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The only way to get the MMORPG genre to evolve is to make the playerbase bigger.
Ramonski7
Member UncommonPosts: 2,662
Often I see people voice a negative opinion about bringing fresh blood into this genre. And to be quite honest, it's that type of bass ackwards thinking that will sink this genre if some of you jaded MMOers don't wake up. In order of the genre to evolve it has to reach beyond your blessings, your approval, your opinion or your loyalty. And since playing video games is a hobby, some of you have to let go of the feeling that it must remain true to it's roots in order to survive.
Think about it. Name five things that you enjoy and I'll bet someone can come up with something in the same category that you do not share taste with. For example:
- Comics
- Movies
- Music
- Food
- Clothes
Personally, I may love to read Valiant's X-O Man of War, but many others would have a different opinion. Now they may have seen it in the store once or twice or even tried to read a book or two from Valiant and didn't like the style. But what would be really odd is if someone who didn't like it spend time debunking why Valiant comics sucked and how they don't belong in the comic genre because they don't happen to like it. I'd look at him like he was straight up retarded.
But the thing is that Valiant wouldn't have gotten back in the comic business if they didn't see that cash that Marvel, DC and Image were bringing in. And even though I didn't read every comic, I knew there were some that I just didn't like. It never urged me to take up arms at my local comic book store to make room for more Valiant comics simply because I personally enjoyed them more. And if someone said to me that they liked a different comics I'd probably just nod my head and say: "Yeah? Well that's cool." And move on.
That industry had to grow beyond the grasp of my limited scope of things in order to make room for others to sprout. And now if I go into a comic book store I'm sure I'd be overwhelmed by the sheer amount of variety. I'm sure there would be more foreign comics, more mature ones, more hardbacks, graphic novels and artist than I'd ever imagine. But if you continue to belittle every single thing that showed up in the store to the owner (like this website), he will think twice before taking a chance on trying out a independent or up and coming artist by making room on the shelf.
I'm just saying, if you keep shunning every freakin thing that comes out the pipline by thinking it has to cater to you, then eventually the owner of the store will have to close up shop, because he can't honestly make a living off your limited business alone.....
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Comments
If you want the playerbase bigger then perhaps you can tell devlopers to start making polished fun mmos at launch.
sorry but MMORPGs suck because the companies are trying to make the player base bigger... which make the games suck because they try to please everyone.
Well that's your opinion of what needs to happen but honestly it has to move beyond what you think, that's the whole point. Joe Schmoo may love a game that he sees down the pipeline, but does he have to look for things he may not even notice with his untrained eye (unlike the one you obviously posses).
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
Well that's your opinion of what needs to happen but honestly it has to move beyond what you think, that's the whole point. Joe Schmoo may love a game that he sees down the pipeline, but does he have to look for things he may not even notice with his untrained eye (unlike the one you obviously posses).
Well the last time I checked the only purpose players buy mmos is to play the game and play good games too. You can toss me all the comic books, shirts and any materialistic things they want but the bottom line is like many others, we want to play good mmos!
I like to visit McDonalds and other Fast Food "Restaurants" from time to time. But luckily I am not forced to only eat fast food. Luckily there are other restaurants too that might cater to people that want to taste something else. And due to different reasons (e.g. quality of ingredients, availability of certain ingredients, prices of ingredients, efforts of food preparation, etc.) smaller restaurants cannot cater to the large numbers of customers like the big chains do.
Maybe another example might put it more clearly. Let's stay with the food example. Take ingredients for example, e.g. vanilla. Vanilla is a natural product. It's not available in the large numbers that customers would wish. Some people found a solution, though. They invented an artificial flavor that is not the same as true vanilla, but comes close to it. The artificial flavor can be produced in bigger numbers and your are not bound to the natural cycle. The artificial flavor is now significantly cheaper than the real vanilla. Lots of companies (e.g. groceries, bakeries, etc.) have changed to the artificial flavor to be able to produce their products cheaper and in larger quantities. Some companies tell their customers the truth about their product and the used ingredients, others just hide it with new word creations.
well I have two arguments to make here. The first about your reasoning. These kind of "My thing is better than your thing" arguments happen for a bunch of different reasons on the internet. Anonymity is a big part of it. You are more likely to tell a block of text that it's stupid and wrong than you are an actual person. This is only fueled by our innate responsibility to tackle things ourselves and save what we love. This is a market-based genre and games that don't attract more people die. If you love game X but person Y is trying to dissuade people from joining by voicing his/her opinions that are negative about game X, you then begin to worry for the integrity of the game you love. Then you bash on person Y (hopefully at least with credible arguments) to prevent this from happening. It's that simple(?).
My second argument is that attracting more people would only drive away people who are currently playing and drive them to consol-based or even other kinds of games. Then these would become popular and the cycle would start again. This is because when anything becomes popular it starts to change to suit it's new audience (WoW, unfortunately, is a good example of this) and then the people who loved the game (or genre in this case) start to leave because it is no longer made for them, but something made for the public in general. And thus is the cycle of life.
