You seem to be in denial about how large a force the term sandbox is in the gaming industry as a whole. AoC and WAR designers were incapable of actually saying sandbox, but they filled our minds with images of massive worlds with an ability to explore and find things other player's hadn't. The ability to go to any mountain top and explore anything we see. The reason their subscriptions bailed so quickly was because the game DID NOT HAVE THESE THINGS.
You think bailed people Aoc and War because they are not "sandboxes".You actually think 700,000 plus people where tricked into thinking that Aoc and War where sandboxes then quit once they realize once where not.No Aoc and War failed because they where rushed out before they where finished and where never able to fix problems before customers left.If they waited and released more polished game like Aion the would probably have similar retention rate.
I am not bashing EvE is freak of nature like WoW but it is stupid call EvE the second biggest MMO after WoW with Aion,Lineage 2,Final fantasy XI,and Dofus,Runes of magic,Perfect World from the free to play realm. Aion had F'in 400,000 pre orders in NA.
My point is not going to go way no "sandbox" has ever top 300,000 other than EvE.Multiple "themepark" games have cross the 500,000 easy mark.
Once again i love a good sandbox game but reality is the masses prefer themeparks So the devs have and will make themepark,I think hybrid type sandbox like Oblivion which had a themepark inside of the sandbox could break through and do huge numbers.I love third person shooters but just like sandboxes they will probably never be the most popular form in their genre.How long before sandbox players get their "Gear of War"?Who knows but even when that happens their is not going to be out break those type of games.
You think bailed people Aoc and War because they are not "sandboxes".You actually think 700,000 plus people where tricked into thinking that Aoc and War where sandboxes then quit once they realize once where not.No Aoc and War failed because they where rushed out before they where finished and where never able to fix problems before customers left.If they waited and released more polished game like Aion the would probably have similar retention rate. I am not bashing EvE is freak of nature like WoW but it is stupid call EvE the second biggest MMO after WoW with Aion,Lineage 2,Final fantasy XI,and Dofus,Runes of magic,Perfect World from the free to play realm. Aion had F'in 400,000 pre orders in NA. My point is not going to go way no "sandbox" has ever top 300,000 other than EvE.Multiple "themepark" games have cross the 500,000 easy mark. Once again i love a good sandbox game but reality is the masses prefer themeparks So the devs have and will make themepark,I think hybrid type sandbox like Oblivion which had a themepark inside of the sandbox could break through and do huge numbers.I love third person shooters but just like sandboxes they will probably never be the most popular form in their genre.How long before sandbox players get their "Gear of War"?Who knows but even when that happens their is not going to be out break those type of games.
No, you eejit, I'm saying that a large explorable changeable world is what a sandbox is, and AoC and WAR - whilst not using the term sandbox - attempted to utilise the imagery that is involved in sandbox development. And, yes, this was one of the major things that killed WAR and AoC off. There were a lot of game breaking bugs, but nothing is as damaging to a game as game ruining MECHANICS.
HI RUNESCAPE FOR GOD'S SAKE. 1.25 million subscribers. Not 1.25 million game time cards bought per year, not 1.25 million accounts, 1.25 million subscribers.
You mean all those Asian games with no real reliable subscription numbers? Hell, Aion doesn't have anywhere near 3.5 million players, it's 1.5 million AT MOST. Any figures you see about Aion are fabrications.
Every post you've made in this thread demonstrates the depths of your ignorance when it comes to niche markets, advertising and, most importantly, WHAT PLAYER's WANT. People complain that WoW has lost the feeling it had in vanilla, a feeling of exploration and enjoyment in the world ( http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/1m-12m.png ), we can see from that that WoW gained 8 million subscribers upto TBC, and that has had a much slower growth since - which implies a considerably lower retention rate than earlier. I'd suspect a great deal of those subscribers shouldn't even be counted, as ( as I've said before ) Asian companies just piss about with figures and make crap up to sell their games better.
Philosophy I think it were Interplay that had the "By gamers, for gamers" slogan. Today it seems the whole industrys slogan is "By money, for money".
Indie Its sad that alot of people associate "indie" and 3rd-party, with crap. Some people have created games and software that are as good, or better than the "pros". And, they did it without a budget.
Bling Bling! I feel sorry for people that play games "becouse the graphics are stunning". Might as well see a movie then. Or a tv series, it last longer. Arguing that this is what the majority want is a half-truth at best. What most people want is to be entertained.
Heres an analogy. A 60" tv with no channels. Its big, its fancy, does it entertain you? No. Or maybe you do get to have one channel, and it only shows the same re-run..
Sandbox, spade, toy car and.. I think the sandbox idea is great, but i think well have to settle for multiple choices. Hopefully alot of different choices. Not a linear game dressed in drag. The only unknown factor in games are the players. Not the world. Rely on the players to create diversity. Within the technological limits.
Choice As "consumers" we can ether buy the games someone make, or not. The third choice is to make something ourselves.
There are tools thats free. Alot of people have time, enough to write on forums and talk/complain about stuff.
"By the community, for the community" You may laugh at that idea, on youre couch, complaining about youre games..
"I'd just like to see more games that focus on the world, and giving the people in it more of a role, im tired of these constant single player games that you can walk around with millions of people."
The trouble is the players. Its very difficult for developers to figure out what it is that we want, because in truth, we all want different things. How should they determine what it is that we want?
Listen to the people in these forums? I doubt anyone thinks that's a great idea. Do market surveys? Have you ever gotten a phone call asking you about your MMORPG preferences? I haven't.
We can all agree its a pretty challenging task, and so they tend to look at what has been successful in the marketplace, and that clearly has been one game, WOW.
So they decide (wrongly so far) that the best approach is to try to either out-WOW Blizzard, or, try to carve off a perceived portion of the WOW player base (because even a slice would be greater than most other games) by creating WOW with a few subtle variations.
Now we'll never know if this was a good idea or not, because for the most part, most of them released incomplete, being very buggy, missing promised functionality which definitely drove away large portions of the player base, regardless of the actual gameplay.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
You are unfair, they work hard to trick as many people as possible to give them 15 bucks every month.
For many developers is this indeed there main goal not make a good name how to get 15bucks from every sub as long as posible.
So build up hype advertise as much as they can people well main mass follow hype and they know it they dont need to make a good game just alot of hype and mass buy it:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009..... In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
i dont think you are accurate!for one reason .did you ever see a f2p game release their number of player when wow release
11 million is a numebr Blizzard released. It is an old number, now, and was beneficial for them to announce it. Most of the numbers are estimates so its never 100% accurate. At one time, Blizzard even released the number of unique subscriptions they EVER had, including subs that were no longer paid and active.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
11 million is a numebr Blizzard released. It is an old number, now, and was beneficial for them to announce it. Most of the numbers are estimates so its never 100% accurate. At one time, Blizzard even released the number of unique subscriptions they EVER had, including subs that were no longer paid and active.
11 million is a numebr Blizzard released. It is an old number, now, and was beneficial for them to announce it. Most of the numbers are estimates so its never 100% accurate. At one time, Blizzard even released the number of unique subscriptions they EVER had, including subs that were no longer paid and active.
When?
Well there are a couple of issues with their numbers, most of them dealing with the Asia markets which don't subscribe in the same the other players do. So while they account for maybe 50% of the subscribers they only account for 6% of the revenue. So if you are in china and you go to a internet game room and log in once every thirty days and you pay less than a dollar to play a few hours of WoW, are you really a subscriber in the sense of the word that is generally understood by the the general public. It's a completely different pricing model all together to month subscription at all.
An example would be a newspaper subscriber who pays the publisher to deliver the newspaper to their house x amount of days for an y amount of time compared to a person who actually walks down the newstand and buys a paper every sunday. One is a subscriber; one is not. They both read the paper. Another example could be prepaid phones vs monthly phones. Yes, they both have service from the same company but one is a subscriber and the other one pays at they go, maybe even as little as a 1.00 a month keep the number active. Any company wanting real statistics would not count someone who pays a dollar a month to make one phone call as the same weight as the a person who pays 50 dollars a month.
WoW also has a serious problem with gold spammers and hackers, so if I am in China, i go and pay my fee to access this game and get banned, am I counted? I think they are, because even according to their 11.5 mil press release, it just needed to be a legit account within a 30 day period.
So basically pretty much all issues questioning WoW's numbers revolve the way they handle their business in China which caccounts for, like I said about half estimated 5.5 million of those 11.5 million accounts.
This, by the way, isn't an opinion about the quality or lack of quality of the game, or a challenge that they are the largest because clearly they are. This is simply a case where 1 on one side of the ocean doesn't match 1 on the other side of the ocean and anyone who works with actual numbers would never do that, but the marketing team certainly would.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
You think bailed people Aoc and War because they are not "sandboxes".You actually think 700,000 plus people where tricked into thinking that Aoc and War where sandboxes then quit once they realize once where not.No Aoc and War failed because they where rushed out before they where finished and where never able to fix problems before customers left.If they waited and released more polished game like Aion the would probably have similar retention rate. I am not bashing EvE is freak of nature like WoW but it is stupid call EvE the second biggest MMO after WoW with Aion,Lineage 2,Final fantasy XI,and Dofus,Runes of magic,Perfect World from the free to play realm. Aion had F'in 400,000 pre orders in NA. My point is not going to go way no "sandbox" has ever top 300,000 other than EvE.Multiple "themepark" games have cross the 500,000 easy mark. Once again i love a good sandbox game but reality is the masses prefer themeparks So the devs have and will make themepark,I think hybrid type sandbox like Oblivion which had a themepark inside of the sandbox could break through and do huge numbers.I love third person shooters but just like sandboxes they will probably never be the most popular form in their genre.How long before sandbox players get their "Gear of War"?Who knows but even when that happens their is not going to be out break those type of games.
No, you eejit, I'm saying that a large explorable changeable world is what a sandbox is, and AoC and WAR - whilst not using the term sandbox - attempted to utilise the imagery that is involved in sandbox development. And, yes, this was one of the major things that killed WAR and AoC off. There were a lot of game breaking bugs, but nothing is as damaging to a game as game ruining MECHANICS.
HI RUNESCAPE FOR GOD'S SAKE. 1.25 million subscribers. Not 1.25 million game time cards bought per year, not 1.25 million accounts, 1.25 million subscribers.
You mean all those Asian games with no real reliable subscription numbers? Hell, Aion doesn't have anywhere near 3.5 million players, it's 1.5 million AT MOST. Any figures you see about Aion are fabrications.
Every post you've made in this thread demonstrates the depths of your ignorance when it comes to niche markets, advertising and, most importantly, WHAT PLAYER's WANT. People complain that WoW has lost the feeling it had in vanilla, a feeling of exploration and enjoyment in the world ( http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/1m-12m.png ), we can see from that that WoW gained 8 million subscribers upto TBC, and that has had a much slower growth since - which implies a considerably lower retention rate than earlier. I'd suspect a great deal of those subscribers shouldn't even be counted, as ( as I've said before ) Asian companies just piss about with figures and make crap up to sell their games better.
asian game sell more in those area because there is more people !thats it nothing more nothing less
and with their mmo maker like perfect world and countless other making huge pile of money
they have the ressource now to be better then anything AAA mmo maker have to offer!
and thats not all soon pw and countless other asian mmo game engine maker will sell those engine here too!whyÉ
bercause the industry here cannot do what asian do for the same price
asian see a new techno on microsoft engineer & research website ,they take the phone call ms receive course on that techno pay ms then they turn around and apply that to their engine .etc thats how they are they like a nice gamble it doesnt always work out,but it make them evolve way faster then the average mmo engine maker.like i say within 5 years most mmo engine will be sold by asia or india !
i saw the new system the gamer and dev. use there and NOW most use the same techno as us (ok they use nvidia since its cheaper for them)
Well there are a couple of issues with their numbers, most of them dealing with the Asia markets which don't subscribe in the same the other players do. So while they account for maybe 50% of the subscribers they only account for 6% of the revenue. So if you are in china and you go to a internet game room and log in once every thirty days and you pay less than a dollar to play a few hours of WoW, are you really a subscriber in the sense of the word that is generally understood by the the general public. It's a completely different pricing model all together to month subscription at all. An example would be a newspaper subscriber who pays the publisher to deliver the newspaper to their house x amount of days for an y amount of time compared to a person who actually walks down the newstand and buys a paper every sunday. One is a subscriber; one is not. They both read the paper. Another example could be prepaid phones vs monthly phones. Yes, they both have service from the same company but one is a subscriber and the other one pays at they go, maybe even as little as a 1.00 a month keep the number active. Any company wanting real statistics would not count someone who pays a dollar a month to make one phone call as the same weight as the a person who pays 50 dollars a month. WoW also has a serious problem with gold spammers and hackers, so if I am in China, i go and pay my fee to access this game and get banned, am I counted? I think they are, because even according to their 11.5 mil press release, it just needed to be a legit account within a 30 day period. So basically pretty much all issues questioning WoW's numbers revolve the way they handle their business in China which caccounts for, like I said about half estimated 5.5 million of those 11.5 million accounts. This, by the way, isn't an opinion about the quality or lack of quality of the game, or a challenge that they are the largest because clearly they are. This is simply a case where 1 on one side of the ocean doesn't match 1 on the other side of the ocean and anyone who works with actual numbers would never do that, but the marketing team certainly would. http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24657 http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=2943#93692
Ah, yeah, that was what I was talking about earlier.
DrBaltazar, I'd reply, but I honestly have no clue.
They know that gamers today go through games like a fat kid goes through fried chicken, so they are creating 'throw-away' games that are content lite at launch because they know that gamers are so desperate to play something new that they will fork over cash to play a piece of crap, even moreso if a popular IP is attached to the game, and will usually make back their development costs and then some just from initial box sales alone.
As long as we continue to support this trend of funding underdeveloped games, especially from the larger development companies, we get what we deserve.
To start i don' believe in the term "Sandbox" it is way over used and not even used correctly,because here is no such thing as a sandbox game out there,they do not exist.
What is worse is that the closer a developer tries to get to being a Sandbox,it just means they don't have to create any content,after all the meaning of Sandbox is that players create the content,and this is 100% IMPOSSIBLE unless servers are player run allowing for the content they want to run and tools are needed for players to actually create the content.
As is what we have is nothing more than games with pre -scripted content,that a player cannot manipulate in way what so ever and games are leaning more and more to less content.
Removing class,removing PVE content,is nothing more than an empty shell with no content,and this is what developers are trying to pull off.PVP content is SUPER easy to design,it takes no effort,because PVP is just players killing each other,so they spend all their time trying to please players for balance,VERY weak design.
If you want a Sandbox type game,then you need something like NWN or UT games that offer players the tools to create content,then there is no way on earth for a developer server to hold all the content,so you need player run servers.Well with player run servers,the developer gets no 15 bucks a month lol,no way they are going to do that.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
To start i don' believe in the term "Sandbox" it is way over used and not even used correctly,because here is no such thing as a sandbox game out there,they do not exist. What is worse is that the closer a developer tries to get to being a Sandbox,it just means they don't have to create any content,after all the meaning of Sandbox is that players create the content,and this is 100% IMPOSSIBLE unless servers are player run allowing for the content they want to run and tools are needed for players to actually create the content. As is what we have is nothing more than games with pre -scripted content,that a player cannot manipulate in way what so ever and games are leaning more and more to less content. Removing class,removing PVE content,is nothing more than an empty shell with no content,and this is what developers are trying to pull off.PVP content is SUPER easy to design,it takes no effort,because PVP is just players killing each other,so they spend all their time trying to please players for balance,VERY weak design. If you want a Sandbox type game,then you need something like NWN or UT games that offer players the tools to create content,then there is no way on earth for a developer server to hold all the content,so you need player run servers.Well with player run servers,the developer gets no 15 bucks a month lol,no way they are going to do that.
Well, there is a game like this. Second Life.
But, that's not what sandbox means. At all. It's about laying down a set of rules and giving players the tools to do what they like. An example of the most basic of sandbox games: http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/ ( The game is actually pretty fun. I made an air cannon. )
I think it were Interplay that had the "By gamers, for gamers" slogan.
Today it seems the whole industrys slogan is "By money, for money".
I think it's worth pointing out what happened to Interplay. Note that I loved interplay games, and bought quite a large number of their titles. For all the good it did them.
Players love to remind developers that players "pay their $15 bucks a month." And demand that MMO studios listen to the customers. One can't have it both ways. Either it's a business - and therefore the customer is always right. Or, it's a creative entity which is the result of a strong vision that players may or may not share.
In a way I am agreeing with the OP, yet I agree more with the title itself.
Suits want money and do not care how that is generated. Gamers want quality entertainment.
Problem is that there are to many consumers that buy the games we call lacking or bad.
Those same suits see the money rolling in with these modern throw away cash in on initial box sales mmorpgs. So they have no reason to change their course of action.
Its does not have to be this way. For instance cod4 modern warfare cost around 120 mill i read somewhere while it raked in around 700+ million. Its just easier and requires less investments to make mmorpg clone 101 (less risk too?), then to create what we want.
I know it sucks.
While not an mmorpg I'm glad the game Bayonetta on 360 came out. It feels like its made by people that are in touch with gamers. Its a very refreshing and fun game. Refreshing? Yes that was the first thing I thought when I played it, even if i played ninja gaiden and DMC before.
But there's something to be said about what some companies are able to accomplish compared to others in just about every facet of their game from development to gameplay to their suppot.
If it isn't a better understanding of what their customers wants or needs are then maybe it's just a better work ethic. There has to be a reason why some excel while others fall flat or repeat the same mistakes over and over again when they launch a new game or manage one.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I clicked on this thread expecting "Developers and Executives Are Out Of Touch With *Me*", and sure enough:
Originally posted by Dawnherald And, yet, as people want more and more freedom within games
Assertion not supported. Evidence, please. (Forum posts do not constitute evidence. A sufficiently large random-sample survey of MMORPG players would be acceptable.)
I clicked on this thread expecting "Developers and Executives Are Out Of Touch With *Me*", and sure enough:
Originally posted by Dawnherald
And, yet, as people want more and more freedom within games
Assertion not supported. Evidence, please. (Forum posts do not constitute evidence. A sufficiently large random-sample survey of MMORPG players would be acceptable.)
Devs are not out of touch with Gamers.Some Gamers are out of touch with the fact style of game they want is not the style of the masses want.
This is the main issue.
What we, as MMO fans, like is *not* generally mass market popular. What is mass market popular are whiz-bang combat oriented online games that allow everyone to be a solo God. People like that, because it is more like single player games, and single player games are more mass market. So the mass market MMOs are going to be designed, post-WoW, with the mass market in mind.
There's still a market for niche MMOs (defined as anything under 200k subs in this market), provided the developers can get the financial backing to make the game. But most publishers are going to prefer to support mass market MMOs rather than old school ones that have a smaller fanbase.
This is actually a load of crap, to be perfectly honest. Why do you think we are steadily getting more "sandbox" games ( going by Wikipedia's definition here, which only really applies to single player games, but the concepts are the same ) in the single-player and small scale multiplayer market? It's because players want freedom, instead of offering freedom, we're getting funnelled down tiny tracks, getting given limiting classes and being told it's the most limitless experience in any game ever. I mean, look at the "best RPGs" of the last few years, Oblivion, Dragon Age, Fallout 3, the Witcher. They're all very non-linear, even if they do have a storyline to follow, and two of them don't even have classes to choose.
A lot of people say that they want sandbox and freedom, but they really don't. People have a tendency to only care about the freedoms that appeal to them.
What about people that want to be funnelled down tiny tracks or the people who wants classes? What about their freedom of choice? Why are the freedoms that you enjoy more important than the freedoms that they enjoy?
Most of these sandbox discussion are usually pretty ironic. They hold up complete freedom of choice as the pinnacle of the MMORPG, but then they try to set limitations on it. Non-linear, nonconsensual PVP, and no-classes limit a players freedom of choice just as much as their opposites do.
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."
Comments
You think bailed people Aoc and War because they are not "sandboxes".You actually think 700,000 plus people where tricked into thinking that Aoc and War where sandboxes then quit once they realize once where not.No Aoc and War failed because they where rushed out before they where finished and where never able to fix problems before customers left.If they waited and released more polished game like Aion the would probably have similar retention rate.
I am not bashing EvE is freak of nature like WoW but it is stupid call EvE the second biggest MMO after WoW with Aion,Lineage 2,Final fantasy XI,and Dofus,Runes of magic,Perfect World from the free to play realm. Aion had F'in 400,000 pre orders in NA.
My point is not going to go way no "sandbox" has ever top 300,000 other than EvE.Multiple "themepark" games have cross the 500,000 easy mark.
Once again i love a good sandbox game but reality is the masses prefer themeparks So the devs have and will make themepark,I think hybrid type sandbox like Oblivion which had a themepark inside of the sandbox could break through and do huge numbers.I love third person shooters but just like sandboxes they will probably never be the most popular form in their genre.How long before sandbox players get their "Gear of War"?Who knows but even when that happens their is not going to be out break those type of games.
No, you eejit, I'm saying that a large explorable changeable world is what a sandbox is, and AoC and WAR - whilst not using the term sandbox - attempted to utilise the imagery that is involved in sandbox development. And, yes, this was one of the major things that killed WAR and AoC off. There were a lot of game breaking bugs, but nothing is as damaging to a game as game ruining MECHANICS.
HI RUNESCAPE FOR GOD'S SAKE. 1.25 million subscribers. Not 1.25 million game time cards bought per year, not 1.25 million accounts, 1.25 million subscribers.
You mean all those Asian games with no real reliable subscription numbers? Hell, Aion doesn't have anywhere near 3.5 million players, it's 1.5 million AT MOST. Any figures you see about Aion are fabrications.
