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Whats happened to the MMO and video game industry?

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  • bastiibastii Member Posts: 137

    When people get addicted to MMO, the innovation suffers.

    Who is excited about DX11??????????

    > That's right, no one.

    Because MMO take huge communities and keep them locked inside a game, there's no need to innovate, just keep chugging along with P2P.

  • tinywulftinywulf Member Posts: 106

    motion blur....lol @ red faction.

    what a horrid game, the original was so much better.

  • seventy7lseventy7l Member Posts: 112
    Originally posted by grandpagamer


    I still have a sub in LOTRO but have been spending more time playing Legend of Zelda Windwaker on the gamecube than my MMO. Funny how games we took for granted at release seem so good compared to what we see now. Gonna load up Ocarina of Time after i beat Windwaker :)

    That's great because i am playing ocarina of time, majora's mask and a windwaker demo.Stupid zelda collector edition give me a windwaker demo.I may be absolutely young infact iam probably half or a third the age of the people here but the slightly older games feel better when i play them maybe it is the horrible computer or lack of next generation consoles but they are just fun.

    Like pong i keep bouncing back and forth between games.

  • KordeshKordesh Member Posts: 1,715

    In MMOs case, WoW happened and developers gave up/got lazy looking to cash in on the WoW Pie essentially crushing the creativity and chance taking we had before hand. 

    As far as gaming goes, pretty much the same thing, only in this case the cause is gaming becoming "mainstream" and corporate capitalism doing what it does best, coming in and mucking everything up to squeeze every last penny out of it. Most of the creative and original companies have folded/merged into mega publishers ala EA and it's become sequel fest because consumers fear deviation from their master chief/COD4/Gears of War bubble. I mean hell, look at what a mess guitar hero became since it hit the 360 and suddenly became frat party game of the year after being completely ignored as something "stupid" for the ps2 for the first two versions. 

    Honestly, the indie scene, despite all the duds it pushes out in the process, is the only thing that seems to have any soul and creativity left. 

    Bans a perma, but so are sigs in necro posts.

    EAT ME MMORPG.com!

  • whisperwyndwhisperwynd Member UncommonPosts: 1,668
    Originally posted by StuBidasoe

    Originally posted by Josher


    Welcome to middle age=)  You become more choosy and picky, your time more valuable and your tastes more refined.  Having fun yet?  I remember when I wanted every Atari game because of the cool picture on the box, played every NES game I could rent from the local videostore(before Blockbuster) no matter how crappy it was, thought my SegaCD was the BOMB(still have it in a crate).  Now I ONLY play top notch games that are worth my time, rarely buy a game new, and have completely skipped the Xbox360/PS3 generation, waiting on whats next.  As for MMOs, for me they mostly sucked until 2004, so sue me;)
    The ratio of good to crap is actually the same now as its always been.  MOST games have always been $#&^@.  But when you're younger, you just don't care.  As a veteran gamer from the pong, Asteroids and Space Invaders days, Its been interesting experience how much has changed, esspecially how what once cost a quarter now costs 2$.



     

    You've made me feel bad about my age and what I've become.  It's all too true.  I never thought the greatest gaming generation would ever get old.  I'm going to plug my 360 back in and shoot some kids in the face, bunch of crap talking punks! 

    I hear ya, I see myself less and less intrigued by new games as well. Ppl want innovation, but when you've went through the progression of videogames we have (I also had the Atari, the commodore 64, Sage Genesis..you name it), innovation seems like a word used for something that won't suck as bad as the last one we just tried and threw away.

    Like I said in a previous post, it's our 'baggage' that we bring to the table that tainst our enjoyment and opinions of the new things we try, and the more we have tried, the pickier we become.

  • kb4blukb4blu Member UncommonPosts: 717

    Well from my perspective ....

    Its the MBA's

    I give as an example the game "DOOM"

    I believe 5 guys were involved in its creation.  One thing they did was allow editors to be used to create new areas for the game.  There must have been thousands of user created levels out there for the game.  ( I made a few myself).  I really think that today if DOOM was made today by a big company the MBA's would say "You can't do that we can't make any money if the users create their own areas"  The MBA's would fail to see that it might create sales for the game.  They are always after the quick buck so they can look good in the next quarterly report.

    MBA's hate risk.  

