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Making mmo's 5 years vs. now, It's over !
delete5230
Member EpicPosts: 7,081
Short and sweet.
5 years ago we were introduced to WoW and EQ2 at basically the same time, both were a mess just like new mmo's are now.
Whats the difference ?..........This style of gaming was intriguing " Hay, theirs Joe standing their in my video game " that in it self would give people a reason to stick out the bugs in a new release. Add to the fact that people would tolerate grinding and kill 5 rat quest more so, because they were playing with Joe.
I'm not a marketing expert, but I'm willing to bet that server time was more affordable, less law suits, devs were cheaper to employ and no competition. Topped off with players now scream for better graphics. If games like Warhammer or even Tabula Risa were introduced first they would be the ones that have the market cornered instead of WoW. The more I think about it, the more I realize that Vanguard and LOTRO was the only game's since then that released a full game. Too bad Vanguard was not given more time to develop.
Things are just too out of hand now. I would guess it's impossible to release a full mmo now, unless your Microsoft or a billionaire. I have a feeling that up coming games like StarWars: Old Republic, Star Trek, and Stargate don't have a chance. They will be short and heavy instances, players will not tolerate that for more than 15 days. My guess would be that Guild Wars 2 may squeak in their with it's free to play but that's about it.
The cost, and the impossible catch up to release a REAL FULL game and not the only problems. You can blame your selfs because you demand the best graphics to show off your $2000 computers " hay I can play anything" . Well guess what I have one of them $2000 computers, and I don't care at all about graphics. You Turbo computer people screwed us !
Excuse me but I'm off to play Dragon Age Origins ( off line RPG ).
Comments
People felt the same way about Everquest 1's "insurmountable lead". Look what happened.
A lot of factors you bring up are true, like having to compete with 6+ years of dev time or the sheer social magnetism of having everyone and their great-grandmother playing the same MMORPG.
However two very important factors are:
So if you release a fun game which is different from WOW, people are going to play it. The problem is your game has to have the accessibility, fun, and depth of WOW, which many games struggle to achieve.
Warhammer as a specific example has nowhere near as deep/interesting combat as WOW -- and it's a PVP game! How someone could make a PVP-focused game without making the combat system deep and awesome is beyond me, but that's what WAR is.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Players will pursue games that are not fun either, read up on cognitive dissonance. Here's an experiment testing it:
In Festinger and Carlsmith's classic 1959 experiment, students were asked to spend an hour on boring and tedious tasks (e.g. turning pegs a quarter turn, over and over again). The tasks were designed to generate a strong, negative attitude. Once the subjects had done this, the experimenters asked some of them to do a simple favour. They were asked to talk to another subject (actually an actor) and persuade them that the tasks were interesting and engaging. Some participants were paid $20 (inflation adjusted to 2009, this equates to $148.40) for this favor, another group was paid $1 (or $7.42 in '2009 dollars'), and a control group was not asked to perform the favour.
When asked to rate the boring tasks at the conclusion of the study (not in the presence of the other "subject"), those in the $1 group rated them more positively than those in the $20 and control groups. This was explained by Festinger and Carlsmith as evidence for cognitive dissonance. The researchers theorized that people experienced dissonance between the conflicting cognitions, "I told someone that the task was interesting", and "I actually found it boring." When paid only $1, students were forced to internalize the attitude they were induced to express, because they had no other justification. Those in the $20 condition, however, had an obvious external justification for their behaviour, and thus experienced less dissonance.
In subsequent experiments, an alternative method of "inducing dissonance" has become common. In this research, experimenters use counter-attitudinal essay-writing, in which people are paid varying amounts of money (e.g. one or ten dollars) for writing essays expressing opinions contrary to their own. People paid only a small amount of money have less justification for their inconsistency and tend to experience more dissonance.
umm.. hang on while i go get my voodoo card out of them basement then. i'm sorry, i didn't realize it was my fault that technology advanced so quickly in the last 10 years. next time i'll be sure to consider the needs of other before keep up with current technology.
anyone up for death match tetris ?
