If the customer is always right, what do you do when the customer is dead wrong? People spouting garbage rules like this have never actually interacted with a customer...
It's not meant to be taken literally. It means "give the customer what he wants, not what he needs, and do it with a smile on your face."
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
If the customer is always right, what do you do when the customer is dead wrong? People spouting garbage rules like this have never actually interacted with a customer...
It's not meant to be taken literally. It means "give the customer what he wants, not what he needs, and do it with a smile on your face."
If you want to say "The customer is King" then say that. Don't say something else, and has a completely different meaning. A number of people take rules literally, especially those which leave no room for interpretation.
So, for everyone on here who is screaming Anti-dev rage. Ever build a game yourselves? Ever even attempt it? There seems to be this fairy-tale expectation of what the world of building games is like. The truth is, it's a lot like any other job, with all the same crap in a different pile. I develop games for a living, I started in MMOs and have since moved on to console games with maybe 10 or so titles to my credit as a Lead Designer. Not trying to whip out the penis-ruler here, just wanted you to understand that I am speaking from some experience.
Let's start with the money thing. * If someone pays you 1+ million dollars to build a game, they have a major stake in that game and developers can't simply blow off their expectations by muttering "I'll make the game the way it SHOULD be made." * Investment isn't an interest free loan. If they put in 1 million dollars, the developer is going to owe them a lot more by the time everything is said and done
So, on to responsibility: * I didn't once read in the article that "devs are not at fault". What I did read is "can be no-one's fault". The sum total of a thousand little decisions that added up to a big fat turd. And before you go yelling "then it's EVERYONE'S fault!" consider this: Sometimes there is no right answer. Say someone offers you a loan of 1 million dollars to develop a game with core features that you estimate at 1.1 million and you simply can't get another cent from anywhere. Do you turn it down and hope someone else with big bucks comes along? Or do you accept and hope you can find a way to make what you want under a smaller budget? * Sure, it would be nice if someone would build a game just for you, but it's never going to happen. And it's not entirely about greed. If you're creating something, you want people to enjoy the result of your work. If a large portion of the people out there like something, then you're likely to develop toward that end. Oh, and looking around your favorite forum and citing "A skill-based, open world FFA full-loot PvP sandbox would clean up!" doesn't exactly measure up against the research and business experience these aforementioned financial people bring to the table. They know where the money is. We all do. Some might say "Why do they all want WoW-level returns?" If you went to the bank and they offered you two different types of accounts, "This one pays out 0.25% interest, but it makes a specific group of people around here happy. This other one returns 7.5%, but the thing is, those people don't really enjoy hearing about those accounts." Seriously, where is your money going?
Okay, I've already gone too far with this. First Dev rule is "Don't feed the Trolls." which is not specific to trolls. It just means don't stir the water any more than it already is, because nothing you say will satisfy everyone. You simply can't remedy a forum squall. But I guess if at least one person gets some perspective from this, it's worth the time it took me to create an account and type out my thoughts.
I think that's all the author was probably aiming for, too.
Your post is nothing but excuses to me. So you can't get all the funding you need? Welcome to the ranks of small business. You drop a couple extravagent salaries and come up with creative ways to make the money work. Startups don't do well when they want all the rewards from the very beginning, you have to SACRIFICE with a lower salary, longer working hours, perhaps pitching in as a group for bulk purchasing power for food, fuel, and other expenses. You'll get your reward when you've made a great mmo. Have the patience to reap the benefits of your work.
My favorite excuse is your justification of wow clones. Yes, you as a dev justified wow clones. Congratulations. Here's a nice little fact I brought up in another thread. Once a market becomes popular, other businesses quickly setup shop in that market until eventually profit = 0. At that point, competition is solely based on (in mmo terms) features, price, and service. All of a sudden that 7.5% shrinks to 0% and the .25% looks outstanding. The key to business is to setup profitable niches, and to retain control of those niches. The niches don't have to be small (take wow for example), they just need to be niches where you get in first, attract most of the market, and maintain your competitive position (which Blizzard does totally pro). Bottom line is you don't understand jack about economics and neither do your financial dumbasses who are chasing a piece of the pie that they'll only get a sliver from. This is why you devs fail over and over again.
Change the financing model. Tell your investors "after 5 years, we will pay you back your investment + X%. Now go away until that time." Have more and smaller investors. Overbudget your time and costs. If you think you can get your game fit for release in 4 years, then say it will take five. If you think it will cost 40 million, then say it will cost 50 million.
Hope for the best, and plan for the worst.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Change the financing model. Tell your investors "after 5 years, we will pay you back your investment + X%. Now go away until that time." Have more and smaller investors. Overbudget your time and costs. If you think you can get your game fit for release in 4 years, then say it will take five. If you think it will cost 40 million, then say it will cost 50 million. Hope for the best, and plan for the worst.
And this will drive any potential investor away and no game will be made.
Investors will be confronted with a multitute of choices, and the return on the investment is the measuring stick. If you present them with 10% chance of 100 million payday (the wow-killer) vs 100% chance 1 million (the average MMO), ALL investors will choose the first option. As long as the first option has more than a 1% chance of happening it will be preferred.
The problem with MMO's is the success of WoW. Even though the probability of being the next WoW is very low, the payout IFF you are the WoW-killer is so high it pretty much trumphs all other investment choices.
Reading a lot of response by current/former game devs, it seems dev environments are not that great in the US, too.
When I interviewed for my dev job in Taiwan, the lead designer asked me what was my vision and what's my ambition in entering this industry.
My answer(and I think a lot of devs around the world have said the exact same stupid thing) was I wanted to build the next WoW. Well, as all of you could imagine, all of the interviewers almost laughed their pants off, and gave me a reality check.
"Son, if we had the guns and greens to make WoW class stuff, you wouldn't even had the chance to interview..."
And the truth is, the reality is much more disappointing than you could have of ever imagined. The original post said that an MMO project has 5yrs production time, but in Asia(well maybe crossing out NCsoft), the average produciton cycle is around 1~2yrs max. No company has the luxurious resources to support a project for more than 2yrs. It would mean serious cash flow problems once it passes the 2yr mark.
So, a lot of people say devs are nerdy guys who think they are god and don't know the crap about games isn't quite true(at least in Taiwan). Because the pay is awful, the work time is long and tedious, anyone that even considered jumping in the industry are either super game nerds or have huge passion for making games since their first experience of holding a game controller. And also, the work load of an MMO is massive, with a short leash on the timeframe, a lot of the pieces sometimes doesn't quite worked out than it should be. But by the time the problem submerges(most of the times, it doesn't occure until you place all the functions together), the deadline is always just around the corner. And as mentioned above, we don't have the greens to produce games for ten years and push back issuing dates as long as we want(yes I'm pointing at you StarCraft 2), so, the boss simply tells you if you don't make the deadline, than everyone can get their empty box for personal items at the HR dept. next Monday.
Devs wanting to make crappy games? Everyone always has a great and glamorous idea for their dream game, but the reality is when you want to do X you'll get a slap in the face and a reponse which pretty much sounds like "no can do, no time, not applicable, and not making money". But the boss always pats your head and say "when we do have the money, I will give you your dream game".