    So any big company that is infested with MBA's will ALWAYS go with whats popular at the moment.  You  wll NEVER see inovation  from a large company.  It is going to take an independent company that does not have MBA's to come up with anything innovative.

    I think American car companies show what MBA's do to a company.  They kept making big gas hogs long after their day had passed because of the profit margin big cars have.

    Sorry for the rant but I have worked for 40 years and have a lot of experience working and attending meetings with MBA's.

     

     

  • UnibrowUnibrow Member Posts: 13

    Truthfully, I think people forget what makes an RPG. They've been around for a looooong time. It splits down into many different types, but here's a few key components. They focus on:

    1) Hack 'n' Slash (think Diablo, Titan Quest, God of War, etc)

    2) Exploration (Elder Scrolls, Fallout, etc)

    3) Character Advancement (any D&D-based game)

    Of course, these examples can cross over and mix and match, but you get the point. The MMORPG hasn't changed this formula. There's only so many "new" mechanics you can add before it becomes a different genre all together. Don't like action bars and dice rolls? Check out a MMOFPS, like Fallen Earth, or possibly Jumpgate Evolution. Don't want twitch-based combat, but something still faster paced? Check out Mortal Online or Champions Online. Don't like exploring vast new worlds? Well, go somewhere else.

    I mean, really, if you think there hasn't been any innovation since the early days (UO, EQ1, etc) you've got a very narrow mind. There's a reason all these games are called "mmoRPGs", because that's what RPGs do.

    I'm also getting VERY tired of hearing that games are all WoW clones. I mean, I play WoW, and I play/played many others. For example, WAR was instantly labeled a WoW clone. Are you serious? Did you really play it through and give it a chance? Many aspects are quite different. Just because there's an action bar and a classic DPS/Tank/Healer setup doesn't make it a WoW clone. And that can be said of many, many other games. What about SW:TOR? We just saw the Sith Warrior unveiled, which has a skill to charge the enemy and close the range quickly, a classic warrior move. Does that mean that SW:TOR isn't innovative?

    I also get tired of hearing that developers are cop-outs because they didn't do anything "innovative" in their game. I could care less about innovation, or something different. What counts for me is simply the fun factor. Hell, I still go back and play my PS1 games, and N64 games, simply because I like them. I don't need innovation for something to be fun.

    The final thing about MMOs that's fabulous is the fact that you can always stop subscribing for a while and return to it later, after new content/classes/areas/expansions are released. You never lose your progress. That's a huge bonus, isn't it? Try going back to some of those older MMOs you put down and see what they've become. You may be pleasantly surprised.

    Don't get me wrong, I respect the idea and support the idea of the genre needing innovation, but there's nothing wrong with making a classic RPG and making it better and more refined than the last one. After all, that's what WoW did, and it's a major success!

    "Imagination and fiction make up more than three quarters of our real life."
    Simone Weil

  • robdog696robdog696 Member Posts: 19
    Originally posted by griff66


     Ive grown up with video games my entire life. I never thought I'd actually stop, I thought it would always be part of my life even if I did become casual. But in the last year or two, I have slowly been stopping. I could just be me, but honestly I think it's the industry. Not to mention the news reports of the video game industry falling in sales very quickly. I remember being excited for multiple games of all sorts from console to MMO's a few years ago. Now it seems as though theres nothing... especially in the console world, I don't see anything new or remotely revolutionary. And MMO's are just repeating themselves and its all similar shitty games. The only partially interesting things are in the far future. We need a turn around. period
    What do you think actually caused this tank in the video game industry?
    Whats going to turn this around?
    Give me your thoughts

     

    This isn't a big mystery. It's like asking, "Why did the movie industry stop making movies like those feel good Breakfast Club style movies of the 80's?"

     

    Kids are the LARGEST market in the world. Jurassic Park blew the lid off of the entertainment industry with it's mass appeal. Was it mass appeal, or was it that it appealed to children and every child ticket equals two more adult tickets? George Lucas and Stephen Speilberg made a bet over it. George Lucas ended up paying for Speilberg's trip to Hawaii when Star Wars lost that bet to the newest kid friendly Speilberg flick.