____________________________
TheCore
umm.. hang on while i go get my voodoo card out of them basement then. i'm sorry, i didn't realize it was my fault that technology advanced so quickly in the last 10 years. next time i'll be sure to consider the needs of other before keep up with current technology.
anyone up for death match tetris ?
Reading comprehension. You don't have it. He's talking about the people who buy the new technology and demand that the graphics be the best without giving a shit about the gameplay. A lot of gamers care too much for graphics and will not accept a drop in the graphical fidelity of a game, but they sure as hell don't give a shit about the gameplay. I wouldn't even consider such people to be real gamers.
SWTOR proves your point. Several people have posts complaining that the graphics are "simplistic" or dated. I am glad they are, because I want to be able to play the game. Jumpgate Evolution is another example. They too are trying to keep the graphics at a level that is accessable to as many computers as possible.
Author of the Amazon kindle book, The Clan and the Crown
Another post that blames the players. There have been some mmo's doing poorly because in some way they were fundamentally flawed. It had more to do with game design and/or poor management than anything else.
And timing would not make Tabula Rasa into a WOW phenomenon.
Huh? Wot you smokin'?
I think we as game players have evolved as well. Fact is, in this day and age, we just dont have the attention span to comit to games long term as we used to
Torrential: DAOC (Pendragon)
Awned: World of Warcraft (Lothar)
Torren: Warhammer Online (Praag)
It could. Tabula Rasa was a pretty good game, that got some bad decisions along the way.
WoW did luck out in it's time. When it was released the market was dying for the next AAA hit, since most other games released that year were aimed at niche audiences. In the end it was WoW VS EQII and the lackluster launch and superior fundings of Blizz killed any hope for SoE. Then came the battle.net effect, then first casual people, word-of-mouth, advertising and a big great snowball of "all my friends are playing it". So yeah.
I hate WoW because it made my plush hamster kill himself, created twin clones of Hitler, punched Superboy Prime in reality, stared my dog down, spoiled my grandmother, assimilated me into the Borg, then made me into a real boy, just to make me a woman again.
Huh? Wot you smokin'?
WAR's combat is shallow compared to WOW's. Anyone with any sense of combat system depth can spend a mere 8 hours with each and come to the same conclusion.
In WOW you frequently have abilities putting players into different states (frost nova roots; gouge stuns to set up for a backstab.) In WAR these states are much rarer, and presented less strongly (such as their decision to give everyone tons of CC/stun abilities, but then deciding to have excessive stun immunities, so half the time your ability doesn't even work as advertised.)
In WOW you have reactive abilities which vary the optimal ability rotation (interrupts react to spellcasts; abilities enabled via things like critting or low enemy HP or dodging/blocking). In WAR these reactive abilities are much rarer (and for some classes don't exist at all.)
It's fun to bash the top dog, but the fact remains that WOW has one of the better combat systems for rewarding the smart tactical choice of abilities during combat. If you'd like to suggest games which are better at rewarding smart tactical choice, feel free. Even I would have to think long and hard to consider WOW's tactical decisions superior to games like Puzzle Pirates and Guild Wars. But when it comes to WAR vs. WOW, it's pretty obvious which game offers superior combat depth. WAR's combat is woefully shallow for a PVP-focused game, and offers some of the shallowest combat in MMORPGs.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
I don't seek to defend WAR's combat system, after all it's par for the course so far as MMOs are concerned. As is WoW's, which is my point. Deeper? More interesting? Hardly.
No MMO combat system requires a degree in brain surgery or rocket science to implement, nor does it constitute the most thrilling part of any MMO. They are all much of a muchness, and neither WAR nor WoW is any different from the rest in that respect. Both games have their strengths, WoW more than WAR, but the combat system isn't one of them.
Perhaps english isn't your first language, but "deeper" and "more interesting" are comparitive remarks.
WOW's combat is deeper and more interesting than WAR's. Period.
