marketing tell people that the cost is less per month, and maybe they would get more subs that way.
Current Games:
That could be interpreted different ways. After hearing a game you tried and didn't like was lowering their monthly payment, would you say to yourself, "That's great, I'll give it another shot!", or would you say, "Ha that game sucked so bad they must be desperate."
There are certain queer times and occasions in this strange mixed affair we call life when a man takes this whole universe for a vast practical joke, though the wit thereof he but dimly discerns, and more than suspects that the joke is at nobody's expense but his own.
-- Herman Melville
Short answer... No.
For some coming back would mean starting over and they really dont want to do that. For others, they have all ready moved on and are enjoying what they are currently playing. Then there are those who would consider coming back but knowing they servers are dead they dont want to waste the time or effort to login to a barren server where there is little to no one else to play with. While people often speak of returning to a game they loved, you will find most of them would never actually do it. I remember when they first opened the progression servers in EQ and honestly, it was really boring. The EQ I loved and played for so many years just wasnt a game I could enjoy playing now. I would rather the good memories of what was remain and I forget about why I stopped playing the game in the first place.
Warp
EVE Online is an example of a game having such a poor launch and it coulda soo easily just died by 2004. Instead they made the right fixes people who liked the game wanted and it attracted newer players and they just keep improving the game.
PotBS is beyond fixing though because the core mechanics suck and it would be easier to make a whole new game.
SWG could have been revived because the core mechanics were great and like EVE Online it just needed fixing and content added to it. Now however they got rid of their original dev team and it would cost too much money to revive.
It all depends on how good the core game is.