When I try talking to friends about the magical times I had playing EverQuest, I feel like some old man explaining to FallOut Boy fans why Led Zeppelin was the shit back in the day.
Let me clue you in. If you could play pre-trammel UO, or pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies, IT WOULD SUCK.
You all are looking at crap through nostalgia. Nostalgia blinds people to the negatives and makes the postiives seem almost mythical. Memory is selective and biased, and the games back then were no better (and often worse) than the games we have now. This is why no one makes them, because players wont play them now if they did (Darkfall has what? 10k subs? EVE had to trammel itself with empire to survive) and they wont be fun.
Just get over the castles in the sky you make out of past games, and accept the current ones for what they are.
Let me clue you in. If you could play pre-trammel UO, or pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies, IT WOULD SUCK. You all are looking at crap through nostalgia. Nostalgia blinds people to the negatives and makes the postiives seem almost mythical. Memory is selective and biased, and the games back then were no better (and often worse) than the games we have now. This is why no one makes them, because players wont play them now if they did (Darkfall has what? 10k subs? EVE had to trammel itself with empire to survive) and they wont be fun. Just get over the castles in the sky you make out of past games, and accept the current ones for what they are.
I think you completely missed the point.
If the current day MMO's are so good as you say it is. Then why are they continue to fail? and fail? and fail again?
Why did Champions Online lost over 80% of the players within the first month?
Why is Star Trek Online going to lose over 80% of the players this first month?
Ever thought about it, that maybe these new MMO's just suck?
That they don't offer any challenge?
That they are so simplified, that you don't even have to use more then 2 braincells?
That they offer an attention span and have content that won't last beyond it's first month?
Just think about that, before blaming people to be stuck in nostalgia and being blind.
God forbid us, if all we ask is a MMORPG that has any form of challenge, make us use our brain just a tad little bit more and have an attention span and content / features that last us beyond the first month!
This is a take on our MMO complaints that we have looked at in the forums. I would point out, that to be commenting on games that came out ten years ago you have to be older than most of the new players who have not played them. Being older is a requirement to comment, not an explanation for the comments as Mr Wood is proposing.
Yes it is true that you can be jaded, I feel I am but that does not stop me forming a reasoned opinion. Otherwise we might as well also dismiss the comments of anyone under twenty as too juvenile and naïve. This argument works both ways, most of the fanboys are naïve teenagers so lets ignore their comments. You reach the stage where you listen to no ones opinion other than, strangely, those in you own age bracket. You can be as parochial about our age as the importance of where you live for example.
If you think concerns about F2P, the linear nature of MMO’s, item shops, instancing, soloing and easy mode are as logical as a man shouting at a cloud; then I beg to differ. If you cannot see there are real issues here, as many of our younger members do, you are living in the land of gaming comany PR.
As to the statement, “I submit though that businesses looking to turn a profit is nothing new to the world of games.” He is quite right, but misses the key trend. The corporate nature of MMO companies has increased drastically since the early days. Developers led the field because no one was sure what would work in a MMO. Now they think they know what works and it is all about marketing it to as many people as possible. Many of the heads of old MMO companies were designers, now they are nearly all corporate types.
It is common at thirty to question who you are, what you stand for and where you are going. Based on Mr Wood’s previous articles I think he like most of us has made some mistakes but on the whole does a fair job. Yes you do have a real job no matter what they tell you.
just a second... "Hey you kids!!! Get off my MMO!!!1!!"
Haha, that made me laugh and it's true.. put any game aside and take a look at most of the people that are playing it, all the childish nonsense really makes me feel like that grumpy man down the street chasing kids off his lawn, but instead i'm now just without the paitents to acknowledge they are even there anymore lol.
I'm glad this is being brought up by a frontpage writer.
I honestly do think there is more then enough market for what we oldies want though, it's just the current wave of belief in the industry, that it isen't.
I say we should become more vocal in fact, and let them know this.
I wrote a lil piece on this verry subject not to long ago:
I disagree with this article. I do not believe the linear nature that games have gravitated towards has anything to do with the wants or desires of the new generation of gamers.