     

    Quentin Tarrantino once said, "Opening weekend is the worst measuring tool for a movie's success". He's an old-school guy who believes that a movie should say something about the human condition, not make him rich. There was probably a similar feeling behind the creation of UO and Evercrack. But Blizzard stumbled onto a winning formula with their popular RTS series'. Adults fantasize about wading into battle, sword and shield in hand. Kids fantasize about being a purple orc who breathes fire and flies. The only challenge was making it hard for adults but easy for kids.

     

    The raised by the TV generation of kids who had nothing better to do than play EQ suddenly walked out on Back To The Future and asked mom and dad to buy them a ticket to Harry Potter. And those of us who play MMOs for the middle M aspect of the game were just slowly funneled into the herd by a lack of options.

     

    No, you haven't grown up. You've just realized that you've been duped. Epic does not mean time consuming. Hard does not mean you need better loot. Easy does not mean soloable. And fun does not mean doing five-hundred treadmill quests to get to the good stuff (endgame pvp or pve pick your flavor).

     

    We've walked this winding path called gaming. We've found new challenges at every turn. And suddenly the path has stopped. It's all because the gaming industry has been bought up by major corporations who care more about opening weekend than becoming a cult classic.

     

    Fear not, as the gaming masses awake from our zombie-like WoW induced slumber we will again rage against the machine like the creators of DOOM, Guild Wars, and (hopefully) the upcoming Terra. We will make what we want to play, even if we end up poor. Because, after all, it is the same human trait that kept us playing for so long that will lead us to stop playing. The need for new and bigger challenges.

  • veritas_Xveritas_X Member Posts: 393
    Originally posted by robdog696



    No, you haven't grown up. You've just realized that you've been duped. Epic does not mean time consuming. Hard does not mean you need better loot. Easy does not mean soloable. And fun does not mean doing five-hundred treadmill quests to get to the good stuff (endgame pvp or pve pick your flavor).
     
    We've walked this winding path called gaming. We've found new challenges at every turn. And suddenly the path has stopped. It's all because the gaming industry has been bought up by major corporations who care more about opening weekend than becoming a cult classic.
     
    Fear not, as the gaming masses awake from our zombie-like WoW induced slumber we will again rage against the machine like the creators of DOOM, Guild Wars, and (hopefully) the upcoming Terra. We will make what we want to play, even if we end up poor. Because, after all, it is the same human trait that kept us playing for so long that will lead us to stop playing. The need for new and bigger challenges.

     

    I'm somewhat inspired by that, heh.  Hopefully you're right.

  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787

    Time.

     

    Wife

     

    Kids

     

    Job

     

    The lawn

     

    The classic 66 mustang I never drive anymore

     

    The Next gen consolse that collect dust

     

    I find it more enjoyable to read about the new games than play them.  Reading about them takes 15 minutes; playing them takes days. 

     

    I am not so sure the games have changed as much as I have. 

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • AxehiltAxehilt Member RarePosts: 10,504
    Originally posted by Unibrow


    1) Hack 'n' Slash (think Diablo, Titan Quest, God of War, etc)
    2) Exploration (Elder Scrolls, Fallout, etc)
    3) Character Advancement (any D&D-based game)

    Heh, great post overall but I found it amusing that you gave D&D-based games as an example of Character Advancement when so many other games (Diablo/TQ) have had significantly better progression mechanics.

    D&D videogames to me have always survived on Story and character interaction (dialog.)  With the exception of Eye of the Beholder, which had genuinely enjoyable combat.

    But again, great post overall which basically reminds people that RPG videogames have always focused on the same elements (even the ones of today.)

    "What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver

  • EbenEben Member, Newbie CommonPosts: 522
    Originally posted by MMOman101


    Time.
     
    Wife
     
    Kids
     
    Job
     
    The lawn
     
    The classic 66 mustang I never drive anymore
     
    The Next gen consolse that collect dust
     
    I find it more enjoyable to read about the new games than play them.  Reading about them takes 15 minutes; playing them takes days. 
     
    I am not so sure the games have changed as much as I have. 

    I think I feel the same way.  Wife, two kids, going back to college, house to take care of.  About the only MMO I can stay subbed to is EVE, but a lot of that has to do with the fact that I can have my character do stuff, without me sitting on my ass clicking for hours.  Just bought 'Oblivion' and 'Dead Space' for the 360, and having fun with them so far, and just ordered the Metroid collection deal for the Wii.  One thing that I have learned to wish MMOs had, and didn't realize I'd miss until it was gone...a 'pause' button.  