No the MMORPGs that are coming out suck because YOU think they suck. Not because devs are saying: "Hey! I have an idea! Let's make a suck ass game that EVERYONE can play!". No, that wouldn't make sense. Trying to cater to someone not like you doesn't magically qualify something as sucking nor does it hurt to expand the playerbase.
You both have half of it right I think.
Are older MMOers jadded with out a doubt, do they expect much more from MMOs than the avrage I think so, are they wrong no. are you wrong no. Fact of the matter is the genre is growing, no 1 title no one type of title will appeal to every one there is more than engouh room in the current playerbase to please the old school, the new guys, the theam park, the hard core, the casual, etc. with there own games however the past several MMOs out the door seem to have been done in such a manner as to try and apeal to the whole gambit of MMOers each and every one I can think of has had several features I liked several I didn't and more than a few that I hated and subsaquently killed the game for me MMO developers need to stop trying to hit the whole damn MMORPG player base and aim at a subset just like FPS, RPG, RTS, etc does lets look at RPGs. does ever RPG player love Final Fantasy, no not by a long shot the turn based linear story driven RPG is not for every one how about the open sandbox style of The Elder Scrolls every one love that? should all RPGs be TES clones? again no. My point here is that the player base has grown and it is a good thing but if the major devs dont figuer out that now is the time to focus your target auidance then we are going to continue to see failuer after failuer role out the door. every major game out the door since WoW has failed because (I think) every one has tryed to aim at the who player base while that worked for WoW who came in at just the right time for such a move it will never work again. Just as you said in your post people have diffrent tastes the devs do not seem to get that atm.
We are at a point where we could see some true advancment in the MMO genre; a point in time where devs could build games focusing on a given playstyle to the extream and turn enough profit to warent coninued development but it will requier a developer to take the rubberband of there jewles break away from the heard and make a game focused on a particualr group stop trying to give every one 60% of what they want and give some one 90%+ of what they want there are enough players out there to be profitable without having to have every single MMOer playing your game and we are seeing a few titles out that do just that unfortunetly for me none that aim at my sub group recently but never the less. The recent battery of games have for the most part tryed to hit too broad a market imo and that is why they suck (yes they have spefic issues (techinical, balance, etc) but issues that I dont think would have exsisted if they had focused on a tighter target).
What I would like to see from the MMO genre over the next year is some focus, give us a new theam park casual quest driven game (Blizzard is working on somthing) we also need a group based traditional high fantasy, a hardcore sandbox and we could use some new as well open world gothic/dark fantasy? there is more than enough room in the market for all of the above assuming each aims specifcly at its respective playstyle not to metion all the sub genres I didnt metion, future, comic, real world, post apocoliptic, etc. if each held 500k it would be profitable, given the fact that they are focused I would expect maintance and continued development to be abit easier and I would expect retention to be a bit higher so its not a stretch to think you could have 5+ new MMOs each targeting a diffrent group each with 2mil or so subs stable with a 3-5 year retention Im getting thouse numbers mostly out my back side Im assuming we have a good 14+ mill MMOers in the US market prolly more not sure (based on fuzzy recolection of various subscription numbers for the major games and guessing on the lesser know games) assuming 4-5mill will stay where they are atm and that the player base grows by a small % each year
Sorry for the misspelling that I know must be in there but its late for me
Comic fansites exist which bash most comics. I don't know this for sure, but I've been around long enough to know that's just how fan sites and forums work. If there's discussion, there's complaints of the bad parts of products.
Fansites with forums are perfectly functional. They give people a place to talk about their hobby. They're fun and worth visiting. But they have no bearing on what products a store chooses to carry.
That said, I agree that a larger playerbase can only benefit MMORPGs as a genre. But in many ways it already has and does, so I'm not sure how much this point needs to be reinforced to the community.
The same minority of grognards (as has always existed in gaming) still exists, and still vocally asks that games be made as complicated as possible (often for little purpose other than complication.) This minority will perpetuate always, and nothing is going to convince them their ideas aren't good for gaming as whole -- although some of them can be brought to see the true essence of good game design (minimizing complexity while maximizing game depth,) which is exactly the sort of accessible, fun, deep gameplay MMORPGs need to have to continue moving forward.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Exactly! If we are to see more chances being taken then the base of players has to grow bigger. One breakout title cannot carry the weight of the entire genre alone. It needs more players involved to turn even more heads in this direction. Like you said though a lot of iron age MMOers (In my opinion this is what we are in now: The Iron Age) are perfectly happy with a handful of MMOs in the pipeline, with even fewer variety between them (fantasy or Sci-Fi). But eventually we will start to get more horror MMOs, more sport MMOs, more IP MMOs or even some genre bending MMOs. Some of us just need to let go the dream for now and hope it comes full circle.
"Small minds talk about people, average minds talk about events, great minds talk about ideas."