Whether you feel MMORPG combat in general isn't deep/interesting is irrelevant.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
The point I was trying to make is with Warhammer is that most ANY game could have not only survived, but flourished at the time when their was very little competition. With no competition that will bring in more money to invest back. So to make a long story short any game could have been WoW if the timing was right.
LOTRO, and Vanguard were late bloomers. Some how they were the only games that released full games. SOME HOW they had the money. Big big money . We all know Vanguard's coding was all screwed up, of coarse thats because the turbo graphic gamers asked for it, but thats not the point I'm trying to make, they were full games.
I would say it's almost over for MMO's, unless Blizzard or Turbine have something up their sleeve, with the exception of maybe Guild Wars 2 pulling off totally free mmo's, maybe starting a new era !
And thanks Turbo graphics people for screaming the loudest for your graphics, we now have nothing to play. I wish we were all in the same room togeather......... I would say shame on you !
English is indeed my first language, those terms are indeed comparative remarks, but the comparison made is a subjective one. That WoW's combat is deeper and more interesting than WAR's may be your opinion, it isn't mine.
I suggest you accept that, and move on.
Hay.... please read this carefully, it's not about Warhammer, I used Warhammer for an example of a game gone bad to prove a point...can't you get it ?
What hooked me to WOW, and I bet many others, only most people can't remember it, or don't give it any importance, or didn't notice it in a conscious level, it's the extraordinary smoothness and precission of controls, movement, animation, all combined, of your character. This is a crucial point upon which to build everything else. But if this fails, the whole game suffers, no matter how cool is the rest.
English is indeed my first language, those terms are indeed comparative remarks, but the comparison made is a subjective one. That WoW's combat is deeper and more interesting than WAR's may be your opinion, it isn't mine.
I suggest you accept that, and move on.
But...that makes no sense.
WAR has shallow CC mechanics, repetitive non-reactive ability rotations, and weak player states. I covered some of this in more detail in my earlier post. But it's just...very obviously shallow compared to WOW.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
English is indeed my first language, those terms are indeed comparative remarks, but the comparison made is a subjective one. That WoW's combat is deeper and more interesting than WAR's may be your opinion, it isn't mine.
I suggest you accept that, and move on.
But...that makes no sense.
WAR has shallow CC mechanics, repetitive non-reactive ability rotations, and weak player states. I covered some of this in more detail in my earlier post. But it's just...very obviously shallow compared to WOW.
Does shallow CC mechanics mean no CC that has 0 CD and is spammable?
Because those pretty much make PvP awful.
English is indeed my first language, those terms are indeed comparative remarks, but the comparison made is a subjective one. That WoW's combat is deeper and more interesting than WAR's may be your opinion, it isn't mine.
I suggest you accept that, and move on.
But...that makes no sense.
WAR has shallow CC mechanics, repetitive non-reactive ability rotations, and weak player states. I covered some of this in more detail in my earlier post. But it's just...very obviously shallow compared to WOW.
Does shallow CC mechanics mean no CC that has 0 CD and is spammable?
Because those pretty much make PvP awful.
It means some classes have 7 sec stuns (on a 60s cooldown; with the caveat that you basically have to keep DPSing during those 60 sec or you won't have enough Morale points to recast it.) But that's just the OP AOE DPS class.
The real CC monstrosity was the Ironbreaker. I created a hypothetical scenario: 20 seconds with an ironbreaker against 5 opponents who were clumped. The Ironbreaker was capable of landing something like 24 separate CC effects in those 20 seconds!
So zero cooldown? No, they didn't go that overboard. Those 24 separate effects are from 3-5 different CC abilities, each of which has a cooldown.
But the most extreme singular ability was a 3 second stun on a 5 second cooldown.
So yeah, WAR has utterly ridiculous amounts of CC flying around. And their bandaid "if you're hit by any CC, you're immune to most similar types of CC for 30 seconds" fix is terrible...rather than having reasonable cooldowns and abilities that work every time, they opted for unreasonable cooldowns with abilities that rarely work since people are always on one immunity or another (seriously about half your CC you can expect not to work.)
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver