I've rooted for so many MMOs that ultimately failed... Ultima Online 2 and Shadowbane to name a few, yet I am still astounded by some of the poor choices that developers and management make. I never played Asheron's Call (I was playing Ultima Online at the time) but I heard such wonderful things about AC's PvP that I was rather ecstatic to have a second chance with Asheron's Call 2. Yet when I loaded it up, even I could tell that it was nothing like Asheron's Call. How is such an obvious blunder made?
Ignoring AC2's other issues (as another poster mentioned), I suspect that it failed at the conceptual stage. They wanted another WoW-esque hit. But developers, and investors, and whoever else need to realize something: you aren't going to out-WoW WoW. It's not going to happen. Ever.
So stop trying. Look at EvE Online, which is moderately successful because they offered an MMO experience that wasn't just WoW in a different set of clothes. It fulfilled a desire for exploration and diplomacy and space fighting, a desire that no one else had managed to successfully tap. CCP, the makers of Eve, seem to get their business in a way that few others do. Though Eve isn't my cup of tea, I've seen enough to believe that CCP knows how to patch the game in a way that doesn't alter the fundamental experience, the social empire-building aspects. Because of this, CCP has earned their fan's loyalty and trust.
Getting back to failed MMOs, I would be keenly interested to read an interview with a developer of a failed MMO, for some insight into how and why the ball was dropped. Sadly such interviews are often lacking in said insight, usually full of marketing lines, excuses, or an outright demonstration that the developer at no point knew what he was doing. Though not a MMO, I remember reading an interview with one of the creators of Kane & Lynch (which achieved some fame in the critical realm because of the Gamespot controversy), which was fascinatingly honest. Any chance anyone could link me to a similiar MMO interview?
In my opinion, what it often comes down to is that developers (and the 'suits') are unwilling and unable to throw away bad work. As a writer, I've learned that you've got to be willing to chuck something that isn't going to work. I've spent hours upon hours on a short story, or a chapter in a novel, or an article only to admit that it was bad and throw it away and start fresh. Unfortunately while writing is basically free, games require lots of capital, and sometimes these developers are left with basically no choice but to hype their game in order to front-load box sales. Sucks, but I'm not sure that it's reasonable to expect otherwise.
But because I prefer to never end on a sour note, I admit to being somewhat happy that the big publishers are unable or unwilling to take risks. That makes your more independent titles that much more refreshing, that much more bold. Anyone hear about Love, for example? Only a matter of time til one of these smaller titles scores big.
I think this is a key passage, because it tells us something about the MMO industry, such as it is:
These days, companies tend to take a short-sighted view of the MMO subscription lifespan, and if a game isn't a hit right out the door, they are quick to slash the live development team to a skeleton and they begin considering the right time to sunset the service.
This is not dissimilar to how TV series that fail to instantly become a "hit" are abandoned at once. To provide a historical example of how stupid this mentality is, Cheers finished its first season at the bottom of the ratings, yet went on to become a classic series in continuous syndication making money for the studio, creators, writers, actors, composer of the theme song, the works, for decades. It was allowed to find an audience. TV series nowadays are not allowed to find an audience over time, they're abandoned if they fail to be an instant success.
Nowadays MMOs are not allowed to find audiences. EVE has, and is prospering, albeit not with WoW numbers. But if it were published by SOE, it would have been sunsetted quickly for failure to be a hit.
WoW, the 800 pound gorilla, has altered the landscape in countless ways, to include the standard of whether or not an MMO is considered to be a success, and as a result of the short term mentality (one that plauges American business in general) it stifles games that, if allowed, would find niche markets were they'd make some money for someone. Perhaps not oceans of benjamins like WoW, but some money and keep some developers employed and some players entertained.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
It was a sad day when EnB died. Unfortunately, the publisher did not want to support the game any longer as they did not consider it to be a successful title. It does not matter that they reportedly had around 30,000 subscription on close, which is more than enough to keep the servers running, and even make a little extra profit.
No mention of Earth and Beyond?!? that game was awesome.
Yes, lots of fun. Yet another BAD decision to lay at EA's door. EA is if anything even worse than SOE. Just about anything they touch is the worse for it.
I agree SOE has messed up a bunch but they have a couple of really good games haging in there.
You had turbine who completely blew it with DND to come back out and with the FTP model to almost save it. LOTRO is floudering, despite what some of the fan boys say and the possibilies in china. The game in the states has seen a huge downturn, maybe with this xpack they can save it, but I really dont thing so, lacking any clear dirrection.
Other gaming companies, funcom with there problems with AOC, NCSOFT what a joke I have seen so many post where folks went to AION then going back to their respected games.
It is a harsh market, and I think were in for an MMO crash soon, total and across the board.
Yaya, Victor, defend Planetside all you want. It was in the beginning a very good game, but as you say longevity was it's main problem.
But what killed it was the socalled "Balance Pass", which suddenly turned the game into VehicleSide. As a soldier you couldn't set a foot outside a base. It would take you 30 Anti-vehicle rockets and 2 minutes to kill an abandoned tank standing still, not defending itself (I made a test).
Live team is morons, and they didn't understand the intricate balance of the game, instead they fucked it up royally, resulting in my guild and many others to quit in disgust.
After that came the mech warriors and the special underground expansion that divided up the population, effectively killing the game.