You've got a perfectly valid point. What you fail to mention (or perhaps notice) is that the general modern (post-wow) mmo is usually wow in a different skin, and usually unpolished. To put it in your analogy, It's like you're seeing multiple new comics called something similiar to x-dude that's just like x-men except with different character names and subpar artwork. Would that be any more acceptable to the comic community as modern mmos are to the mmo industry? Your analogy and the basis for your post assumes that new mmos are simply variations in the genre, just trying different ways of presenting mmos, but that's not true at all.
Just because you guys don't see it does not mean genre is not evolving
-Borderlands
-Mag
-Shooters with Rpg elements and classes
-Fighting games with Rpg elements and class systems
-Rpg games like dragon age and mass effect that act like offline mmo
-The add of online elements to many offline game
The Next big MMO might not pure RPG,The next big MMO might be FPS with rpg elements.After playing Mass effect and watching the clips of Mass effect 2.I am sure the future is game like that and not WoW clones.You can see influence of MMO spreading to other genre
Simply put WoW is good,Gears of Wars is good imagine what happens when somebody makes a shooter good enough attract the FPS junkies and RPG good enough attract Role playing guys?Between Borderlands and Mass effect they are getting pretty close
WoW made the playerbase bigger, and the genre has stagnated(AAA titles/mechanics wise) ever since.
Bigger does not always equal better.
The genre was better served when it was smaller and more accepting, and devs could easily cater to a niche audience without being rabidly attacked for their game not being in the flavor of the masses.
Einherjar_LC says: WTB the true successor to UO or Asheron's Call pst!
Confusion time.
How are Dragon Age and Mass Effect "like offline MMOs" .. ?
I've played both through several times and consider both to be excellent RPGs, but there's absolutely nothing "MMO" about them. They're not in the least bit multiplayer.
Playing: EVE, Final Fantasy 13, Uncharted 2, Need for Speed: Shift
Perfectly said and agree completely.
the only thing being shunned right now are hard game!is it wrong to ask game maker to keep making hard games?
we re not against dumbing down game ,we are again the fact that the hard game arent avail anymore or very few have it
hell when you have to go back to everquest to have have a small challenging fun .its scary.
most grudge is because of the fact its one or the other .
why not do both 1 server hard one server easy.and i dont mean like wow did i mean thinking game
check everquest first time your in you have to use you brain to do anything.hell wow wasnt a brainiac game like everquest
i dont say do them all hard or do them all easy im saying do both and let us have the choice.
Confusion time.
How are Dragon Age and Mass Effect "like offline MMOs" .. ?
I've played both through several times and consider both to be excellent RPGs, but there's absolutely nothing "MMO" about them. They're not in the least bit multiplayer.
I meant you can see elements of a mmoprg in them not they simulate the mmorpg act.
Confusion time.
How are Dragon Age and Mass Effect "like offline MMOs" .. ?
I've played both through several times and consider both to be excellent RPGs, but there's absolutely nothing "MMO" about them. They're not in the least bit multiplayer.
I meant you can see elements of a mmoprg in them not they simulate the mmorpg act.
I have to agree with Luckturtz, Dragon Age is a great game and has nothing to do with the MMO genre if you are refering to the control setup, that is not from MMOs but is common in gaming period, if you are refering to the leveling system and equipment trees again predated MMOs its an RPG and/or Adventure thing if you are refering to the questing/story arch then you are a mile off Dragon Age is highly leniar and scripted where to central story revoloves completly around the main player which is contradictory to an MMO and before you say GW did that remimber that GW is not an MMO great game not an MMO.
As to your point I think you have it backwards, MMORPG takes all of its queues from RPG and Adventrue (and other sources I am sure) the RPG genre for exmple is light years beyond anything seen in a MMO in terms of gameplay mechanics (and other areas) not to say I dont like MMO I do I love the social game but teh MMO genre is the youngest least developed genre of gaming I can think of hell we only have 10+ years or so of true MMOs other genre have single stand alone franchises that are older than that by far. We are a long way from an MMO_RPG leading the RPG genre in a new direction but we are getting closer and yes there are other MMO sub genres they are not all RPGs in fact at curent I would say most are not RPG most are Adventure i.e. WoW is not an RPG (to me) we have several fairly fun MMORTS and a few MMOFPS if I recall though none come close to what the standalone flavos of thouse genre are so they have baiscly no cred beyond the generaly MMO gamer.
What we need now that we have a worth while player base (i.e. though we are still sorta nitch we are big enough to warent teh level of attention that our traditional brothers (RPG, FPS, RTS, etc) get or at least close) is for the MMO developers to step up and give us an RPG that is on par in terms of quality with Dragon Age, The Elder Scrolls, etc. as an MMO or an RTS on par with Command and Conquer, Starcraft , <enter other epic RTS game here> as an MMO and so on beyond on that the MMO genre is more of a supper genre (dumnb term I know) in that not all MMO__s are created equal and we have the player base atm I think for several flavors of each sub genre (theam park, sand box, casual, easy button, etc) all of which are valid game types all of which are fun.
I say we have the player side up and ready there are more than enogh of us ready to pay good hard money and subs for good games what we lack are the developers, teh pure trash that has come out the door as of late is a sorry excuse for a game <period> not worth the $60 + $10-$15 a month they are asking.