Finally, I would like to add some other dirt on the solutions issue to bugs or crappy mechanisms. It actually is more statistically based than you think.
1. the dev and publisher would address certain issues on consumer feedback of the game, and a list of complains will get laid out on the discussion table.
2.When considering to fix bugs or certain mechanisms, the boss always lets everyone think of resources. ex. you only got 4 programmers, 3 devs, 2 artist maintaining the MMO. The same work time you fix bug X or carppy mech Y, you could''ve develop a new mech or new function to the game. Now, here comes the tricky part, which decesions make more profit?
3.After the publisher present certain statistical numbers and in-game research data, the final decesion will be made. Keep in note that there are silent majorities in a MMO, sometimes the most vocal players on a forum actually just represent a small group of players when considering the overall subscribers*. So eventually the ones that make more money jumps to the first priority, end of discussion.
*AION makes a great reference for this statement. In Taiwan, the forums are always jam pack with endless strings of complains and heavy gunfire on AION. But it still manages to be the No.2 game, and actually the accounts that make most nasty posts are around 200, where comparing to it's 170,000 subsribers is just a pebble in the lake.
Each person can only hold enough knowledge to add one small rung to the ladder, but together we can climb to the moon.
Originally posted by Aercus And this will drive any potential investor away and no game will be made. Fewer will be made, but some will. Investors will be confronted with a multitute of choices, and the return on the investment is the measuring stick. If you present them with 10% chance of 100 million payday (the wow-killer) vs 100% chance 1 million (the average MMO), ALL investors will choose the first option. As long as the first option has more than a 1% chance of happening it will be preferred. Nope. Not all investors favour high-risk investing. The problem with MMO's is the success of WoW. Even though the probability of being the next WoW is very low, the payout IFF you are the WoW-killer is so high it pretty much trumphs all other investment choices.
Only for the gamblers. They are not even the majority of investors.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
And this will drive any potential investor away and no game will be made. Investors will be confronted with a multitute of choices, and the return on the investment is the measuring stick. If you present them with 10% chance of 100 million payday (the wow-killer) vs 100% chance 1 million (the average MMO), ALL investors will choose the first option. As long as the first option has more than a 1% chance of happening it will be preferred. The problem with MMO's is the success of WoW. Even though the probability of being the next WoW is very low, the payout IFF you are the WoW-killer is so high it pretty much trumphs all other investment choices.
Not true. Investors know high risk investments have a high risk of showing no return or even a loss. It's not the investors that decide this it's the CEOs of publishing houses. Their decisions are based on marketing trends and research. They know WoW sells. On the other hand they know there is a market for lower budget games with more modest returns on investment too. What they can't make is a game with a huge budget and modest returns expected which is what you see spoiled gamers screaming for on these forums every day. I'm sorry but the reality is if you want to play a niche MMOG you're going to have be less demanding and pay the same price or you're going to play WoW. That's all there is to it.
Having spent some time at an private equity company, I assure you that it is all we do. Calculate expected return on investments under different circumstances. In my overely simplified example above, game A would have an expected return of 100*0.1 + 0*0.9 = 10m while game B would be 1*1 = 1m. If game A costs 5m to develop the expected ROI would be 100%. If game B costs 800k to develop, the ROI would be 25%.
Since most (all?) MMO's are financed by investors and not banks, game A is chosen because the ROI tells you so. If you are in private equity you are rewarded for taking big risks and getting big returns, while making big losses mostly affects you indirectly (apart from the lack of that bonus..)
In my own cynical way, I don't even think the following statement is true:
"MMO developers don't try to make bad games - it's in nobody's interest to do so."
I know I may be strecthing it, but have you ever seen the play/movie "The Producers" ?
I thought the following statement was an interesting take on things too.
"If every facet of the game is only 99% awesome, the awesomeness compounds (like interest) when you try to calculate how awesome the game is overall."
So lets say you pick 40 facets of a game and 10 are 100% perfect, and 30 are 99% perfect. If you stick with your theory of those things compounding to the game's overall "awesomeness", you get:
1^10 * 0.99 ^ 30 = .7397 = 74%
Yeah I'd say 74% (or much lower) is about the rating I'd give many of these so called "triple A" titles that have come out in the past couple years. Makes sense to me
Most MMOGs are financed by publishers, not venture captalists. If what you were saying were true mutual funds, hedge funds, and most large corporations would not exist. Investors wil sacrifice ROI for stability. Five million won't build a MMOG and if the market has proven anything it's that spending mpore money doesn't gaurantee a bigger return.
Publishers acting like investors the same as general institutional investors, just that they are specified to a certain niche, i.e. books, music, games etc. All the calculation and decision making processes is identical.
As for risk: AAA Government bonds are the most secure, but has the lowest return (quite often negative real returns). Then follows high grade gvmt/muni bonds, investment grade corp bonds, banks, high yield gvmt/corp/muni bonds, stocks/funds, PE, derivatives, and so on. Investors who sacrifice return for stability will buy government bonds. If you have invested in i.e. a PE fund, you are expecting a higher return and a higher risk (higher risk = higher return). No investor will give money to something with an unknown risk profile, and this is on the first page on any investment prospect.
And I said my example was overly simplified as to prove the underlying point. It was not discounted, there were only two scenarios, no payback, IRR, VaR and all the other measures. It is merely an illustration of how investors think and not a complete example. And there is of course no direct causation between size of investment and return, but the point still stands: Smaller niche MMO's must cost less because the appeal to a smaller market segment, and will probably not bring in the big bucks, while taking a gamble on (yet) another AAA mass market MMO which are hugely expensive, but has the potential of being a mint, is worth a lot of investment dollars.
"Believe me, every developer on an MMO is trying to make the best MMO ever."
I don't believe you - unless "best" means "most profitable". Devs don't put in things like cash shops, grinds, and dungeon lockout timers to make their games better for the players. Apologia from an industry insider. No surprise it's a puff piece.
I agree,it is all about profit.I think there is these producers looking around all the time to see what gimmick and type of game will sell subs and not have to put much effort into it.
I have seen incredible glaring holes in games,no question the developer knows of these holes,so they are purposely leaving out needed content.There seems to be a ton of gamers that don't want to play a game,they just want a media platform to PVP,so developers are allowed to continue to churn out garbage because there is a large player base that will buy it up.
A lot of the problem is these are business people some are computer nerds,i don't believe these are true gamers that have a real feel for the gaming community.My guess is that a good quality game is going to run around 100 million,no way to get around it.If a few hi tech buddies got together to make their own game engine and do most of the work,it would take them forever,so by the time it is released you have a stale old looking game.This is why you need to buy all the people you can to make it happen.
Look at that guy making that game called LOVE,he is all proud of his work ,i am i guess as well as it is a monumental task for sure,but his end result will be of VERY low quality, so it just cannot be done.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
First, a gamer no need to know how to make a game to know whether its fun for them or not. Just like you no need to know how to build a car to know whether you like the car or not.
Second, FC and Mythic, Turbine etc... is not the first time they making a mmo. But what happen to them? They have no excuse.
As ive said before, why play a clone when i can play the original thing?
Failure of a mmo is the company fault, i dont care who and i will just vote with my wallet. There's forums for the devs to read, beta forums for feedback, failure of other games to warn them, tons of source for devs to see what is happening to their game from the beginning of production all the way to before release. Yet game after game they fall into the same mistake.