    Katsma is Lithuanian for 'he who drinks used douche fluid'.

  • grandpagamergrandpagamer Member Posts: 2,221
    Originally posted by seventy7l

    Originally posted by grandpagamer


    I still have a sub in LOTRO but have been spending more time playing Legend of Zelda Windwaker on the gamecube than my MMO. Funny how games we took for granted at release seem so good compared to what we see now. Gonna load up Ocarina of Time after i beat Windwaker :)

    That's great because i am playing ocarina of time, majora's mask and a windwaker demo.Stupid zelda collector edition give me a windwaker demo.I may be absolutely young infact iam probably half or a third the age of the people here but the slightly older games feel better when i play them maybe it is the horrible computer or lack of next generation consoles but they are just fun.

    I also have the Zelda CE. OOT and Majora's Mask are wonderful games. Windwaker has a different art style (cell shaded) but is also good.  The reason these older games seem better is because they are.  :)  If you like Zelda games, Twilight Princess is good as well and available for gamecube or the wii.

  • KyleranKyleran Member LegendaryPosts: 44,069

    I've been playing computer games since the mid-80's.  I still find enjoyment in them after all these years.  I've learned to enjoy them for what they have, and not dwell too much on what they lack.

    Guess Peter's just never grown up.

     

    "True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde 

    "I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant

    Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm

    Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV

    Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™

    "This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon






  • MMOman101MMOman101 Member UncommonPosts: 1,787

    A pause button would be great

    “It's unwise to pay too much, but it's worse to pay too little. When you pay too much, you lose a little money - that's all. When you pay too little, you sometimes lose everything, because the thing you bought was incapable of doing the thing it was bought to do. The common law of business balance prohibits paying a little and getting a lot - it can't be done. If you deal with the lowest bidder, it is well to add something for the risk you run, and if you do that you will have enough to pay for something better.”

    --John Ruskin







  • seventy7lseventy7l Member Posts: 112
    Originally posted by grandpagamer

    Originally posted by seventy7l

    Originally posted by grandpagamer


    I still have a sub in LOTRO but have been spending more time playing Legend of Zelda Windwaker on the gamecube than my MMO. Funny how games we took for granted at release seem so good compared to what we see now. Gonna load up Ocarina of Time after i beat Windwaker :)

    That's great because i am playing ocarina of time, majora's mask and a windwaker demo.Stupid zelda collector edition give me a windwaker demo.I may be absolutely young infact iam probably half or a third the age of the people here but the slightly older games feel better when i play them maybe it is the horrible computer or lack of next generation consoles but they are just fun.

    I also have the Zelda CE. OOT and Majora's Mask are wonderful games. Windwaker has a different art style (cell shaded) but is also good.  The reason these older games seem better is because they are.  :)  If you like Zelda games, Twilight Princess is good as well and available for gamecube or the wii.

    I will definitely try and get twilight princess can't back down from good old legend of zelda and the grunting elf ahh ocarina of time running around with the giant's knife having it break after 200 hits anger from losing 200 rupees then getting the biggoron sword right after and rejoicing.

    I wish they made mmos like they do zelda games.I tried the phantom hourglass on DS it is just windwaker portable with abit of stuff cut out.The point is games are changing and so are the people who play them except me i tend to admire older games and look at what kind of people played them before.

    Like pong i keep bouncing back and forth between games.

  • LobotomistLobotomist Member EpicPosts: 5,981

    Not all is lost.

    Its now time of indies. Revival of the old school.

    Gameplay (which is cheap to produce) > graphic (which is expensive)



  • Originally posted by kb4blu


    Well from my perspective ....
    Its the MBA's
    I give as an example the game "DOOM"
    I believe 5 guys were involved in its creation.  One thing they did was allow editors to be used to create new areas for the game.  There must have been thousands of user created levels out there for the game.  ( I made a few myself).  I really think that today if DOOM was made today by a big company the MBA's would say "You can't do that we can't make any money if the users create their own areas"  The MBA's would fail to see that it might create sales for the game.  They are always after the quick buck so they can look good in the next quarterly report.
    MBA's hate risk.  
    So any big company that is infested with MBA's will ALWAYS go with whats popular at the moment.  You  wll NEVER see inovation  from a large company.  It is going to take an independent company that does not have MBA's to come up with anything innovative.
    I think American car companies show what MBA's do to a company.  They kept making big gas hogs long after their day had passed because of the profit margin big cars have.
    Sorry for the rant but I have worked for 40 years and have a lot of experience working and attending meetings with MBA's.
     