Every post you've made in this thread demonstrates the depths of your ignorance when it comes to niche markets, advertising and, most importantly, WHAT PLAYER's WANT. People complain that WoW has lost the feeling it had in vanilla, a feeling of exploration and enjoyment in the world ( http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/1m-12m.png ), we can see from that that WoW gained 8 million subscribers upto TBC, and that has had a much slower growth since - which implies a considerably lower retention rate than earlier. I'd suspect a great deal of those subscribers shouldn't even be counted, as ( as I've said before ) Asian companies just piss about with figures and make crap up to sell their games better.
Philosophy
I think it were Interplay that had the "By gamers, for gamers" slogan.
Today it seems the whole industrys slogan is "By money, for money".
Indie
Its sad that alot of people associate "indie" and 3rd-party, with crap. Some people have created games and software that are as good, or better than the "pros".
And, they did it without a budget.
Bling Bling!
I feel sorry for people that play games "becouse the graphics are stunning".
Might as well see a movie then. Or a tv series, it last longer.
Arguing that this is what the majority want is a half-truth at best.
What most people want is to be entertained.
Heres an analogy.
A 60" tv with no channels. Its big, its fancy, does it entertain you? No.
Or maybe you do get to have one channel, and it only shows the same re-run..
Sandbox, spade, toy car and..
I think the sandbox idea is great, but i think well have to settle for multiple choices.
Hopefully alot of different choices. Not a linear game dressed in drag.
The only unknown factor in games are the players. Not the world.
Rely on the players to create diversity. Within the technological limits.
Choice
As "consumers" we can ether buy the games someone make, or not.
The third choice is to make something ourselves.
There are tools thats free.
Alot of people have time, enough to write on forums and talk/complain about stuff.
"By the community, for the community"
You may laugh at that idea, on youre couch, complaining about youre games..
http://www.mmorpg.com/discussion2.cfm/thread/261448/page/5
"I'd just like to see more games that focus on the world, and giving the people in it more of a role, im tired of these constant single player games that you can walk around with millions of people."
- Parsalin
The trouble is the players. Its very difficult for developers to figure out what it is that we want, because in truth, we all want different things. How should they determine what it is that we want?
Listen to the people in these forums? I doubt anyone thinks that's a great idea. Do market surveys? Have you ever gotten a phone call asking you about your MMORPG preferences? I haven't.
We can all agree its a pretty challenging task, and so they tend to look at what has been successful in the marketplace, and that clearly has been one game, WOW.
So they decide (wrongly so far) that the best approach is to try to either out-WOW Blizzard, or, try to carve off a perceived portion of the WOW player base (because even a slice would be greater than most other games) by creating WOW with a few subtle variations.
Now we'll never know if this was a good idea or not, because for the most part, most of them released incomplete, being very buggy, missing promised functionality which definitely drove away large portions of the player base, regardless of the actual gameplay.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
For many developers is this indeed there main goal not make a good name how to get 15bucks from every sub as long as posible.
So build up hype advertise as much as they can people well main mass follow hype and they know it they dont need to make a good game just alot of hype and mass buy it:(
Games played:AC1-Darktide'99-2000-AC2-Darktide/dawnsong2003-2005,Lineage2-2005-2006 and now Darkfall-2009.....
In between WoW few months AoC few months and some f2p also all very short few weeks.
11 million is a numebr Blizzard released. It is an old number, now, and was beneficial for them to announce it. Most of the numbers are estimates so its never 100% accurate. At one time, Blizzard even released the number of unique subscriptions they EVER had, including subs that were no longer paid and active.
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
When?
When?
Well there are a couple of issues with their numbers, most of them dealing with the Asia markets which don't subscribe in the same the other players do. So while they account for maybe 50% of the subscribers they only account for 6% of the revenue. So if you are in china and you go to a internet game room and log in once every thirty days and you pay less than a dollar to play a few hours of WoW, are you really a subscriber in the sense of the word that is generally understood by the the general public. It's a completely different pricing model all together to month subscription at all.
An example would be a newspaper subscriber who pays the publisher to deliver the newspaper to their house x amount of days for an y amount of time compared to a person who actually walks down the newstand and buys a paper every sunday. One is a subscriber; one is not. They both read the paper. Another example could be prepaid phones vs monthly phones. Yes, they both have service from the same company but one is a subscriber and the other one pays at they go, maybe even as little as a 1.00 a month keep the number active. Any company wanting real statistics would not count someone who pays a dollar a month to make one phone call as the same weight as the a person who pays 50 dollars a month.
WoW also has a serious problem with gold spammers and hackers, so if I am in China, i go and pay my fee to access this game and get banned, am I counted? I think they are, because even according to their 11.5 mil press release, it just needed to be a legit account within a 30 day period.
So basically pretty much all issues questioning WoW's numbers revolve the way they handle their business in China which caccounts for, like I said about half estimated 5.5 million of those 11.5 million accounts.
This, by the way, isn't an opinion about the quality or lack of quality of the game, or a challenge that they are the largest because clearly they are. This is simply a case where 1 on one side of the ocean doesn't match 1 on the other side of the ocean and anyone who works with actual numbers would never do that, but the marketing team certainly would.
http://www.gamasutra.com/php-bin/news_index.php?story=24657
http://www.wolfsheadonline.com/?p=2943#93692
parrotpholk-Because we all know the miracle patch fairy shows up the night before release and sprinkles magic dust on the server to make it allllll better.
No, you eejit, I'm saying that a large explorable changeable world is what a sandbox is, and AoC and WAR - whilst not using the term sandbox - attempted to utilise the imagery that is involved in sandbox development. And, yes, this was one of the major things that killed WAR and AoC off. There were a lot of game breaking bugs, but nothing is as damaging to a game as game ruining MECHANICS.
HI RUNESCAPE FOR GOD'S SAKE. 1.25 million subscribers. Not 1.25 million game time cards bought per year, not 1.25 million accounts, 1.25 million subscribers.
You mean all those Asian games with no real reliable subscription numbers? Hell, Aion doesn't have anywhere near 3.5 million players, it's 1.5 million AT MOST. Any figures you see about Aion are fabrications.
Every post you've made in this thread demonstrates the depths of your ignorance when it comes to niche markets, advertising and, most importantly, WHAT PLAYER's WANT. People complain that WoW has lost the feeling it had in vanilla, a feeling of exploration and enjoyment in the world ( http://users.telenet.be/mmodata/Charts/1m-12m.png ), we can see from that that WoW gained 8 million subscribers upto TBC, and that has had a much slower growth since - which implies a considerably lower retention rate than earlier. I'd suspect a great deal of those subscribers shouldn't even be counted, as ( as I've said before ) Asian companies just piss about with figures and make crap up to sell their games better.
asian game sell more in those area because there is more people !thats it nothing more nothing less
and with their mmo maker like perfect world and countless other making huge pile of money
they have the ressource now to be better then anything AAA mmo maker have to offer!
and thats not all soon pw and countless other asian mmo game engine maker will sell those engine here too!whyÉ
bercause the industry here cannot do what asian do for the same price
asian see a new techno on microsoft engineer & research website ,they take the phone call ms receive course on that techno pay ms then they turn around and apply that to their engine .etc thats how they are they like a nice gamble it doesnt always work out,but it make them evolve way faster then the average mmo engine maker.like i say within 5 years most mmo engine will be sold by asia or india !
i saw the new system the gamer and dev. use there and NOW most use the same techno as us (ok they use nvidia since its cheaper for them)
Ah, yeah, that was what I was talking about earlier.
DrBaltazar, I'd reply, but I honestly have no clue.
Game companies aren't out of touch.
They know that gamers today go through games like a fat kid goes through fried chicken, so they are creating 'throw-away' games that are content lite at launch because they know that gamers are so desperate to play something new that they will fork over cash to play a piece of crap, even moreso if a popular IP is attached to the game, and will usually make back their development costs and then some just from initial box sales alone.
As long as we continue to support this trend of funding underdeveloped games, especially from the larger development companies, we get what we deserve.
poster 61 great link !ty!ty!
I wonder how they can make money if they are so 'out of touch' supposedly...
I think the major MMO companies are making losses, except for maybe Blizzard.
SOE was, last time I checked.
some live on water and love !(exemple:eve online)but most a lot of mmo havent ugraded their server in 8 years!
To start i don' believe in the term "Sandbox" it is way over used and not even used correctly,because here is no such thing as a sandbox game out there,they do not exist.
What is worse is that the closer a developer tries to get to being a Sandbox,it just means they don't have to create any content,after all the meaning of Sandbox is that players create the content,and this is 100% IMPOSSIBLE unless servers are player run allowing for the content they want to run and tools are needed for players to actually create the content.
As is what we have is nothing more than games with pre -scripted content,that a player cannot manipulate in way what so ever and games are leaning more and more to less content.
Removing class,removing PVE content,is nothing more than an empty shell with no content,and this is what developers are trying to pull off.PVP content is SUPER easy to design,it takes no effort,because PVP is just players killing each other,so they spend all their time trying to please players for balance,VERY weak design.
If you want a Sandbox type game,then you need something like NWN or UT games that offer players the tools to create content,then there is no way on earth for a developer server to hold all the content,so you need player run servers.Well with player run servers,the developer gets no 15 bucks a month lol,no way they are going to do that.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Well, there is a game like this. Second Life.
But, that's not what sandbox means. At all. It's about laying down a set of rules and giving players the tools to do what they like. An example of the most basic of sandbox games: http://dan-ball.jp/en/javagame/dust/ ( The game is actually pretty fun. I made an air cannon. )
Bump.
I think it's worth pointing out what happened to Interplay. Note that I loved interplay games, and bought quite a large number of their titles. For all the good it did them.
Players love to remind developers that players "pay their $15 bucks a month." And demand that MMO studios listen to the customers. One can't have it both ways. Either it's a business - and therefore the customer is always right. Or, it's a creative entity which is the result of a strong vision that players may or may not share.
In a way I am agreeing with the OP, yet I agree more with the title itself.
Suits want money and do not care how that is generated. Gamers want quality entertainment.
Problem is that there are to many consumers that buy the games we call lacking or bad.
Those same suits see the money rolling in with these modern throw away cash in on initial box sales mmorpgs. So they have no reason to change their course of action.
Its does not have to be this way. For instance cod4 modern warfare cost around 120 mill i read somewhere while it raked in around 700+ million. Its just easier and requires less investments to make mmorpg clone 101 (less risk too?), then to create what we want.
I know it sucks.
While not an mmorpg I'm glad the game Bayonetta on 360 came out. It feels like its made by people that are in touch with gamers. Its a very refreshing and fun game. Refreshing? Yes that was the first thing I thought when I played it, even if i played ninja gaiden and DMC before.
It certainly isn't.
But there's something to be said about what some companies are able to accomplish compared to others in just about every facet of their game from development to gameplay to their suppot.
If it isn't a better understanding of what their customers wants or needs are then maybe it's just a better work ethic. There has to be a reason why some excel while others fall flat or repeat the same mistakes over and over again when they launch a new game or manage one.
1. For god's sake mmo gamers, enough with the analogies. They're unnecessary and your comparisons are terrible, dissimilar, and illogical.
2. To posters feeling the need to state how f2p really isn't f2p: Players understand the concept. You aren't privy to some secret the rest are missing. You're embarrassing yourself.
3. Yes, Cpt. Obvious, we're not industry experts. Now run along and let the big people use the forums for their purpose.
I clicked on this thread expecting "Developers and Executives Are Out Of Touch With *Me*", and sure enough:
Assertion not supported. Evidence, please. (Forum posts do not constitute evidence. A sufficiently large random-sample survey of MMORPG players would be acceptable.)
Assertion not supported. Evidence, please. (Forum posts do not constitute evidence. A sufficiently large random-sample survey of MMORPG players would be acceptable.)
Yeh. In fact, it is not supported by this survey:
http://www.nickyee.com/daedalus/archives/001630.php
People clearly want more content, not freedom.
This is the main issue.
What we, as MMO fans, like is *not* generally mass market popular. What is mass market popular are whiz-bang combat oriented online games that allow everyone to be a solo God. People like that, because it is more like single player games, and single player games are more mass market. So the mass market MMOs are going to be designed, post-WoW, with the mass market in mind.
There's still a market for niche MMOs (defined as anything under 200k subs in this market), provided the developers can get the financial backing to make the game. But most publishers are going to prefer to support mass market MMOs rather than old school ones that have a smaller fanbase.
A lot of people say that they want sandbox and freedom, but they really don't. People have a tendency to only care about the freedoms that appeal to them.
What about people that want to be funnelled down tiny tracks or the people who wants classes? What about their freedom of choice? Why are the freedoms that you enjoy more important than the freedoms that they enjoy?
Most of these sandbox discussion are usually pretty ironic. They hold up complete freedom of choice as the pinnacle of the MMORPG, but then they try to set limitations on it. Non-linear, nonconsensual PVP, and no-classes limit a players freedom of choice just as much as their opposites do.
"Those who dislike things based only on the fact that they are popular are just as shallow and superficial as those who only like them for the same reason."