Just like what you said " All devs ( though i dont believe this part ) wants to produce great game", let me tell you something revolutionary, so does all the players that follows the particular game. They all want the best for the game.
But if the devs, or you can blame the publisher all you want, fail to see what players really want than they only have themselves to blame. They are responsible for suxky contents, early release ( before that x-pac is out), untrue hype, stupid excuse ( gold sellers) etc... And blame them we will for they create the game, not us.
Till the day they wake up and really count their cost before they start, this cycle will never end...
Good article. It brings up some good thinking points on what has happened to the MMORPG market. The only other thing I would have liked to see was some ideas on how these companies, and we players, can break out of this self destructive cycle.
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The OP nailed it on the head early in the article. Almost all software (not just games) is designed on incomplete requirements with no real scientific basis for the estimates used to calculate cost and delivery dates.
As the product moves through the development lifecycle (from Concept, through Initiation, Requirements and Design) the delivery dates and costs should be reassessed and reforcasted and new dates reset for delivery based on the greater clarity th project has in later phases.
I've always maintained you really can't set a reasonable delivery date for a software project until you are well into or almost complete with Development, and though my bosses disagree, they've never been right yet on their "estimates"
Yet, time and again, most software projects have their delivery date 'set' for them by outside agents. Doesn't matter if this doesn't happen right away (but I doubt many MMO's start Dev without a target delviery date in mind). As soon as this date is set, its pretty much the kiss of death for an MMORPG.
While other software products like the financial software I work on can be successfully delivered even if we decide to toss out functionality until a future release (our clients don't always agree with us btw), as mentioned by the OP, this is the deathknell of an MMO because the features are frequently the best ones, and in some cases have been promised to the fans.
Once you set a delivery date in advance, and work to it, you've doomed yourself to removing items from the scope, and this is a bad way to create an MMORPG.
It was mentioned that Blizzard will not deliver any game until its ready..... any wonder why most of their games are big financial successes then?
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
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"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
Talk about completely missing the point, if a game makes money then it was designed correctly becaues enough people found it fun for it to be profitable. It's that simple.
This is not the case... Games like AOC and WAR made alot of money through PRE-ORDERS that have absolutly nothing to do with the actual design or playability of the game. It all about PR. And atm this seems to be the biggest "new thing" with MMOs. Promise this and that and you get ppl to pre-order... Then when the game turns out to be total crap - then you put up a skeletal crew to keep it going for 1 - 2 years before you shut it down.
Profits and fun are in no way releated in MMOs.
That part isn't the companies fault to be honest. No one should ever preorder an MMO, ever. By doing so you are encouraging bad behaviour and putting yourself at risk of getting a game you won't be happy with. There is no need to preorder a game, you miss out on a couple "special" items that end up not mattering at all 99% of the time.
If I was running a company and thought that by using the right spin I could get a million preorders I would certainly do it. That is useful money that can be used for this or future products. But if I know that only a handful of players will actually preorder, then I need to put all my focus on a solid launch.
i would love to believe that only some of the title released over the past years have suffered the suck. and that i can blame the money men as you alluded to.
however, the suckiest games out there are the big triple A releases over the past several years. conan and lotr and warhammer make the top of my list of suck. wow is a non issue and i would love for 'wow-killer' to not be used anymore. its an mmo for nubs.
these are games that spent a ton of time in development and then were rushed to retail with only the briefest of beta periods and absolutely no understanding of what release day would do to their infrastructure. playtesting behind closed doors in controlled environments does not mean the game is playable. that is what makes the suck imo.
perhaps im wrong not to lay the blame squarely on the money men. after all, the rush to release would equate to a rush to get paid subscribers? and opening the item shop while a game is still in beta [speaking of f2p models now] would equate to the same thing. lets fleece our player base early and then not spend a dime on fixing anything. just extend "beta" lol. and dont get me started on "collectors editions". ill never buy another one after conan. no reason to spend 2x as much to find out a game sucks.
anyway, about the only thing i can say for certain is that there has not been an mmo that has kept my interest [and my money] in a really long time if ever. i love gaming and this is a sad state of affairs that i find myself playing single player [civ 4 and galactic civ 2 ult.] all the time instead of in an immersive, fun, and huge mmorpg with no micro trans bullshit and a reasonable monthly fee with responsible and attentive devs concerned with *sigh* fun and an understanding that solo rewards are just as important as raids. too much to ask, i know.
there are many reasons some game suck first I will say some people are looking for different things from games so I will just explain it from my perspective...
most MMOs today lack diversity,, they are narrow and shallow hack and slash they render out anything but arena combat, while combat is important to a game it should be part of a tapestry not the all mighty god.
there are different types of players that primarily favor one type of game play ofer others
SOCIALIZER likes talking with ingame friends both about game stuff and other
EXPLORER loves to discover new places or understand how the game or the gameworld functons
BUILDER this player loves to change the world houses mountains mines temples dams ect a subset is crafter
ROLEPLAYER this person really wants to get into an alternate persona so the more different the races the better they prefer
PUZZLER this person likes riddles cyphers quandries misteries both physical and mental
im sure there are a couple im probably missing but these are most of the main ones I rend to be an explorer/builder
most games are simply not built well rounded, usually 80% of a game if not more is all about combat, even the economies are based on an economy of weapons and armor.
myself im more for a sandbox world immersion type of play some players thing wishing or farming or ranching is boring fluf but to me thats bread and butter (if its done right and avoids too much micro manage and grinding) graphics arnt all that important to me, i like having a certain level but thats a relativly low bar if the gameplay is top notch.
mob AI tend to be the same AI ive encountered for the last 20 years (percieve, advance,destroy) this is why raids are so distasteful to me just a room full of bigger rats i call it.
for me id love to run an inn but in MMOs there is no justification for an inn food and drink dont matter it doesnt matter wether you log/sleep in a warm bed or some mountain cliff,, charactors dont get cold and miserable or sick and that in my book is a crying shame and players miss out on a whole bucket of plot device let me give you a couple of examples
crossing a desert most MMO you just aim and go to me that is boring, but if you factor in water...
castle sieges having to build gear,, stock up supplies travel the distance..
famine your wheat crops this hear got flooded or blighted so very little bread what do you do?
disease the village NPCs have come down with something making them much less usefull do you find a cure?
magic has also been precanned I would like to see spells as well as combat manuvers constructed from subcomponents you want a long range fireball that does a small amount of damage? or a short range room burnner? green? blue? casters are able to research and craft their own customized spell.. same for manuvers figheters are able to construct their own favored combinations.
economy really must be a food/crafts based economy and different areas should have different types of resources that are valued in distant regons this creates trade pressure think silk trade or oranges iceburg lettuce snow peas opals teak I really hate generic evenly placed resource "nuggets" I love going out in the wild and looking around and finding cattails by a pond or an iron in a cliff face some places will have chalanges and advantages coastal will have more storms,, but have fish and clams,, deserts will be hot but might be windy or have jewel mines or glass sand,
im a huge fan of weather and climate also as long as its done right
most MMO are vastly incomplete from a universal view their are priests but they never have a temple or gain followers, there are soldiers but no sergents of the guard there are mages but no head masters players dont make a difference in most MMO a level 60 charactor can look back and they have nothing to show for their existance,, mobs respawn in a few minutes,, all they have to look foward to is the hell that is raiding (i dont get it,, they are allready 60 what do they need better gear for???)
and lastly expansions painfully end up being more hack and slash, more rooms with bigger monsters and bigger weapons and better armor,,, not better game play.
im thinking of leaving LOTRO because their last two expansions have been just that hack and slash junk. and ive been with them since beta because I thought they were different.
if you like some of the ideas ive sugested try wurm its a harsh begining and can be a bit grindy but its on a different path,, theres a free path.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
The OP is nonsense. No publisher throws a giant pile of money at a developer, and then comes back four years later and tells them: "just release whatever you've got halfway done." Games are done in phases; and they have to get approved for continuation many times during the development cycle.