If PS had instead implemented Outfit-Owned Bases or some other ways to allow the players to "own" a part of the world, to involve them more, maybe you could have turned it around. Instead you tried to go for the "easy" solution, an expansion and some stupid new units, that just required new meshes and little more.
Planetside had a longevity problem, but you could have solved it with implementations in a different direction. It was not longevity that ultimately killed the game, SOE did that themselves through their incredibly imbecile live team.
Yaya, Victor, defend Planetside all you want. It was in the beginning a very good game, but as you say longevity was it's main problem. But what killed it was the socalled "Balance Pass", which suddenly turned the game into VehicleSide. As a solder you couldn't set a foot outside a base. It would take you 30 Anti-vehicle rockets and 2 minutes to kill an abandoned tank standing still, not defending itself (I made a test). Live team is morons, and they didn't understand the intricate balance of the game, instead they fucked it up royally, resulting in my guild and many others to quit in disgust. After that came the mech warriors and the special underground expansion that divided up the population, effectively killing the game. If PS had instead implemented Outfit-Owned Bases or some other ways to allow the players to "own" a part of the world, to involve them more, maybe you could have turned it around. Instead you tried to go for the "easy" solution, an expansion and some stupid new units, that just required new meshes and little more.
Planetside had a longevity problem, but you could have solved it with implementations in a different direction. It was not longevity that ultimately killed the game, the SOE did that themselves through their incredibly imbecile live team.
MMOs might seem like a good place for money right now but it sure isn't a good place for a quality exprience and a rapidly improving product if Age of Conan is any measure of the industry. Several Key Areas of Failure are evident in their implementation. -Overmarketing ( Selling features which don't exist and never will) -Underdeveloping ( Releasing a product without major components functional and without a plan to rapidly implement those features at a pace more rapid than the majority of your consumers are going to exprience their unfunctionality. -Failure to innovate ( Break the mold in non-essential areas, and get the tentacles of development into areas where gamers are looking for fresh and new ideas, or areas which can clearly use improvement. -Failure to Provide the Basic ( Functionality, Lagfree or lowlag, stable performance on box specs, interesting gameplay, functional and fair mechanics in class vs class abilities, functional grouping and clan/guild resources, create the drive for both competition and cooperation, without it you are running a single player MMO, and people don't stick around without compelling reasons to make friends or kill enemies. Age of Conan failed in so many ways and yet there are those who still consider it a successful failure, or a success, well clearly it is neither, a successful failure would mean that the launch crowd who came and left would at least be interested in a free trial of the game and approve of the improvements, however that is not the case. A success would mean that the game never lost the majority of players who had played in the first place. Neither are true. Today 96% of players who have played AOC have moved on. Populations are imploding on mutiple servers and they are working hard to cut expenses and try to keep the company alive until they release the next expansion, probably missing some functionality, key components and with a lack of innovation just like Age of Conan and Anarchy Online. Some developers and Funcom is no different, simply don't have the stones or the brains to develop a complete product.
Nice post I've said this quite a few times already, we are at a point where the glut of companies out there does not seem to reflect the talent pool working on mmo's. I have quite a few hobbies outside of playing mmo's but mmo's are one of the only areas where there are so many companies I won't deal with and for reasons I think are very valid. If you advertise something deliver it, while the warning on the box that tells us the game may be nothing like what we see on package is good protection for them far too many of them have played fast and lose with this fact. I as a consumer have no sympathy for your particular excuse of why you have explained features in interviews and then added them to the box only to not have them working when the game released especially when in some cases things don't even get the chance to break the game as they never even show up.
I love the part of the article that points out how these devs take 5-7 years only to release horribly broken games while saying a few months could have helped. AOC s still plagued with many problems and obviously some from launch so what would make one think that a few more months could make a difference. Right now Darkfall seems to be ahead of most of the lackluster releases we've seen lately as far as fixing things.
I hope the industry doesn't need to purge itself much further for us to be able to see a better quality product from the mmo genre.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
-"Fact is that in many cases, it's because developers and publishers are screwing up."
-"Some games were released just plain broken as a result of bad development. Vanguard and Tabula Rasa's launches were just befuddled messes."
-"However, in transitioning, both of these games hemorrhaged customers and the population plummeted like dinosaurs after the asteroid struck."
-"We made the mistake of introducing a mechanic that changed our game, rather than enhancing what was already special about it…"
I've seen all of these things as well, and they all seemed to really hurt the games in question.
I'd add that games are really over-hyped. It's a real downer when you're told that a game is going to have really spectacular features, and then when it goes live, they simply aren't there, or they're there but they don't work. Sometimes they're never fixed and just axed. Then players get the company line that says, "well they were there, but we couldn't get them working, and we have the right to change our game as we see fit." Heh, maybe so, but then customers are going to exercise their right to hit the cancel button, and publishers can watch their investment go down the toilet. It's a lose/lose situation for sure.
If you want MMOFPS, play Darkfall. Best game I have ever played by a long shot.
Well, thanks for the good laugh any way... If I want a good FPS, one of the LAST games I'd play is Darkfall. Its the poster child for over promise, under deliver thats been discussed.
Btw, are all the authors really as diabolical as their portraits make them look?. Taken together, they look like something out of Batmans' rogue gallery..
Wachter is an experienced community manager, so he knows the importance of making people afraid of you in order to maintain their respect and compliance.