Ultimately what gamers want is quality and content.
Whether that pill is delivered in the form of a linear or sandbox variety has very little to do with whether a game is successful or appeals to a larger crowd. Eve, LotRO, and WoW are examples of games like this. WoW or LOTRO's linear nature has nothing to do with the success those games have. That success is totally contributed to excellent quality and outstanding content. Eve is the only sandbox game left that delivers a high level of quality and content (or tools in the case of a sandbox), yet its sandbox nature doesn't hold it back in the least.
Bottom line is, the reason we're seeing tons of linear, instanced, shallow games is because they are cheap to produce and develop, You'll notice companies that make this type of game oftentime have multiple franchises (ie Cryptic). Their focus isn't long-term subscriptions. They don't design games that are meant to entertain people for years and years. They design games that will sell boxes/digital-downloads, and which will provide an influx of short lasting subscriptions that will fund their next project... thus continuing the cycle for the next shallow and linear game.
At the end of the day, there will always be more cheaply produced games flooding the market. And that means instanced, linear, shallow games. It's not because thats where the gamers hearts are, its because of corporate pocketbooks. At the end of the day, if any game is going to be successful, its going to be because of its quality and content levels... and that has zero to do with its linear or sandbox nature.
*another thing to keep in mind is that the average age of an MMO player is mid 20s, and getting older.
SOE did make money off pre-NGE and pre-CU SWG, alot more than they ever made from post NGE SWG. Not sure how you formed and opinion that they didn't make cash off pre-cu and did the NGE. All that happened was is that $OE got greedy, Smedley got greedy. He plays WoW not SWG and wanted a slice of that pie, he tried turning SWG into Everquest with the C/U/R/B and that didn't work so 6 months later he tried turning into WoW. Because he plays WoW and is a greedy man that wanted more money, despite the damn good takings he was already getting.
Before 2006 SWG had a playerbase for over a year that most big AAA companies would step over their own mothers for today! But Smedley trashed it in the quest for more, more, more bucks and ended up with the pathetic turd that has about 5k subscribers left. It was greed nothing else, I don't begrudge a profit. Why would I? I want the company that makes the game I like to make a good profit, but when people get greedy you end up where we are now. A few indepenant companies making the true MMORPGs and all the other greedy scumbags making AoC, WAR and STO and other crap like that.
If you couldn't make enough money out of 200k - 300k subscribers like you said then there'd only be 3 P2P games to choose from!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
I'm 26 and started playing mmos from about 8-9 years ago or so. really loved old mmos where you could easly mess up your first chars and had to start all over again. Every new mmo now seems to be on easy mode..no real penalty for not doing a bit of research ahead for your chosen class.
I'm reading everyday the gaming news with the hopes a game like the old Anarchy Online, but a bit updated and without the messed up launch...it's being developed. No luck so far. Although Fallen Earth reminds me of the feeling I had when starting AO, it still needs some polish...and maybe some more people.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. A. Einstein
I think this topic is good, it can also mean what happens when a game you used to like to play has changed too much since launch and has become a completely different game that you may not like anymore. The primary example would be World of Warcraft, back then instances/raids were not as easy as they are today and Epic gear actually meant something in those days, there was no emblem system and you actually had to really work for your epics, also there was 40 man raiding. Mounts were another thing, originally it was levels 40 and 60 and they used to cost more but now it's levels 20 and 40 and they don't cost as much, god dam it, I want my gold back... Leveling up wasn't fast and easy nether, in fact in those days you could level faster while in a group doing dungeons, nowhere days you just solo your ass without ever meeting a soul.
Speaking of souls, the worse thing that changed in WoW imho was the game's own community, most went from being friendly helpful people into brain dead forum trolls who say "N00b" to anyone new who wants helpful advise, they don't bother to help anyone and among other stupid things, it's really not fair, Blizzard have made the game too easy and most players have no mind at all now...obviously the stupid people thing was the final straw for me but I guess that's what happens when a game becomes too popular and old.