The problem with 90% of the suckfests out there isn't that they just (oopsie!) came up a few dollars and a few months short at the very end. The problem is that the execs responsible for these games don't have the balls to pull the plug on a bad design EARLY!
I don't even know what in the holy living Hell people are talking about when they say a lot of these games are "unfinished." Bullcrap. I know what bugs and glitches look like, and nine times out of ten, that ain't the problem. The problem is that twenty minutes into the demo I realize: Hey, this isn't any damned FUN. That's not something you can tack on at the end with patch; that has to be in the fundamental gameplay from very early alpha.
If you spend another ten years and another ten million dollars polishing a turd, hey, guess what? It is never going to be anything but a really shiny turd.
That's why Blizzard (at least from the outside looking in) seems to never fail. Of course it's not because they "don't have to worry about money." That's asinine. EVERYBODY has to worry about money. And people who have more of it have to worry about it that much more than everyone else.
The reason Blizzard seems so infallible is because they prototype the heck out of their gameplay before they greenlight content development. When they have a base gameplay that works, THEN they can throw money at it like it's going out of style, because there is no real risk.
Blizzard has just as many hopelessly wrong ideas and just as many failed concept implementations as anybody does. And they didn't have more money than God until long AFTER they developed their reputation for excellence. The big difference between them and hack developers - both large and small - is that if an aspect doesn't work, Blizzard kills it. And, more importantly, they kill it EARLY, instead of throwing millions of good dollars after hundreds of thousands of bad ones.
There's a lot that goes into making a game; I understand that even from a casual gamer viewpoint. The same challenges encountered there apply to many other large-scale projects outside the industry. Construction, for example. I'm not going to go into an analogy, but take a moment to think about all the comparable details.
From my perspective, I agree that money is a game-breaking factor in the MMO market. No money equals no (paid) development; hence we see games with holes in them released in order to try and collect enough subscribers to at least cover some of their losses. In light of this, I would think the next logical step would be how to partially or fully negate this financing burden. Is it possible? How? I'd like to see some research put into this, and will be happy to do it myself if I can.
Moving on, I'm beginning to wonder if the MMO industry is simply moving too fast. Has the industry had enough time to really get its feet on the ground, or are we going to see this trend of games reproducing the same effects until a "savior" comes around and gives everyone a new vision? As a believer in building strong foundations, I think that in a time of trouble we (and by "we" I mean players, developers and financial backers) need to step back and re-evaluate what we want, believe in, and what we could be capable of. Why not take the experience we've gained from games currently on the market and, instead of giving more of the same, learn from our predecessors and come up with something that can truly be called unique? By unique, I mean a game that not only includes re-considered mechanics from previous games, but explores new areas of what might be possible in an MMO, even if they aren't demanded by the market at the time. Is say this because not everyone knows what they want, what could be available to them, and what will make their experience in online games better.
Not all games are going to succeed. Many will fail, but I would like to see them start taking leaps of faith with designs and mechanics. I know there are examples out there, but I'm not going to compile a list. I ask you to think of experiences you've had from other games that you think stand out. I myself am trying to think of new things to do. I'm not a developer or producer, yet, but I am a gamer in the process of learning how to program and, at the same time, developing concepts and designs for my own games.
That being said, I know my comments are only opinions. I don't have hard evidence to support some of the subjects I'm talking about. In time I hope to remedy this, but for now I'm posting these things as food for thought.
The OP is nonsense. No publisher throws a giant pile of money at a developer, and then comes back four years later and tells them: "just release whatever you've got halfway done." Games are done in phases; and they have to get approved for continuation many times during the development cycle. The problem with 90% of the suckfests out there isn't that they just (oopsie!) came up a few dollars and a few months short at the very end. The problem is that the execs responsible for these games don't have the balls to pull the plug on a bad design EARLY! I don't even know what in the holy living Hell people are talking about when they say a lot of these games are "unfinished." Bullcrap. I know what bugs and glitches look like, and nine times out of ten, that ain't the problem. The problem is that twenty minutes into the demo I realize: Hey, this isn't any damned FUN. That's not something you can tack on at the end with patch; that has to be in the fundamental gameplay from very early alpha. If you spend another ten years and another ten million dollars polishing a turd, hey, guess what? It is never going to be anything but a really shiny turd. That's why Blizzard (at least from the outside looking in) seems to never fail. Of course it's not because they "don't have to worry about money." That's asinine. EVERYBODY has to worry about money. And people who have more of it have to worry about it that much more than everyone else. The reason Blizzard seems so infallible is because they prototype the heck out of their gameplay before they greenlight content development. When they have a base gameplay that works, THEN they can throw money at it like it's going out of style, because there is no real risk. Blizzard has just as many hopelessly wrong ideas and just as many failed concept implementations as anybody does. And they didn't have more money than God until long AFTER they developed their reputation for excellence. The big difference between them and hack developers - both large and small - is that if an aspect doesn't work, Blizzard kills it. And, more importantly, they kill it EARLY, instead of throwing millions of good dollars after hundreds of thousands of bad ones.
I heartily agree with you on many points in this, sir.
heres how i would invision my MMO (factor in im not a dev and this id just off the cuff, so i not working out the detales here)
decently large map with several climates temperate arctic tropical grassland desert coatal ect. a good mix of low lands mountains islands with lakes and rivers.
I would love to have both seasons and weather.
players would build a charactor primarily race and charactoristics or get a random selecton so they can be human elf dwarf goblin orc ect (presuming fantacy was the theme) would be skill based with focus modifications. charactors could take certin charactoristics or traits in exchange for other things like starting grar or knowlage.
players would start usually at the edge of a selected(or random) NPC/player village with a raged tunic and a few small posessions (depending on a few factors during charactor creation) they are a non class pesant like charactor (think of this as a kind of miniverse or tutorial stage) players would be given different opertunities to do chores and odd jobs for food shelter and equipment and also be exposed to different class focuses a player might have to scrounge for leftovers from a trashpile behind an inn or try to steal food or a coin purse without being cought by the local security and beaten uncontious and thrown in jail (which could very well be where you meed a thief class contact.)
merchants dont know you and have no real responce to you later they become familiar with you and love you hate you fear you ect
later players join one of the focuses which adjusts the cost of skills most likely there would be focuses for crafts also
players would be able to own a basic block of land after a certain level and they can purchass larger sectons ultimatly they could control a small kingdom if they wished.
merchants and auctions would be localized this allows for more "masters"
crafters would have basic formulas building subcomponents and assemblying them there are basic items and fancy items
basic items tend to all work similar based on a quality so 2 high quality daggers would do the exact same damage but fancy items are much more custom and take more time and advanced items and components are assembled a decent iron sword might be crafted in a few hours casual time,, but a high end fancy sword may take many days or weeks to complete.