After all, would you annoy the guy in that picture? No, because he looks like he'd show up at 3am knocking at your door, wanting a little 'face time'. ;-)
Finally an article written by someone with a gamer iq over 10.
If studios would simply make a game to fill a market/niche instead of trying to be all things to all people, game quality would go up 1000%. You can have a very successful game and make a tidy profit without 10 million subs.
The three factors that have lead us to this impasse are the growing amount of player MMO choice, the increasing influence of corporate policy on MMO companies and the change in the MMO player age demographic.
That’s a pretty big mire to get out of, I see no way out of the swamp soon.
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"Btw, are all the authors really as diabolical as their portraits make them look?. Taken together, they look like something out of Batmans' rogue gallery.."
You didn't know Mr Wachter is secretly the Penguin? I guess a monocle and top hat can fool anyone.
Its clearly that he experience only few mmo's that he himself played, he also only mention big ones and typical the ones that are eather succefull or comming soon from a big company.
Yeh some some smaller ones that are already dead MISTER negative.
If you guys keep comming up with same old shit we already knew nothing will chance.
Mister wachter your one of zillion writers that already have talk about before what you in your article again atalk about, try bloody something thats realy helps this industrie instead repeat yourselfs.
You also hope that big IP bring us succesfull IP's man you eather S....... or P......... i dunno but you want only repetiton of mmorpgs other wise why even mention SWTOR?
Ass long you game writers or developers think what mass want becouse it get you$$$$ we will go down hill untill mmorpgs are no more or so bad its not playable anymore by a serieus gamer.
If you also mentioned games like darkfall that realy had the nerf to be totally different then your beloved THEMEPARKS i would give you more credit.
Your article bring nothing new its a path we have discussed so manytimes and always about same shit:(
Dare mention developers that are small and be different instead always make free advertising in your articles for the already big ones that are totally boring and bring nothing new.
Failed topic:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
Great post Bob_Blawblaw. I agree except you need to consider the wieght of a given IP in the mix when suits decide to make an MMO on a franchise. In a big way, that property hinders the conception of the MMO and expectation of returns reguardless of what "crap in box" is delivered. I think we are starting to get over "WOW envy" now but its still used to sell a concept to board members. There are just no management of expectations in this arena. To use your example: Star Trek is a big IP; MMO's can make a lot of money. Combine the concept and you make an easy sell to Paramount. Now what is going to make this MMO a break out hit to the MMO player as defined on what was pitched to Paramount? Do you focus on the Trekker/Trekkie? No, you focus on the MMO gamer demographics and loose the chance to make a unique Star Trek MMO experiance. I have said this before: "If your not Star Trek, then why would you play a Star Trek MMO?"
Yeah, this is a big problem. Looking at the game at this stage, you see a lot of the tropes of the Mk1 MMO design. They've been touting forever that the game will be designed "to appeal to all MMO gamers, not just Trekkies", which to me says "We're going to make a bland, generic product instead of one that really represents the IP." This is phenomenally stupid. If there is a "niche" for an IP that can generate revenue, it's the Trek folks.
These are the same people that waged a successfully OVERKILL letter-writing campaign in the '60s to keep the show on the air. They got the first space shuttle named after the goddamn FICTIONAL STARSHIP. They kept it going so hard another show started up 20 years later, only to spawn 3 more. This is an IP with staying power, but more than that, with enough warm bodies and devotion that, if you went and made a hard-core all-Trek MMO, you'd have all the subscriptions you'd ever need. Also, if it really WAS that, it would have to be different. It would be GOOD. And on THOSE merits, it might just attract other MMO gamers ANYWAY.
Blaiming failure of a MMO on development team isn't always right... Most likely you are to blame publisher - they usualy task development team with something like "Make a WoW clone, you have one third of time they had and one quarter money they had. And don't even try to say it's not doable." This is how the game development world works. Only very few studios can afford developing a game on their own funds and the one who has the money dictates conditions.
So... you have a team... you know you'll never be able to fully finish the project with given time span, but well, you have to pay salaries and all so you'll rather get 2-3yrs paid and know you won't finish than otherwise...
Point two... completing a project to 80% takes 20% time... that's an iron rule and simply works... so even you know you miss one year to make a project 100%, you spent two years on it and you are at about (rough shot) 95% of development process... Your producer wanting his money to generate new money says it's enough and you've got lecture book early release.
Ofc, there are still cases the dev teams underestimate the task and get in troubles.
Why the MMO are so mediocre-successfull? I think there might be one completely different reason than those named earlier. Back in starting days of MMO, there wasn't that many people with good enough internet connection. Those who had were usualy students, IT folks and similar. The audience capable of playing the game was totaly different than today. I wouldn't claim it was all people with master degree nor that it would be that different on average player IQ than today, but on social level it definitely was different. The games were made for pple of age 20+ (maybe even a bit more). These days the biggest audience is among teenagers and honestly... who else than teenager can play (for long) with teenager? Damn, I wouldn't be able to play with myself in my teens.
There is no doubt teenagers are much more unstable than an adult person (on psychical level) so it is much more likely they'll be changing their MMO on today-mood basis.
Factor two being the fact the new MMO aren't able to offer a fraction of what old MMO were capable of. Yes, they have ultra super mega giga graphics, super brilliant hi-fi sound, but the most important factor - the fun factor isn't that great...