     

     

    Well, I have a MBA, and we are compelled to think outside the box and try our best to consider all angles.  Of course, don't really know why I'm biting on this bait since the very idea of blaming MBAs for mmos with lack of vision is about as ludicrious as it gets.

  • Cephus404Cephus404 Member CommonPosts: 3,675
    Originally posted by Lobotomist


    Not all is lost.
    Its now time of indies. Revival of the old school.
    Gameplay (which is cheap to produce) > graphic (which is expensive)

     

    Except I don't think the indies are doing anything all that great either.  I've gone on record many times saying I don't give a damn about graphics, I want excellent gameplay, excellent setting and excellent community.  While devs have little control over the community, they do have control over the others and there just aren't *ANY* new games out there that are doing what I want them to do.

    Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
    Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
    Now Playing: None
    Hope: None

  • LansidLansid Member UncommonPosts: 1,097

    I personally believe the massive desire for pre-orders have destroyed the quality and substance of games, despite frequent lack of reliability of being able to play the game out of box without it being riddled with bugs. When a company has a few hundred thousand orders for a game that hasn't even been released yet or anyone has had the chance to play... tells them one thing. People don't care about the product, just the name.

    It has become a standard for games to be released regardless of playability state for the sake of meeting the deadlines set by uber producers and shareholders. Yeah there are arguments for both sides, but seriously... a few things seems to be constant from my point of view...

    Single player games are rarely supported with patches or updated. I reference Dead Space. Lots of people don't realize that their controls aren't supposed to feel so sluggish, and most don't realize that there is a fix for that, but it's not really addressed and you have to dig through the forums of other websites to find it.

    MMORPGs are viewed as acceptable to be released in a "beta state" (not counting play balancing because there is no such thing imho), because people see the free 30-days as reason for this... even some time after it's official launch. Ref. EQ Classic. Many of the quests in EverQUEST were broken... and for quite some time. Most of the ones that were fixed were because they worked too well, ref. Tumpy Tonic quest. Anarchy Online corrupted my OS twice to the point I had to reinstall... and at launch Windows 2k was not or ever going to be supported, Shadowbane had a terrible launch, EQ2 you could DIE just because you were crafting something, Hellgate:London had issues... ect.

    Now it can be argued that "Well now, there's always open beta so you KNOW what kind of game you'll be playing on release!" I haven't played it myself, but from what I gather, there was a massive fubar patch right after launch. And ya know what? Yes they can do that if they want to. Honestly I am totally surprised that they even offered refunds, but apparently the vocal minority is finally becoming a majority. Just a few years ago, i forget his name, but people were pissed about EQ2, and the rep would copypaste "THAT IS BY DESIGN" and basically tell you to go f yourself.

    I think things are finally reaching a boiling point, but so long as people put blind faith in pre-purchases you tell the megacorp "We don't care, here's our money."

    "There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."

  • LansidLansid Member UncommonPosts: 1,097
    Originally posted by Cephus404

    Originally posted by Lobotomist


    Not all is lost.
    Its now time of indies. Revival of the old school.
    Gameplay (which is cheap to produce) > graphic (which is expensive)

     

    Except I don't think the indies are doing anything all that great either.  I've gone on record many times saying I don't give a damn about graphics, I want excellent gameplay, excellent setting and excellent community.  While devs have little control over the community, they do have control over the others and there just aren't *ANY* new games out there that are doing what I want them to do.

    Indies will be absorbed by megacorps. as soon as they turn profitable, so they can take the IP and shove out a few games loosely based on the original as quick as they can. If it doesn't fly they just shelve the IP so no one else can profit from it or they can sell it for a kings ransom. 

     

    "There is only one thing of which I am certain, and that's nothing is certain."

  • SwaneaSwanea Member UncommonPosts: 2,401

    This industry can't be measured Nipples and dimes.....

    Quarters and boobs....

     

    Money....

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