I would have many different structures or components of structures bridges walls buildings towers roads mines ships. some taking many resources and crafts men to build.
cultures would be sharply different and guided by the players as much as possible such as politicol structure and religons
I would have a "GM" type of avatar that game masters could use to cause some unpredictability to the world storms earthquakes volcanos floods plague pestilance invasions and so forth not to grief the players but just to be able to make the world a bit unpredictable they could also play the role of gods droping a low level benefit or wrath depending on the faith and the circumstance.
mobs I would try to build them more naturalistic with different priorities like deer would be skittish and elusive a crock might try to turn your canoe over cave goblins might swarm you or cave in the celing or throw rocks at you. birds might dive at you and cattle might try to run you over and lets not forget ants and bees
while there might be chores and odd jobs and work available in villages (gather wood or toad eyes ect) many quests would have imbeded rewards like attacking and supressing bandits on the caravan roads leads to more and better goods (or simply stoping goblin raiders from stealing your corn!)
crafting: will be done in a way where its a base plus bonus theme my example is a crop a warmonger can drop a little seed and some water and furtilizer and head of to go adventure,, when he returns he will have a basic yeald from the crop,, while a player who tends and adjusts the field occasionally will get a higher yeald and/or better quality for the extra work.
players could own animals both farmyard and pets farmyard are tended for what they produce meat eggs skin milk wool fur ect pets have skill and proform some task be it be a guard dog or a bird that sings
lastly death: i like death to have meaning but not criplingly so first all players would have methods to change a mobs mine distract, fear, climb trees, bribe with food and if those dont work players have a faign death that they can attempt if the mob isnt too focused and mad they might be attracted to something else food or loot or simply wander off. players many times may just be injured and uncontious and be able to recover after a short time or be able to be draged and tended to by teammates, but not if they actually die like in a siege they would leave a certain amount of loot (not in the secure items bag) (this would have coding so that the non secure bag wont just have crap expendable stuff and would occasionally drop other random equipment) you would respoawn back at some remote rez point not the home village unless they were with a certain distance,, I would most likely have some form of skill deficit that they would need to address.
I like wounds and things so I would make charactors durable and fast healers but injurable they can also be sick or diseased or mentally attacked
i want players to feel emotion and care about the NPCs and players around them a player should be outraged if their village is attacked and pillaged (player houses would be damageable but for the most part secure unless located in unsecure wilderness areas.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
Comments
It's not meant to be taken literally. It means "give the customer what he wants, not what he needs, and do it with a smile on your face."
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
It's not meant to be taken literally. It means "give the customer what he wants, not what he needs, and do it with a smile on your face."
If you want to say "The customer is King" then say that. Don't say something else, and has a completely different meaning. A number of people take rules literally, especially those which leave no room for interpretation.
Your post is nothing but excuses to me. So you can't get all the funding you need? Welcome to the ranks of small business. You drop a couple extravagent salaries and come up with creative ways to make the money work. Startups don't do well when they want all the rewards from the very beginning, you have to SACRIFICE with a lower salary, longer working hours, perhaps pitching in as a group for bulk purchasing power for food, fuel, and other expenses. You'll get your reward when you've made a great mmo. Have the patience to reap the benefits of your work.
My favorite excuse is your justification of wow clones. Yes, you as a dev justified wow clones. Congratulations. Here's a nice little fact I brought up in another thread. Once a market becomes popular, other businesses quickly setup shop in that market until eventually profit = 0. At that point, competition is solely based on (in mmo terms) features, price, and service. All of a sudden that 7.5% shrinks to 0% and the .25% looks outstanding. The key to business is to setup profitable niches, and to retain control of those niches. The niches don't have to be small (take wow for example), they just need to be niches where you get in first, attract most of the market, and maintain your competitive position (which Blizzard does totally pro). Bottom line is you don't understand jack about economics and neither do your financial dumbasses who are chasing a piece of the pie that they'll only get a sliver from. This is why you devs fail over and over again.
Change the financing model. Tell your investors "after 5 years, we will pay you back your investment + X%. Now go away until that time." Have more and smaller investors. Overbudget your time and costs. If you think you can get your game fit for release in 4 years, then say it will take five. If you think it will cost 40 million, then say it will cost 50 million.
Hope for the best, and plan for the worst.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
And this will drive any potential investor away and no game will be made.
Investors will be confronted with a multitute of choices, and the return on the investment is the measuring stick. If you present them with 10% chance of 100 million payday (the wow-killer) vs 100% chance 1 million (the average MMO), ALL investors will choose the first option. As long as the first option has more than a 1% chance of happening it will be preferred.
The problem with MMO's is the success of WoW. Even though the probability of being the next WoW is very low, the payout IFF you are the WoW-killer is so high it pretty much trumphs all other investment choices.
This is false & has been for a long, long time.
And it is especialy false for mmos. There are so many people playing the game. A feature someone demands could be a gamebreaker for someone else.
Reading a lot of response by current/former game devs, it seems dev environments are not that great in the US, too.
When I interviewed for my dev job in Taiwan, the lead designer asked me what was my vision and what's my ambition in entering this industry.
My answer(and I think a lot of devs around the world have said the exact same stupid thing) was I wanted to build the next WoW. Well, as all of you could imagine, all of the interviewers almost laughed their pants off, and gave me a reality check.
"Son, if we had the guns and greens to make WoW class stuff, you wouldn't even had the chance to interview..."
And the truth is, the reality is much more disappointing than you could have of ever imagined. The original post said that an MMO project has 5yrs production time, but in Asia(well maybe crossing out NCsoft), the average produciton cycle is around 1~2yrs max. No company has the luxurious resources to support a project for more than 2yrs. It would mean serious cash flow problems once it passes the 2yr mark.
So, a lot of people say devs are nerdy guys who think they are god and don't know the crap about games isn't quite true(at least in Taiwan). Because the pay is awful, the work time is long and tedious, anyone that even considered jumping in the industry are either super game nerds or have huge passion for making games since their first experience of holding a game controller. And also, the work load of an MMO is massive, with a short leash on the timeframe, a lot of the pieces sometimes doesn't quite worked out than it should be. But by the time the problem submerges(most of the times, it doesn't occure until you place all the functions together), the deadline is always just around the corner. And as mentioned above, we don't have the greens to produce games for ten years and push back issuing dates as long as we want(yes I'm pointing at you StarCraft 2), so, the boss simply tells you if you don't make the deadline, than everyone can get their empty box for personal items at the HR dept. next Monday.
Devs wanting to make crappy games? Everyone always has a great and glamorous idea for their dream game, but the reality is when you want to do X you'll get a slap in the face and a reponse which pretty much sounds like "no can do, no time, not applicable, and not making money". But the boss always pats your head and say "when we do have the money, I will give you your dream game".