In my case... I play MMO to play with group of friends... back in old days I played DAoC... Everyone with a bit of brain was teaming in groups because the game was designed to give you more xp over time than while soloing (ofc, with necromancer exception). In Age of Conan and Warhammer grouping actually slowed down your progress. WTH, MMO not supporting it's players to play together...
Next point is the community... Imho community can make the MMO more than the software itself. Again, back in DAoC days I remember whole realm storming RvR areas on even slight warning enemy realm was doing relic raid... That is _hundreds_ of players in same zone, even in visibility range. Nowadays... "You can't enter the zone, it's full" ... lol, how is that supposed to make community work together? I'd rather not mention server processor capacity these days and old days is on totaly different scale... And they were able to do that on that slow hardware... why can't they do it on modern one?
Old days, there was much less of cross realming than these days - accounts on different realms etc. And again, there was much less teenager headaches among the community.
I am still waiting for a MMO that gives me back the feeling of massive hate against my enemies. Once it happens I'd call it a success because it would mean the game has pulled me in.
My 2 cents... sorry they got a bit oversized :-)
Honza, Paladin RR7L9, proud member of Herfølge Boldklub, Excalibur, Dark Age of Camelot ... retired
Victor wachter a failed writer. Its clearly that he experience only few mmo's that he himself played, he also only mention big ones and typical the ones that are eather succefull or comming soon from a big company. Yeh some some smaller ones that are already dead MISTER negative. If you guys keep comming up with same old shit we already knew nothing will chance. Mister wachter your one of zillion writers that already have talk about before what you in your article again atalk about, try bloody something thats realy helps this industrie instead repeat yourselfs. You also hope that big IP bring us succesfull IP's man you eather S....... or P......... i dunno but you want only repetiton of mmorpgs other wise why even mention SWTOR? Ass long you game writers or developers think what mass want becouse it get you$$$$ we will go down hill untill mmorpgs are no more or so bad its not playable anymore by a serieus gamer. If you also mentioned games like darkfall that realy had the nerf to be totally different then your beloved THEMEPARKS i would give you more credit. Your article bring nothing new its a path we have discussed so manytimes and always about same shit:( Dare mention developers that are small and be different instead always make free advertising in your articles for the already big ones that are totally boring and bring nothing new. Failed topic:(
Oh man! Talk about failed writer ^^
Nice article Victor I couldnt agree more with you.
"To this day, I maintain that PlanetSide was one of the best things that SOE ever released. But the market didn't understand it."
Sorry, but isn't that the same arrogant bollocks the politicians tell us. Our politics is good, if one the stupid masses would understand it? I didnt like Planetside, because I dont like PVP, and my guess is most people dont like it enough to center their entire gaming around it.
Companies and dev just DONT LISTEN. Sometimes the explanation just IS simple.
And as a second note, there are just WAAAY too many MMOs out there. At least half them has to close right away. Every dumbass company today thinks they can quickly tinker the next WOW together. I have seen enough MMOs fail due to reason the beta testers had said a damn long time before launch. I was in many betas, often a year before release, and I among many have said the expected issued over and over, and companies JUST DID NOT LISTEN.
Many TOLD Cryptic about the CO issues. Many TOLD about the expected Vanguard issues. The list is long. Tabula Rasa, PotBS, Dark & Light, WAR, AoC, I was in all those betas, I saw enough people saying what would be an issue, but the devs and companies preferred to listen to FANBOIS. They DAMMIT NEVER LISTEN. And I swear, the next time it will be the same again and again and again. Those devs prefer to listen to fanbois because that more comfortable and we who warn and critizise are always branded as trolls and haters, and in the end, we are right. Always. But do they learn. Nope. The story ends always in the damn same way, and god knows I wish just for once I would be wrong and my doomsaying would be a mistake.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
Quote: "To this day, I maintain that PlanetSide was one of the best things that SOE ever released. But the market didn't understand it."
Sorry, but isn't that the same arrogant bollocks the politicians tell us. Our politics is good, if one the stupid masses would understand it? I didnt like Planetside, because I dont like PVP, and my guess is most people dont like it enough to center their entire gaming around it. Companies and dev just DONT LISTEN. Sometimes the explanation just IS simple. And as a second note, there are just WAAAY too many MMOs out there. At least half them has to close right away. Every dumbass company today thinks they can quickly tinker the next WOW together. I have seen enough MMOs fail due to reason the beta testers had said a damn long time before launch. I was in many betas, often a year before release, and I among many have said the expected issued over and over, and companies JUST DID NOT LISTEN. Many TOLD Cryptic about the CO issues. Many TOLD about the expected Vanguard issues. The list is long. Tabula Rasa, PotBS, Dark & Light, WAR, AoC, I was in all those betas, I saw enough people saying what would be an issue, but the devs and companies preferred to listen to FANBOIS. They DAMMIT NEVER LISTEN. And I swear, the next time it will be the same again and again and again. Those devs prefer to listen to fanbois because that more comfortable and we who warn and critizise are always branded as trolls and haters, and in the end, we are right. Always. But do they learn. Nope. The story ends always in the damn same way, and god knows I wish just for once I would be wrong and my doomsaying would be a mistake.
I wouldn't bring politics into this. The topic is muddy enough as it is. And the example you used actually IS true, democracy only works with a public that is educated and willing enough to defend it's own freedoms. I don't think many can honestly say that is still true for our general public.
This kind of goes back to a difference in how MMOs actually get made, and how we as gamers perceive they do. Developers don't always get the final say in a game. They are usually (especially now that MMOs cost so damn much to make) under a tremendous amount of pressure from outside investors and producers. It is not uncommon that developers say "hey the players are saying this" and then they are told "so what, do it this way". This isn't even getting into the problem with having so many developers, and no one really knows which players to listen to half the time. They just have to make their best educated guess.
With such a saturated market, we as players really do have some strength to pick and choose what we want to play. I think we are already starting to see a shift in the way developers are approaching this genre, after the last few train wrecks. These games aren't made overnight, and neither will the changes we want happen this way. I know it sucks having to wait so long for big changes, but this is one genre where patience really is a virtue.
I'm not really convinced you can ever not blame the developers, except in extreme circumstances. Yes they have pressure, and yes they may have someone trying to tell them what to do or not to do, but what creative profession doesn't? While you can argue differences in capital investment, I still believe that if the senior developers, i.e. the ones who interact with the publishers, had enough cojones to back up their way of making the game, then the publishers wouldn't insist on interfering to the point of ruin. It's part of a senior developer's job to convince the investors of the team's vision of the game.
Certainly there have definitely been some cases of publisher interference, but on the whole I think that we gamers let developers pass the buck far too easily. At the end of their day, it's their game and if it fails, then they are the ones who made it that way. If any blame lies at the feet of the publishers, it is because the developers promised something they couldn't deliver or failed at the planning stage or lacked the spine or charisma to push their vision forward.
Great article. I would say though that we are indeed waiting for another breakthrough "AAA" MMO. I fully expect TOR to be a huge hit. DC Online? eh not so much. I expect STO to be a moderate to huge hit as well, but the truth is, whether those in the industry or we the fans out here reading these threads about the industry just DO NOT KNOW when or where the next "Big Thing" will come from. For all we know some little, barebones company puts out a game and BAM! It becomes a huge hit. One just never knows. If you all remember, there were many thoughts that Blizzard would not put out a successful game because they had only done single player games. Well, I guess those critiques were really wrong there.
Just as a footnote, for that very reason that critiques are concerned that Bioware is great at making single player PC games will hamper their ability to make a good MMO, for me that gives me that gut feeling that TOR will be spectacular
Nevertheless, within the next few years, I'd be very surprised if at least a handful of games reach that so called "AAA" level of success. And don't be surprised by a game or two that come out of nowhere to shake up this industry.
Comments
Also thought it was a good read.
I've rooted for so many MMOs that ultimately failed... Ultima Online 2 and Shadowbane to name a few, yet I am still astounded by some of the poor choices that developers and management make. I never played Asheron's Call (I was playing Ultima Online at the time) but I heard such wonderful things about AC's PvP that I was rather ecstatic to have a second chance with Asheron's Call 2. Yet when I loaded it up, even I could tell that it was nothing like Asheron's Call. How is such an obvious blunder made?
Ignoring AC2's other issues (as another poster mentioned), I suspect that it failed at the conceptual stage. They wanted another WoW-esque hit. But developers, and investors, and whoever else need to realize something: you aren't going to out-WoW WoW. It's not going to happen. Ever.
So stop trying. Look at EvE Online, which is moderately successful because they offered an MMO experience that wasn't just WoW in a different set of clothes. It fulfilled a desire for exploration and diplomacy and space fighting, a desire that no one else had managed to successfully tap. CCP, the makers of Eve, seem to get their business in a way that few others do. Though Eve isn't my cup of tea, I've seen enough to believe that CCP knows how to patch the game in a way that doesn't alter the fundamental experience, the social empire-building aspects. Because of this, CCP has earned their fan's loyalty and trust.
Getting back to failed MMOs, I would be keenly interested to read an interview with a developer of a failed MMO, for some insight into how and why the ball was dropped. Sadly such interviews are often lacking in said insight, usually full of marketing lines, excuses, or an outright demonstration that the developer at no point knew what he was doing. Though not a MMO, I remember reading an interview with one of the creators of Kane & Lynch (which achieved some fame in the critical realm because of the Gamespot controversy), which was fascinatingly honest. Any chance anyone could link me to a similiar MMO interview?
In my opinion, what it often comes down to is that developers (and the 'suits') are unwilling and unable to throw away bad work. As a writer, I've learned that you've got to be willing to chuck something that isn't going to work. I've spent hours upon hours on a short story, or a chapter in a novel, or an article only to admit that it was bad and throw it away and start fresh. Unfortunately while writing is basically free, games require lots of capital, and sometimes these developers are left with basically no choice but to hype their game in order to front-load box sales. Sucks, but I'm not sure that it's reasonable to expect otherwise.
But because I prefer to never end on a sour note, I admit to being somewhat happy that the big publishers are unable or unwilling to take risks. That makes your more independent titles that much more refreshing, that much more bold. Anyone hear about Love, for example? Only a matter of time til one of these smaller titles scores big.
A very good read, as others have said.
I think this is a key passage, because it tells us something about the MMO industry, such as it is:
These days, companies tend to take a short-sighted view of the MMO subscription lifespan, and if a game isn't a hit right out the door, they are quick to slash the live development team to a skeleton and they begin considering the right time to sunset the service.
This is not dissimilar to how TV series that fail to instantly become a "hit" are abandoned at once. To provide a historical example of how stupid this mentality is, Cheers finished its first season at the bottom of the ratings, yet went on to become a classic series in continuous syndication making money for the studio, creators, writers, actors, composer of the theme song, the works, for decades. It was allowed to find an audience. TV series nowadays are not allowed to find an audience over time, they're abandoned if they fail to be an instant success.
Nowadays MMOs are not allowed to find audiences. EVE has, and is prospering, albeit not with WoW numbers. But if it were published by SOE, it would have been sunsetted quickly for failure to be a hit.
WoW, the 800 pound gorilla, has altered the landscape in countless ways, to include the standard of whether or not an MMO is considered to be a success, and as a result of the short term mentality (one that plauges American business in general) it stifles games that, if allowed, would find niche markets were they'd make some money for someone. Perhaps not oceans of benjamins like WoW, but some money and keep some developers employed and some players entertained.
CH, Jedi, Commando, Smuggler, BH, Scout, Doctor, Chef, BE...yeah, lots of SWG time invested.
Once a denizen of Ahazi
No mention of Earth and Beyond?!? that game was awesome.
-Selek
It was a sad day when EnB died. Unfortunately, the publisher did not want to support the game any longer as they did not consider it to be a successful title. It does not matter that they reportedly had around 30,000 subscription on close, which is more than enough to keep the servers running, and even make a little extra profit.
DarkSpace Developer - Play DarkSpace - Play For Free!
Medusa Engine SDK - Free MMO Game Engine
Hampton Roads/East Coast Video Gamers Association
Yes, lots of fun. Yet another BAD decision to lay at EA's door. EA is if anything even worse than SOE. Just about anything they touch is the worse for it.
That was a very good read.
I agree SOE has messed up a bunch but they have a couple of really good games haging in there.
You had turbine who completely blew it with DND to come back out and with the FTP model to almost save it. LOTRO is floudering, despite what some of the fan boys say and the possibilies in china. The game in the states has seen a huge downturn, maybe with this xpack they can save it, but I really dont thing so, lacking any clear dirrection.
Other gaming companies, funcom with there problems with AOC, NCSOFT what a joke I have seen so many post where folks went to AION then going back to their respected games.
It is a harsh market, and I think were in for an MMO crash soon, total and across the board.
Main reaon why, folks are board.
Yaya, Victor, defend Planetside all you want. It was in the beginning a very good game, but as you say longevity was it's main problem.
But what killed it was the socalled "Balance Pass", which suddenly turned the game into VehicleSide. As a soldier you couldn't set a foot outside a base. It would take you 30 Anti-vehicle rockets and 2 minutes to kill an abandoned tank standing still, not defending itself (I made a test).
Live team is morons, and they didn't understand the intricate balance of the game, instead they fucked it up royally, resulting in my guild and many others to quit in disgust.
After that came the mech warriors and the special underground expansion that divided up the population, effectively killing the game.
If PS had instead implemented Outfit-Owned Bases or some other ways to allow the players to "own" a part of the world, to involve them more, maybe you could have turned it around. Instead you tried to go for the "easy" solution, an expansion and some stupid new units, that just required new meshes and little more.
Planetside had a longevity problem, but you could have solved it with implementations in a different direction. It was not longevity that ultimately killed the game, SOE did that themselves through their incredibly imbecile live team.
RAH RAH RASPUTIN LOVER OF THE RUSSIAN QUEEN!
sorry.. i had to
Nice post I've said this quite a few times already, we are at a point where the glut of companies out there does not seem to reflect the talent pool working on mmo's. I have quite a few hobbies outside of playing mmo's but mmo's are one of the only areas where there are so many companies I won't deal with and for reasons I think are very valid. If you advertise something deliver it, while the warning on the box that tells us the game may be nothing like what we see on package is good protection for them far too many of them have played fast and lose with this fact. I as a consumer have no sympathy for your particular excuse of why you have explained features in interviews and then added them to the box only to not have them working when the game released especially when in some cases things don't even get the chance to break the game as they never even show up.
I love the part of the article that points out how these devs take 5-7 years only to release horribly broken games while saying a few months could have helped. AOC s still plagued with many problems and obviously some from launch so what would make one think that a few more months could make a difference. Right now Darkfall seems to be ahead of most of the lackluster releases we've seen lately as far as fixing things.
I hope the industry doesn't need to purge itself much further for us to be able to see a better quality product from the mmo genre.
but yeah, to call this game Fantastic is like calling Twilight the Godfather of vampire movies....
If you want MMOFPS, play Darkfall. Best game I have ever played by a long shot.
Great article. My favourite parts are:
-"Fact is that in many cases, it's because developers and publishers are screwing up."
-"Some games were released just plain broken as a result of bad development. Vanguard and Tabula Rasa's launches were just befuddled messes."
-"However, in transitioning, both of these games hemorrhaged customers and the population plummeted like dinosaurs after the asteroid struck."
-"We made the mistake of introducing a mechanic that changed our game, rather than enhancing what was already special about it…"
I've seen all of these things as well, and they all seemed to really hurt the games in question.
I'd add that games are really over-hyped. It's a real downer when you're told that a game is going to have really spectacular features, and then when it goes live, they simply aren't there, or they're there but they don't work. Sometimes they're never fixed and just axed. Then players get the company line that says, "well they were there, but we couldn't get them working, and we have the right to change our game as we see fit." Heh, maybe so, but then customers are going to exercise their right to hit the cancel button, and publishers can watch their investment go down the toilet. It's a lose/lose situation for sure.
Well, thanks for the good laugh any way... If I want a good FPS, one of the LAST games I'd play is Darkfall. Its the poster child for over promise, under deliver thats been discussed.
Wachter is an experienced community manager, so he knows the importance of making people afraid of you in order to maintain their respect and compliance.
After all, would you annoy the guy in that picture? No, because he looks like he'd show up at 3am knocking at your door, wanting a little 'face time'. ;-)
Finally an article written by someone with a gamer iq over 10.
If studios would simply make a game to fill a market/niche instead of trying to be all things to all people, game quality would go up 1000%. You can have a very successful game and make a tidy profit without 10 million subs.
The three factors that have lead us to this impasse are the growing amount of player MMO choice, the increasing influence of corporate policy on MMO companies and the change in the MMO player age demographic.
That’s a pretty big mire to get out of, I see no way out of the swamp soon.
----
"Btw, are all the authors really as diabolical as their portraits make them look?. Taken together, they look like something out of Batmans' rogue gallery.."
You didn't know Mr Wachter is secretly the Penguin? I guess a monocle and top hat can fool anyone.
Victor wachter a failed writer.
Its clearly that he experience only few mmo's that he himself played, he also only mention big ones and typical the ones that are eather succefull or comming soon from a big company.
Yeh some some smaller ones that are already dead MISTER negative.
If you guys keep comming up with same old shit we already knew nothing will chance.
Mister wachter your one of zillion writers that already have talk about before what you in your article again atalk about, try bloody something thats realy helps this industrie instead repeat yourselfs.
You also hope that big IP bring us succesfull IP's man you eather S....... or P......... i dunno but you want only repetiton of mmorpgs other wise why even mention SWTOR?
Ass long you game writers or developers think what mass want becouse it get you$$$$ we will go down hill untill mmorpgs are no more or so bad its not playable anymore by a serieus gamer.
If you also mentioned games like darkfall that realy had the nerf to be totally different then your beloved THEMEPARKS i would give you more credit.
Your article bring nothing new its a path we have discussed so manytimes and always about same shit:(
Dare mention developers that are small and be different instead always make free advertising in your articles for the already big ones that are totally boring and bring nothing new.
Failed topic:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
PS was very fun until the BFR mess. Also the rather radical balance changes killed some playerbase off too.
Also some lack of some serious FPs issues on the client was a problem too.
But in the end it still is one of the best MMO enviroments i've played around in long time.
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Meh.
Yeah, this is a big problem. Looking at the game at this stage, you see a lot of the tropes of the Mk1 MMO design. They've been touting forever that the game will be designed "to appeal to all MMO gamers, not just Trekkies", which to me says "We're going to make a bland, generic product instead of one that really represents the IP." This is phenomenally stupid. If there is a "niche" for an IP that can generate revenue, it's the Trek folks.
These are the same people that waged a successfully OVERKILL letter-writing campaign in the '60s to keep the show on the air. They got the first space shuttle named after the goddamn FICTIONAL STARSHIP. They kept it going so hard another show started up 20 years later, only to spawn 3 more. This is an IP with staying power, but more than that, with enough warm bodies and devotion that, if you went and made a hard-core all-Trek MMO, you'd have all the subscriptions you'd ever need. Also, if it really WAS that, it would have to be different. It would be GOOD. And on THOSE merits, it might just attract other MMO gamers ANYWAY.
Blaiming failure of a MMO on development team isn't always right... Most likely you are to blame publisher - they usualy task development team with something like "Make a WoW clone, you have one third of time they had and one quarter money they had. And don't even try to say it's not doable." This is how the game development world works. Only very few studios can afford developing a game on their own funds and the one who has the money dictates conditions.
So... you have a team... you know you'll never be able to fully finish the project with given time span, but well, you have to pay salaries and all so you'll rather get 2-3yrs paid and know you won't finish than otherwise...
Point two... completing a project to 80% takes 20% time... that's an iron rule and simply works... so even you know you miss one year to make a project 100%, you spent two years on it and you are at about (rough shot) 95% of development process... Your producer wanting his money to generate new money says it's enough and you've got lecture book early release.
Ofc, there are still cases the dev teams underestimate the task and get in troubles.
Why the MMO are so mediocre-successfull? I think there might be one completely different reason than those named earlier. Back in starting days of MMO, there wasn't that many people with good enough internet connection. Those who had were usualy students, IT folks and similar. The audience capable of playing the game was totaly different than today. I wouldn't claim it was all people with master degree nor that it would be that different on average player IQ than today, but on social level it definitely was different. The games were made for pple of age 20+ (maybe even a bit more). These days the biggest audience is among teenagers and honestly... who else than teenager can play (for long) with teenager? Damn, I wouldn't be able to play with myself in my teens.
There is no doubt teenagers are much more unstable than an adult person (on psychical level) so it is much more likely they'll be changing their MMO on today-mood basis.
Factor two being the fact the new MMO aren't able to offer a fraction of what old MMO were capable of. Yes, they have ultra super mega giga graphics, super brilliant hi-fi sound, but the most important factor - the fun factor isn't that great...
In my case... I play MMO to play with group of friends... back in old days I played DAoC... Everyone with a bit of brain was teaming in groups because the game was designed to give you more xp over time than while soloing (ofc, with necromancer exception). In Age of Conan and Warhammer grouping actually slowed down your progress. WTH, MMO not supporting it's players to play together...
Next point is the community... Imho community can make the MMO more than the software itself. Again, back in DAoC days I remember whole realm storming RvR areas on even slight warning enemy realm was doing relic raid... That is _hundreds_ of players in same zone, even in visibility range. Nowadays... "You can't enter the zone, it's full" ... lol, how is that supposed to make community work together? I'd rather not mention server processor capacity these days and old days is on totaly different scale... And they were able to do that on that slow hardware... why can't they do it on modern one?
Old days, there was much less of cross realming than these days - accounts on different realms etc. And again, there was much less teenager headaches among the community.
I am still waiting for a MMO that gives me back the feeling of massive hate against my enemies. Once it happens I'd call it a success because it would mean the game has pulled me in.
My 2 cents... sorry they got a bit oversized :-)
Honza, Paladin RR7L9, proud member of Herfølge Boldklub, Excalibur, Dark Age of Camelot ... retired
Nice read. I think the mmo's are all so alike, that is why they fail. Why pick up a new game when it is so similar to the one you just left?
Oh man! Talk about failed writer ^^
Nice article Victor I couldnt agree more with you.
Quote:
"To this day, I maintain that PlanetSide was one of the best things that SOE ever released. But the market didn't understand it."
Sorry, but isn't that the same arrogant bollocks the politicians tell us. Our politics is good, if one the stupid masses would understand it? I didnt like Planetside, because I dont like PVP, and my guess is most people dont like it enough to center their entire gaming around it.
Companies and dev just DONT LISTEN. Sometimes the explanation just IS simple.
And as a second note, there are just WAAAY too many MMOs out there. At least half them has to close right away. Every dumbass company today thinks they can quickly tinker the next WOW together. I have seen enough MMOs fail due to reason the beta testers had said a damn long time before launch. I was in many betas, often a year before release, and I among many have said the expected issued over and over, and companies JUST DID NOT LISTEN.
Many TOLD Cryptic about the CO issues. Many TOLD about the expected Vanguard issues. The list is long. Tabula Rasa, PotBS, Dark & Light, WAR, AoC, I was in all those betas, I saw enough people saying what would be an issue, but the devs and companies preferred to listen to FANBOIS. They DAMMIT NEVER LISTEN. And I swear, the next time it will be the same again and again and again. Those devs prefer to listen to fanbois because that more comfortable and we who warn and critizise are always branded as trolls and haters, and in the end, we are right. Always. But do they learn. Nope. The story ends always in the damn same way, and god knows I wish just for once I would be wrong and my doomsaying would be a mistake.
People don't ask questions to get answers - they ask questions to show how smart they are. - Dogbert
I wouldn't bring politics into this. The topic is muddy enough as it is. And the example you used actually IS true, democracy only works with a public that is educated and willing enough to defend it's own freedoms. I don't think many can honestly say that is still true for our general public.
This kind of goes back to a difference in how MMOs actually get made, and how we as gamers perceive they do. Developers don't always get the final say in a game. They are usually (especially now that MMOs cost so damn much to make) under a tremendous amount of pressure from outside investors and producers. It is not uncommon that developers say "hey the players are saying this" and then they are told "so what, do it this way". This isn't even getting into the problem with having so many developers, and no one really knows which players to listen to half the time. They just have to make their best educated guess.
With such a saturated market, we as players really do have some strength to pick and choose what we want to play. I think we are already starting to see a shift in the way developers are approaching this genre, after the last few train wrecks. These games aren't made overnight, and neither will the changes we want happen this way. I know it sucks having to wait so long for big changes, but this is one genre where patience really is a virtue.
I'm not really convinced you can ever not blame the developers, except in extreme circumstances. Yes they have pressure, and yes they may have someone trying to tell them what to do or not to do, but what creative profession doesn't? While you can argue differences in capital investment, I still believe that if the senior developers, i.e. the ones who interact with the publishers, had enough cojones to back up their way of making the game, then the publishers wouldn't insist on interfering to the point of ruin. It's part of a senior developer's job to convince the investors of the team's vision of the game.
Certainly there have definitely been some cases of publisher interference, but on the whole I think that we gamers let developers pass the buck far too easily. At the end of their day, it's their game and if it fails, then they are the ones who made it that way. If any blame lies at the feet of the publishers, it is because the developers promised something they couldn't deliver or failed at the planning stage or lacked the spine or charisma to push their vision forward.
Great article. I would say though that we are indeed waiting for another breakthrough "AAA" MMO. I fully expect TOR to be a huge hit. DC Online? eh not so much. I expect STO to be a moderate to huge hit as well, but the truth is, whether those in the industry or we the fans out here reading these threads about the industry just DO NOT KNOW when or where the next "Big Thing" will come from. For all we know some little, barebones company puts out a game and BAM! It becomes a huge hit. One just never knows. If you all remember, there were many thoughts that Blizzard would not put out a successful game because they had only done single player games. Well, I guess those critiques were really wrong there.
Just as a footnote, for that very reason that critiques are concerned that Bioware is great at making single player PC games will hamper their ability to make a good MMO, for me that gives me that gut feeling that TOR will be spectacular
Nevertheless, within the next few years, I'd be very surprised if at least a handful of games reach that so called "AAA" level of success. And don't be surprised by a game or two that come out of nowhere to shake up this industry.
So Mote It Be.