Finally, I would like to add some other dirt on the solutions issue to bugs or crappy mechanisms. It actually is more statistically based than you think.
1. the dev and publisher would address certain issues on consumer feedback of the game, and a list of complains will get laid out on the discussion table.
2.When considering to fix bugs or certain mechanisms, the boss always lets everyone think of resources. ex. you only got 4 programmers, 3 devs, 2 artist maintaining the MMO. The same work time you fix bug X or carppy mech Y, you could''ve develop a new mech or new function to the game. Now, here comes the tricky part, which decesions make more profit?
3.After the publisher present certain statistical numbers and in-game research data, the final decesion will be made. Keep in note that there are silent majorities in a MMO, sometimes the most vocal players on a forum actually just represent a small group of players when considering the overall subscribers*. So eventually the ones that make more money jumps to the first priority, end of discussion.
*AION makes a great reference for this statement. In Taiwan, the forums are always jam pack with endless strings of complains and heavy gunfire on AION. But it still manages to be the No.2 game, and actually the accounts that make most nasty posts are around 200, where comparing to it's 170,000 subsribers is just a pebble in the lake.
Each person can only
hold enough knowledge to add one small rung to the
ladder, but together we can climb to the moon.
Only for the gamblers. They are not even the majority of investors.
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Not true. Investors know high risk investments have a high risk of showing no return or even a loss. It's not the investors that decide this it's the CEOs of publishing houses. Their decisions are based on marketing trends and research. They know WoW sells. On the other hand they know there is a market for lower budget games with more modest returns on investment too. What they can't make is a game with a huge budget and modest returns expected which is what you see spoiled gamers screaming for on these forums every day. I'm sorry but the reality is if you want to play a niche MMOG you're going to have be less demanding and pay the same price or you're going to play WoW. That's all there is to it.
Having spent some time at an private equity company, I assure you that it is all we do. Calculate expected return on investments under different circumstances. In my overely simplified example above, game A would have an expected return of 100*0.1 + 0*0.9 = 10m while game B would be 1*1 = 1m. If game A costs 5m to develop the expected ROI would be 100%. If game B costs 800k to develop, the ROI would be 25%.
Since most (all?) MMO's are financed by investors and not banks, game A is chosen because the ROI tells you so. If you are in private equity you are rewarded for taking big risks and getting big returns, while making big losses mostly affects you indirectly (apart from the lack of that bonus..)
Nothing new, just a dev protecting his own.
Now that I remember the connection with Mythic, I want to ask Mr Webb what happened to Warhammer Online. Why does it suck?
"" Voice acting isn't an RPG element....it's just a production value." - grumpymel2
Just a couple things I wanted to point out...
In my own cynical way, I don't even think the following statement is true:
"MMO developers don't try to make bad games - it's in nobody's interest to do so."
I know I may be strecthing it, but have you ever seen the play/movie "The Producers" ?
I thought the following statement was an interesting take on things too.
"If every facet of the game is only 99% awesome, the awesomeness compounds (like interest) when you try to calculate how awesome the game is overall."
So lets say you pick 40 facets of a game and 10 are 100% perfect, and 30 are 99% perfect. If you stick with your theory of those things compounding to the game's overall "awesomeness", you get:
1^10 * 0.99 ^ 30 = .7397 = 74%
Yeah I'd say 74% (or much lower) is about the rating I'd give many of these so called "triple A" titles that have come out in the past couple years. Makes sense to me
Publishers acting like investors the same as general institutional investors, just that they are specified to a certain niche, i.e. books, music, games etc. All the calculation and decision making processes is identical.
As for risk: AAA Government bonds are the most secure, but has the lowest return (quite often negative real returns). Then follows high grade gvmt/muni bonds, investment grade corp bonds, banks, high yield gvmt/corp/muni bonds, stocks/funds, PE, derivatives, and so on. Investors who sacrifice return for stability will buy government bonds. If you have invested in i.e. a PE fund, you are expecting a higher return and a higher risk (higher risk = higher return). No investor will give money to something with an unknown risk profile, and this is on the first page on any investment prospect.
And I said my example was overly simplified as to prove the underlying point. It was not discounted, there were only two scenarios, no payback, IRR, VaR and all the other measures. It is merely an illustration of how investors think and not a complete example. And there is of course no direct causation between size of investment and return, but the point still stands: Smaller niche MMO's must cost less because the appeal to a smaller market segment, and will probably not bring in the big bucks, while taking a gamble on (yet) another AAA mass market MMO which are hugely expensive, but has the potential of being a mint, is worth a lot of investment dollars.
I agree,it is all about profit.I think there is these producers looking around all the time to see what gimmick and type of game will sell subs and not have to put much effort into it.
I have seen incredible glaring holes in games,no question the developer knows of these holes,so they are purposely leaving out needed content.There seems to be a ton of gamers that don't want to play a game,they just want a media platform to PVP,so developers are allowed to continue to churn out garbage because there is a large player base that will buy it up.
A lot of the problem is these are business people some are computer nerds,i don't believe these are true gamers that have a real feel for the gaming community.My guess is that a good quality game is going to run around 100 million,no way to get around it.If a few hi tech buddies got together to make their own game engine and do most of the work,it would take them forever,so by the time it is released you have a stale old looking game.This is why you need to buy all the people you can to make it happen.
Look at that guy making that game called LOVE,he is all proud of his work ,i am i guess as well as it is a monumental task for sure,but his end result will be of VERY low quality, so it just cannot be done.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
First, a gamer no need to know how to make a game to know whether its fun for them or not. Just like you no need to know how to build a car to know whether you like the car or not.
Second, FC and Mythic, Turbine etc... is not the first time they making a mmo. But what happen to them? They have no excuse.
As ive said before, why play a clone when i can play the original thing?
Failure of a mmo is the company fault, i dont care who and i will just vote with my wallet. There's forums for the devs to read, beta forums for feedback, failure of other games to warn them, tons of source for devs to see what is happening to their game from the beginning of production all the way to before release. Yet game after game they fall into the same mistake.
Just like what you said " All devs ( though i dont believe this part ) wants to produce great game", let me tell you something revolutionary, so does all the players that follows the particular game. They all want the best for the game.
But if the devs, or you can blame the publisher all you want, fail to see what players really want than they only have themselves to blame. They are responsible for suxky contents, early release ( before that x-pac is out), untrue hype, stupid excuse ( gold sellers) etc... And blame them we will for they create the game, not us.
Till the day they wake up and really count their cost before they start, this cycle will never end...
RIP Orc Choppa
Good article. It brings up some good thinking points on what has happened to the MMORPG market. The only other thing I would have liked to see was some ideas on how these companies, and we players, can break out of this self destructive cycle.
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to me, it never has anything to do with anything you wrote. it always boils down to an mmo forcing me to group to continue playing.
when i have to become a sheep to keep progressing, i quit and move on to different games.
THAT'S when MMO's suck, to me.
The OP nailed it on the head early in the article. Almost all software (not just games) is designed on incomplete requirements with no real scientific basis for the estimates used to calculate cost and delivery dates.
As the product moves through the development lifecycle (from Concept, through Initiation, Requirements and Design) the delivery dates and costs should be reassessed and reforcasted and new dates reset for delivery based on the greater clarity th project has in later phases.
I've always maintained you really can't set a reasonable delivery date for a software project until you are well into or almost complete with Development, and though my bosses disagree, they've never been right yet on their "estimates"
Yet, time and again, most software projects have their delivery date 'set' for them by outside agents. Doesn't matter if this doesn't happen right away (but I doubt many MMO's start Dev without a target delviery date in mind). As soon as this date is set, its pretty much the kiss of death for an MMORPG.
While other software products like the financial software I work on can be successfully delivered even if we decide to toss out functionality until a future release (our clients don't always agree with us btw), as mentioned by the OP, this is the deathknell of an MMO because the features are frequently the best ones, and in some cases have been promised to the fans.
Once you set a delivery date in advance, and work to it, you've doomed yourself to removing items from the scope, and this is a bad way to create an MMORPG.
It was mentioned that Blizzard will not deliver any game until its ready..... any wonder why most of their games are big financial successes then?
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Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
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"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
This is not the case... Games like AOC and WAR made alot of money through PRE-ORDERS that have absolutly nothing to do with the actual design or playability of the game. It all about PR. And atm this seems to be the biggest "new thing" with MMOs. Promise this and that and you get ppl to pre-order... Then when the game turns out to be total crap - then you put up a skeletal crew to keep it going for 1 - 2 years before you shut it down.
Profits and fun are in no way releated in MMOs.
That part isn't the companies fault to be honest. No one should ever preorder an MMO, ever. By doing so you are encouraging bad behaviour and putting yourself at risk of getting a game you won't be happy with. There is no need to preorder a game, you miss out on a couple "special" items that end up not mattering at all 99% of the time.
If I was running a company and thought that by using the right spin I could get a million preorders I would certainly do it. That is useful money that can be used for this or future products. But if I know that only a handful of players will actually preorder, then I need to put all my focus on a solid launch.
i would love to believe that only some of the title released over the past years have suffered the suck. and that i can blame the money men as you alluded to.
however, the suckiest games out there are the big triple A releases over the past several years. conan and lotr and warhammer make the top of my list of suck. wow is a non issue and i would love for 'wow-killer' to not be used anymore. its an mmo for nubs.
these are games that spent a ton of time in development and then were rushed to retail with only the briefest of beta periods and absolutely no understanding of what release day would do to their infrastructure. playtesting behind closed doors in controlled environments does not mean the game is playable. that is what makes the suck imo.
perhaps im wrong not to lay the blame squarely on the money men. after all, the rush to release would equate to a rush to get paid subscribers? and opening the item shop while a game is still in beta [speaking of f2p models now] would equate to the same thing. lets fleece our player base early and then not spend a dime on fixing anything. just extend "beta" lol. and dont get me started on "collectors editions". ill never buy another one after conan. no reason to spend 2x as much to find out a game sucks.
anyway, about the only thing i can say for certain is that there has not been an mmo that has kept my interest [and my money] in a really long time if ever. i love gaming and this is a sad state of affairs that i find myself playing single player [civ 4 and galactic civ 2 ult.] all the time instead of in an immersive, fun, and huge mmorpg with no micro trans bullshit and a reasonable monthly fee with responsible and attentive devs concerned with *sigh* fun and an understanding that solo rewards are just as important as raids. too much to ask, i know.
there are many reasons some game suck first I will say some people are looking for different things from games so I will just explain it from my perspective...
most MMOs today lack diversity,, they are narrow and shallow hack and slash they render out anything but arena combat, while combat is important to a game it should be part of a tapestry not the all mighty god.
there are different types of players that primarily favor one type of game play ofer others
WARMONGER out for the thrill of battle
ACHIEVER highest score, most medals #1
SOCIALIZER likes talking with ingame friends both about game stuff and other
EXPLORER loves to discover new places or understand how the game or the gameworld functons
BUILDER this player loves to change the world houses mountains mines temples dams ect a subset is crafter
ROLEPLAYER this person really wants to get into an alternate persona so the more different the races the better they prefer
PUZZLER this person likes riddles cyphers quandries misteries both physical and mental
im sure there are a couple im probably missing but these are most of the main ones I rend to be an explorer/builder
most games are simply not built well rounded, usually 80% of a game if not more is all about combat, even the economies are based on an economy of weapons and armor.
myself im more for a sandbox world immersion type of play some players thing wishing or farming or ranching is boring fluf but to me thats bread and butter (if its done right and avoids too much micro manage and grinding) graphics arnt all that important to me, i like having a certain level but thats a relativly low bar if the gameplay is top notch.
mob AI tend to be the same AI ive encountered for the last 20 years (percieve, advance,destroy) this is why raids are so distasteful to me just a room full of bigger rats i call it.
for me id love to run an inn but in MMOs there is no justification for an inn food and drink dont matter it doesnt matter wether you log/sleep in a warm bed or some mountain cliff,, charactors dont get cold and miserable or sick and that in my book is a crying shame and players miss out on a whole bucket of plot device let me give you a couple of examples
crossing a desert most MMO you just aim and go to me that is boring, but if you factor in water...
castle sieges having to build gear,, stock up supplies travel the distance..
famine your wheat crops this hear got flooded or blighted so very little bread what do you do?
disease the village NPCs have come down with something making them much less usefull do you find a cure?
magic has also been precanned I would like to see spells as well as combat manuvers constructed from subcomponents you want a long range fireball that does a small amount of damage? or a short range room burnner? green? blue? casters are able to research and craft their own customized spell.. same for manuvers figheters are able to construct their own favored combinations.
economy really must be a food/crafts based economy and different areas should have different types of resources that are valued in distant regons this creates trade pressure think silk trade or oranges iceburg lettuce snow peas opals teak I really hate generic evenly placed resource "nuggets" I love going out in the wild and looking around and finding cattails by a pond or an iron in a cliff face some places will have chalanges and advantages coastal will have more storms,, but have fish and clams,, deserts will be hot but might be windy or have jewel mines or glass sand,
im a huge fan of weather and climate also as long as its done right
most MMO are vastly incomplete from a universal view their are priests but they never have a temple or gain followers, there are soldiers but no sergents of the guard there are mages but no head masters players dont make a difference in most MMO a level 60 charactor can look back and they have nothing to show for their existance,, mobs respawn in a few minutes,, all they have to look foward to is the hell that is raiding (i dont get it,, they are allready 60 what do they need better gear for???)
and lastly expansions painfully end up being more hack and slash, more rooms with bigger monsters and bigger weapons and better armor,,, not better game play.
im thinking of leaving LOTRO because their last two expansions have been just that hack and slash junk. and ive been with them since beta because I thought they were different.
if you like some of the ideas ive sugested try wurm its a harsh begining and can be a bit grindy but its on a different path,, theres a free path.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.
The OP is nonsense. No publisher throws a giant pile of money at a developer, and then comes back four years later and tells them: "just release whatever you've got halfway done." Games are done in phases; and they have to get approved for continuation many times during the development cycle.
The problem with 90% of the suckfests out there isn't that they just (oopsie!) came up a few dollars and a few months short at the very end. The problem is that the execs responsible for these games don't have the balls to pull the plug on a bad design EARLY!
I don't even know what in the holy living Hell people are talking about when they say a lot of these games are "unfinished." Bullcrap. I know what bugs and glitches look like, and nine times out of ten, that ain't the problem. The problem is that twenty minutes into the demo I realize: Hey, this isn't any damned FUN. That's not something you can tack on at the end with patch; that has to be in the fundamental gameplay from very early alpha.
If you spend another ten years and another ten million dollars polishing a turd, hey, guess what? It is never going to be anything but a really shiny turd.
That's why Blizzard (at least from the outside looking in) seems to never fail. Of course it's not because they "don't have to worry about money." That's asinine. EVERYBODY has to worry about money. And people who have more of it have to worry about it that much more than everyone else.
The reason Blizzard seems so infallible is because they prototype the heck out of their gameplay before they greenlight content development. When they have a base gameplay that works, THEN they can throw money at it like it's going out of style, because there is no real risk.
Blizzard has just as many hopelessly wrong ideas and just as many failed concept implementations as anybody does. And they didn't have more money than God until long AFTER they developed their reputation for excellence. The big difference between them and hack developers - both large and small - is that if an aspect doesn't work, Blizzard kills it. And, more importantly, they kill it EARLY, instead of throwing millions of good dollars after hundreds of thousands of bad ones.
There's a lot that goes into making a game; I understand that even from a casual gamer viewpoint. The same challenges encountered there apply to many other large-scale projects outside the industry. Construction, for example. I'm not going to go into an analogy, but take a moment to think about all the comparable details.
From my perspective, I agree that money is a game-breaking factor in the MMO market. No money equals no (paid) development; hence we see games with holes in them released in order to try and collect enough subscribers to at least cover some of their losses. In light of this, I would think the next logical step would be how to partially or fully negate this financing burden. Is it possible? How? I'd like to see some research put into this, and will be happy to do it myself if I can.
Moving on, I'm beginning to wonder if the MMO industry is simply moving too fast. Has the industry had enough time to really get its feet on the ground, or are we going to see this trend of games reproducing the same effects until a "savior" comes around and gives everyone a new vision? As a believer in building strong foundations, I think that in a time of trouble we (and by "we" I mean players, developers and financial backers) need to step back and re-evaluate what we want, believe in, and what we could be capable of. Why not take the experience we've gained from games currently on the market and, instead of giving more of the same, learn from our predecessors and come up with something that can truly be called unique? By unique, I mean a game that not only includes re-considered mechanics from previous games, but explores new areas of what might be possible in an MMO, even if they aren't demanded by the market at the time. Is say this because not everyone knows what they want, what could be available to them, and what will make their experience in online games better.
Not all games are going to succeed. Many will fail, but I would like to see them start taking leaps of faith with designs and mechanics. I know there are examples out there, but I'm not going to compile a list. I ask you to think of experiences you've had from other games that you think stand out. I myself am trying to think of new things to do. I'm not a developer or producer, yet, but I am a gamer in the process of learning how to program and, at the same time, developing concepts and designs for my own games.
That being said, I know my comments are only opinions. I don't have hard evidence to support some of the subjects I'm talking about. In time I hope to remedy this, but for now I'm posting these things as food for thought.
I heartily agree with you on many points in this, sir.
heres how i would invision my MMO (factor in im not a dev and this id just off the cuff, so i not working out the detales here)
decently large map with several climates temperate arctic tropical grassland desert coatal ect. a good mix of low lands mountains islands with lakes and rivers.
I would love to have both seasons and weather.
players would build a charactor primarily race and charactoristics or get a random selecton so they can be human elf dwarf goblin orc ect (presuming fantacy was the theme) would be skill based with focus modifications. charactors could take certin charactoristics or traits in exchange for other things like starting grar or knowlage.
players would start usually at the edge of a selected(or random) NPC/player village with a raged tunic and a few small posessions (depending on a few factors during charactor creation) they are a non class pesant like charactor (think of this as a kind of miniverse or tutorial stage) players would be given different opertunities to do chores and odd jobs for food shelter and equipment and also be exposed to different class focuses a player might have to scrounge for leftovers from a trashpile behind an inn or try to steal food or a coin purse without being cought by the local security and beaten uncontious and thrown in jail (which could very well be where you meed a thief class contact.)
merchants dont know you and have no real responce to you later they become familiar with you and love you hate you fear you ect
later players join one of the focuses which adjusts the cost of skills most likely there would be focuses for crafts also
players would be able to own a basic block of land after a certain level and they can purchass larger sectons ultimatly they could control a small kingdom if they wished.
merchants and auctions would be localized this allows for more "masters"
crafters would have basic formulas building subcomponents and assemblying them there are basic items and fancy items
basic items tend to all work similar based on a quality so 2 high quality daggers would do the exact same damage but fancy items are much more custom and take more time and advanced items and components are assembled a decent iron sword might be crafted in a few hours casual time,, but a high end fancy sword may take many days or weeks to complete.
I would have many different structures or components of structures bridges walls buildings towers roads mines ships. some taking many resources and crafts men to build.
cultures would be sharply different and guided by the players as much as possible such as politicol structure and religons
I would have a "GM" type of avatar that game masters could use to cause some unpredictability to the world storms earthquakes volcanos floods plague pestilance invasions and so forth not to grief the players but just to be able to make the world a bit unpredictable they could also play the role of gods droping a low level benefit or wrath depending on the faith and the circumstance.
mobs I would try to build them more naturalistic with different priorities like deer would be skittish and elusive a crock might try to turn your canoe over cave goblins might swarm you or cave in the celing or throw rocks at you. birds might dive at you and cattle might try to run you over and lets not forget ants and bees
while there might be chores and odd jobs and work available in villages (gather wood or toad eyes ect) many quests would have imbeded rewards like attacking and supressing bandits on the caravan roads leads to more and better goods (or simply stoping goblin raiders from stealing your corn!)
crafting: will be done in a way where its a base plus bonus theme my example is a crop a warmonger can drop a little seed and some water and furtilizer and head of to go adventure,, when he returns he will have a basic yeald from the crop,, while a player who tends and adjusts the field occasionally will get a higher yeald and/or better quality for the extra work.
players could own animals both farmyard and pets farmyard are tended for what they produce meat eggs skin milk wool fur ect pets have skill and proform some task be it be a guard dog or a bird that sings
lastly death: i like death to have meaning but not criplingly so first all players would have methods to change a mobs mine distract, fear, climb trees, bribe with food and if those dont work players have a faign death that they can attempt if the mob isnt too focused and mad they might be attracted to something else food or loot or simply wander off. players many times may just be injured and uncontious and be able to recover after a short time or be able to be draged and tended to by teammates, but not if they actually die like in a siege they would leave a certain amount of loot (not in the secure items bag) (this would have coding so that the non secure bag wont just have crap expendable stuff and would occasionally drop other random equipment) you would respoawn back at some remote rez point not the home village unless they were with a certain distance,, I would most likely have some form of skill deficit that they would need to address.
I like wounds and things so I would make charactors durable and fast healers but injurable they can also be sick or diseased or mentally attacked
i want players to feel emotion and care about the NPCs and players around them a player should be outraged if their village is attacked and pillaged (player houses would be damageable but for the most part secure unless located in unsecure wilderness areas.
make a world, not a game, we dont want another game.