Nevermind I guess, all I can do now is move on, there are better games now and the best thing to do is ignore WoW and leave it to dust away in the shadows.
i feel the same. I'm 26 and started playing mmos about 8-9 years ago or so. really loved old mmos where you could easly mess up your first chars and had to start all over again. Every new mmo now seems to be on easy mode..no real penalty for not doing a bit of research ahead for your chosen class. I'm reading everyday the gaming news with the hopes a game like the old Anarchy Online, but a bit updated and without the messed up launch...it's being developed. No luck so far. Although Fallen Earth reminds me of the feeling I had when starting AO, it still needs some polish...and maybe some more people.
That's why I support companies like ICARUS. Fallen Earth is a good game. With a solid foundation. It has it's issues ofcourse. But it's a very solid game overall, with lots of content and features (a ton more then STO and CO alltogether) that can keep the average gamer busy for months.
Star Trek Online is still in the honymoon period. So you got lots of rabid fans defending it with every breath they have (after forking out over 300 bucks I cannot blame them really).
Just give it another week or two and even they will start to see for what STO really is (its already happening). Rushed, unfinished, shallow and broken core mechanics. And above all. No community.
The bulk of players (IMO) want quick in, quick out. Get to the end game, have the biggest and flashiest and create the biggest booms. Questing is there but no longer the same 'rush' when you find a good group and spend time just poking around, chatting and having a good old time killing stuff.
*shrug*
Box sales (and online stores for F2Ps) drive the market. Companies have to have a return in capital to survive. Give the masses what they cry for and (French Revolution anyone?) live another day.
There is a phenomenon in the movie industry which still bothers me. Gather a couple million bucks (or less) and make a truly crappy movie. Print a mass of DVDs and sell the crappy movie for $5-$10 on all the bargain racks in all the junk stores of the world. Make a profit in the millions of dollars. Pretty good for such a small effort overall. A lot of MMOs are taking this same tack.
That is not to say that none of the software marketers don't aim for a quality product. They do (sometimes). They have to to maintain longevity. But overall, more money comes in by faster turnout and quick deaths (of the games, not players). Thus we have a few good long term games that maintain a higher level of subs and a glut of 'soft' sometimes good, sometimes not so good games saturating the market.
Is it just me, or does this apply to more than just MMO's lately, too? By that, I mean the other genres - shooters, RPG, RTS, etc.. I can't for the life of me even find single-player experiences that are worthwhile anymore, and it isn't because I'm burned out on it all because I can still find fun in my old favorites.
I get that things change, but really... did the whole world go stupid or something to need the style of play that's offered in the more recent games these days? It seems that even in the strategy genre everything is automatic and spoon-fed to the point of needing minimal micro-managing and actual strategy anymore. RPGs are just a matter of being hand-held through a story (interactive movies ftw?) and shooters have de-evolved through time worst of all. I can't help but wonder am I the only one who feels that way.
lol, it applies to EVERYTHING.
There is not a piece of media or social movement that has not experienced these waves of change.
On a larger scale, in the U.S. you can look at the 80's. People hate the 80's (lol, I was in a musical that my girlfriend at the time wanted me to join and it was set in the 80's. When the older people were giving dress and makeup tips to the younger people the younger people scoffed "people didn't really dress this way".) but the 80's are a rebellion to the 60's and 70's. 60's and 70's are a change from the 40's and 50's. We had to have the 40's and 50's because of the horrible 30's.
Of course the 30's happened because of the 20's. Culturally as well as the financial downfall.
I feel like it is a part of the wheel of time series:
"The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the age that gave it birth comes again."
Trends also recycle around. Using your example, kids today are wearing 80's fashion. It has been around for about 5 years now. It is slowly turning into early 90's neon fashion, since the last year or so.
I wouldn't be surprised to see someone attempt a 3d uo-like game soon.
I've always valued the ability to solo in an mmo when I choose, but I've always felt that mmos should reward group efforts, as well. What we're starting to see is mmos penalizing group efforts. THAT is what scares me.
Well THAT and if they forget to put in something to make you strive to stay alive it's usually a knee jerk reaction and the debuff SO Severe it makes you want to go strangle them (see Allods Online and FoD)
Plus I'll tell all of you right now Ever since Tabula Rasa took a nose dive (since it lost funding to continue and the devs got lazy)
I've been looking for something similar ever since, I got lost in WoW 1.x as it had fun combat, a great quest system, and a wonderful storyline I was familiar with after playing all their RTS titles for Warcraft. Unfortunately when they allied themselves with Vivendi Universal they got rid of two greats of the IP and things progressively went downhill Ultra fast. So now WoW is nothing more than a watered down Warcraft themed EQ. When WAR hit I had hopes it would be good as I recognized that IP as well and generally liked Warhammer Fantasy alright but it's not my favorite GW product. IT was ok but still not what I'm after and while Fallen Earth is a nice title it's Nuclear Apocalyptic and I just can't get into radioactive wasteland games lol
Tabula Rasa was great to me in the fact it had a superb storyline and you weren't some super soldier just some average person who got recruited into the Resistance of Humanity to fight the bane and someday reclaim Earth. You met various aliens along the way whom you helped and helped you, the game was great graphically and soundwise. Just too bad they got their rug pulled out from under them and they crashed and burned...I guess sometimes you DO need a bigger dev team than just 6 people. Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't all just to fund Richard Garriott's trip to space.....
Well I agree, sick of looking for a challenging MMO that is more "like the good old days". I seem to have strayed back to single player games in the meantime, simply because I'm not paying for a game that you can play while not in front of the computer (EvE), a super bloating marketing piece of crap (WoW), or something that keeps getting watered down and unbalanced (War).
The most fun I have had lately was LAN play of Borderlands and FPS are not my thing but there was fun to it.
Another Cash Cow (F2P) game called Battlefield Heroes was fast Furious action shooter that could quite easily have filled the void until something fit what I want comes out. That was until I gave up trying to get resolve the PunkBuster issue of being kicked every 3 minutes.
They then decided to upgrade the game and I now get kicked out of the game by PB because it simply won't run properly.
I think apart of your article misses one BIG piece of the puzzle, the Devs always point to your machine being "broken" and speaking down to you as if you don't know even where the power point switch is let alone having a stable system. Now I've been into computers for 30 yrs and know how to tell things to run. I am heading back to University for another degree (3 years long) and have a new $15k PC, you'd think that they would ask for my help in resolving their issues instead of passing to another moron who is reading a script written back when the game was in concept, bah.
My point is until We the People stop lining the pocket of these Morons, we won't get close to a Older Style Game!
There are only two games on my maybe list atm, Mortal Online and Earthrise, as they "seem" to give something I'm after. Who knows if they'll do the trick because so much can screw a game.
Besides, with all the big publishers loosing so much (I'm glad) I think the focus shall shift into the hands of smaller teams of independant devs once again. Big boys forget that they get too big for their boots and someone else out there is better than they are. All they need to do is make something good and we shall have a look, try, and maybe, just maybe, stick around to see it grow and flourish into something memorable....
I'd really like the opportunity to discuss your point with you Jon. You see, I think if your premise was correct then the new games catering to the new audience would be remarkably successful. I don't see that, however. Many of the "new" games have struggled incredibly. What I see are games with less polish, less content, less depth, less immersion, fewer ingame options, less development time, more fees, and more "innovative revenue generating strategies" (i.e. behaviour modification strategies that prime people to spend more on virtual goods). Are customers really clamouring for this, even the next generation of gamers? I think you make a very logical point that game companies have always been interested in revenue. I agree; that's what business does. However, what you may be missing (probably because you don't think like this yourself, which is a good thing), is that there are at least two vastly different business philosophies that both have the same end in mind--fiscal growth. One philosophy says the customer is always right. Money is earned "the hard way" via excellence in product, service, marketting and support. I think WoW and EvE are two games that have historically been driven by this philosophy. How they continue to respond to the lure of the other philosophy is something only time can tell. The other philosophy is this: a fool and his money are soon parted. Some companies base their revenue on this cornerstone. They see customers as dupes, and making money as a shell game. There is less interest in providing a good service, and more interest in marketting psychology, or how to get people to hand over their cash, preferably for very little (or even nothing) in return. I'm a social science professor, head of my department actually. I see all kinds of behaviour modifications strategies built into games based on the latter philosophy. The games are not viewed as an entertainment service, and gamers are not viewed as valued customers. The game's are merely a revenue generating vehicle. The less development and support, and the more psychological manipulation, the better. Tbh, I'm starting to think that most of the people motivated by the first strategy now have jobs with Blizzard or CCP. That leaves others to congregate in other MMO houses. churning out sub-par games as quickly as possible, with as many cash grabbing strategies as they can cram into them. So, I agree that "it" has changed. I think, however, that "it" is the philosophy that development houses base their revenue generating strategies upon. Actually I saw a Dilbert comic that illustrated this nicely. A CEO of a failing company said something like this: "Well we can't compete in quality, service or price, which leaves us with fraud--get me the marketting department." That may be a bit overstated, but I think it highlights an important concept.
Just to clarify something folks. I didn't say that all of the ills of the MMO industry come down to this one, single thing. It's a contributing factor, but of course bad games are going to fail. A bad game is a bad game, a game without polish lacks polish. That's why i didn't make any specific reference to any game in particular. It's because this is an underlying issue. The article refers to people who are just generally dissatisfied with the core designs of today's MMOs. Issues like polish and implementation are topics for another day's column.
Personally, I don't share your pessimism about business philosophy. doing the whole "pull the wool over your eyes" thing works when you're talking about businesses that rely on single purchases for their primary source of revenue. The appeal of going to all of the trouble to make an MMO, however, is the idea that there might be a continued revenue stream. I would suggest that an MMO company looking to maximize its revenue would look at ways to entice people to stay over the long term, not to fool them into buying the box. The box is just the beginning, the real money's in the subs.
Just my opinion though.
The last paragraph - ending with "the box is just the beginning, the real money's in the subs" - is it only an opinion, or are you privy to some hard data?
I think you must be wrong. It must be the case that you *can* make box sales of an MMO the primary source of revenue, since that is how single-player games make profits. In such a case, any income from retaining subs can be viewed as the icing on the cake and you would increase the investment in marketing that aims to maximise initial profits (strategy A), and decrease the investment in sustaining the MMO by balancing it just with the income from the players that do actually stay (strategy .
I know it is trendy to pick on STO at the moment, but offering lifetime subscriptions based on the expectations and hype, and not experience of the actual game you are buying a lifetime subscription for, is an example of strategy A. Introducing MT into a subscription game, as is also happening in STO as well, is kind of an example of strategy B.
In fact now that I think about it, both these things about STO I have mentioned are great examples of profiteering from the fact that a fool and his money are soon parted. Buying a lifetime subscription for a game you've never played is foolish. Participating in MT while paying a subscription too, is not as clearly foolish but it is certainly getting there.
Now, you might argue that this is no good because people wont stand for it in the long run. I think you might be surprised. And I think there might be a lot of gamers out there that don't feel "fooled" if they buy an MMO that they only play for a month or two, if it was fun while it lasted. And maybe it is unfair to call them fools, because they felt they got their moneys worth.
The bottom line though is your premise that "the box is just the beginning, the real money's in the subs" is only one strategy that is championed by WoWs success, a success which publishing houses are finally perhaps beginning to realise is not repeatable.
Well I agree, sick of looking for a challenging MMO that is more "like the good old days". I seem to have strayed back to single player games in the meantime, simply because I'm not paying for a game that you can play while not in front of the computer (EvE), a super bloating marketing piece of crap (WoW), or something that keeps getting watered down and unbalanced (War).
The most fun I have had lately was LAN play of Borderlands and FPS are not my thing but there was fun to it. Another Cash Cow (F2P) game called Battlefield Heroes was fast Furious action shooter that could quite easily have filled the void until something fit what I want comes out. That was until I gave up trying to get resolve the PunkBuster issue of being kicked every 3 minutes. They then decided to upgrade the game and I now get kicked out of the game by PB because it simply won't run properly. I think apart of your article misses one BIG piece of the puzzle, the Devs always point to your machine being "broken" and speaking down to you as if you don't know even where the power point switch is let alone having a stable system. Now I've been into computers for 30 yrs and know how to tell things to run. I am heading back to University for another degree (3 years long) and have a new $15k PC, you'd think that they would ask for my help in resolving their issues instead of passing to another moron who is reading a script written back when the game was in concept, bah. My point is until We the People stop lining the pocket of these Morons, we won't get close to a Older Style Game! There are only two games on my maybe list atm, Mortal Online and Earthrise, as they "seem" to give something I'm after. Who knows if they'll do the trick because so much can screw a game. Besides, with all the big publishers loosing so much (I'm glad) I think the focus shall shift into the hands of smaller teams of independant devs once again. Big boys forget that they get too big for their boots and someone else out there is better than they are. All they need to do is make something good and we shall have a look, try, and maybe, just maybe, stick around to see it grow and flourish into something memorable....
/applaud
Well put, sometimes these devs think you're an idiot and what's funny is that sometimes just a few weeks later they feel like total asses when low and behold it WAS their problem. Point in case the original PB Fiasco over at EA/DICE's F2P BF:H, They told us NON-STOP "Well it must you guys cause we have no problems at all!" "Well it must be because you're using Windows 7...We only support XP and only SP2" "Well we now support Vista and Windows 7 but it's cause your using this or that or because your system is inferior" Then "Well everyone we found out the problem, it was a line in our code that was causing everything to go haywire"
If only companies would just FRICKEN FESS UP to making a mistake instead of being like a five year old when asked "Who did this?" "I dunno"
I've always valued the ability to solo in an mmo when I choose, but I've always felt that mmos should reward group efforts, as well. What we're starting to see is mmos penalizing group efforts. THAT is what scares me.
Well THAT and if they forget to put in something to make you strive to stay alive it's usually a knee jerk reaction and the debuff SO Severe it makes you want to go strangle them (see Allods Online and FoD)
Plus I'll tell all of you right now Ever since Tabula Rasa took a nose dive (since it lost funding to continue and the devs got lazy)
I've been looking for something similar ever since, I got lost in WoW 1.x as it had fun combat, a great quest system, and a wonderful storyline I was familiar with after playing all their RTS titles for Warcraft. Unfortunately when they allied themselves with Vivendi Universal they got rid of two greats of the IP and things progressively went downhill Ultra fast. So now WoW is nothing more than a watered down Warcraft themed EQ. When WAR hit I had hopes it would be good as I recognized that IP as well and generally liked Warhammer Fantasy alright but it's not my favorite GW product. IT was ok but still not what I'm after and while Fallen Earth is a nice title it's Nuclear Apocalyptic and I just can't get into radioactive wasteland games lol
Tabula Rasa was great to me in the fact it had a superb storyline and you weren't some super soldier just some average person who got recruited into the Resistance of Humanity to fight the bane and someday reclaim Earth. You met various aliens along the way whom you helped and helped you, the game was great graphically and soundwise. Just too bad they got their rug pulled out from under them and they crashed and burned...I guess sometimes you DO need a bigger dev team than just 6 people. Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't all just to fund Richard Garriott's trip to space.....
Really loved TR gameplay but tbh got lvl 50 on a thrax guardian in 1 month playing about 2hrs/day maybe a bit more during weekends. TR was fun but really one of the easy mode mmos of which almost everyone here complains about
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. A. Einstein
I just wish they had kept up with the development of the game and did what they SAID they would do instead of going half arsed and RG running off into the stars.
Originally posted by Neanderthal I find it difficult to believe that the human race has changed so much in ten short years. Demographics be damned, people are people. Fun is fun.
i find your statement surprising;. when some would claim that human behaviour has had the most profound change in history over the past 20 short years, technology being the prime contributor to the change.
"fun is fun"... hmm what is fun? i enjoy fishing - do you?
Technology has changed but people haven't changed. When I grew up there were no cell phones. Kids today never knew a world without cell phones. Does that mean the kids today have a different brain structure? A <cell phone lobe> in their brains which I lack? I hardly think so.
No, I don't particularly enjoy fishing. But just because my mother did (and she did) it doesn't automatically mean that I would be unable to enjoy it. If your parents enjoyed fishing would that mean that your generation would be unable to enjoy it? That's the point I was trying to make.
Some people are making the assumption that just because the first wave of mmorpg players enjoyed certain styles of games it means that the younger players today would automatically find those styles of games unenjoyable just because they are younger. The sorts of things which were popular then could be popular again if given a facelift and started over fresh. And yes, maybe correct some of the mistakes.
Don't reinvent the car it's fine as is with the way it works
Newer techs though mean you DO HAVE to put in a better engine give it a better paint job a nicer radio and possibly put in a more economical tank (Engine - Game mechanics, Paint Job - Graphics, Radio - Sound/Music, Economical Tank - More payment options than just a CC#)
every concern and little thing that has every old gamer upset, including me and my old online gaming buddies, is due to WoW. The games that were developed before that curse were to our liking. Blizzard came along and made the easiest game on earth, sucked in the b.net crowd with it being warcraft and completely dominated and destroyed everything i loved about mmo's. Blizzard has corrupted this entire genre down to the core with its 244 billion trillion subscribers. Go back in time, destroy that game from ever being created. Then return, bet you will find this genre in a much better state. and yes, i know, i dont like wow. yeah i played it for awhile because all my friends hopped on the bandwagon. and where they go i usually do because playing mmo's alone sucks. ive been playing mmo's since 98'. ive played every single one of them thats launched, literally. wow is to blame, like it or not.
Your tears are like Gypsy Wine.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Originally posted by Senjinn d through it. 8) The thing that has changed the most for me (and what i miss the most) in MMO's are the communities. This being influenced by both how games are developed and of course by the people playing them.
The new MMO's that have been coming out don't promote strong communities at all. They are all quest based , which makes grouping much harder. Also games these days are all button mashing games. This makes it very hard to type and hold a conversion with people. Peoples solution for this was vent / teamspeak but it has so many draw backs. People wont use it for a variety of reasons , causes lag , don't have a mic, or my reason i like to listen to music when i play. So you are leaving people out of conversations. You constantly have people talking over one another and people who don't join the conversation because they can't seem to get a word in. You'll lose conversations when for any reason you have to leave your PC. All of this fixed if people could just type in chat instead. I know 99% will disagree but "for me" vent was one of the worst things to happen to gaming.
You nailed it on the head and i was actually about to type this up and then ran across yours. The MMO community is what makes playing MMO's fun. I started with a game called The Realm in '97 and the community was small, probably less then 1000 total people played and payed just $5/mo. You knew people, you looked up to people, you knew when some one did something..etc. I was then invited into a early beta version of EQ. Again the community was small, you pretty much knew everyone on the server within 15 levels of you.
EQ came out and again at the beginning you knew everyone on your server, not just your guild. You talked to people in chat. The zone chat would have conversations between different parties in that zone. You some times had to work with the other groups to clear out other peoples problems(trains). If you were a dumb ass then everyone knew it and no one grouped and you left the game or rerolled and changed your attitude. You helped people and they helped you. Corpse recovery runs well after you should be in bed would occur. It was overall a great community.
When I played AC and AO, they also had great communities. I'm not for sure where it changed, but all of a sudden you started to play a game and if you weren't in vent then no one spoke to you. There was no community, you only knew the people in your vent which was probably also your guild, no one typed in chat. In my EQ guild everyone typed in chat all the time, now you join your guilds vent and you either have some 15 your old that wants attention and talks non stop or some ex marine telling everyone they know the best way to do what ever and for everyone else to shut up. They have rules that if your in game you MUST be in vent or you'll be kicked (and I've been in the same guild 6+ years), so I end up rolling a alt so know one knows i'm online because I don't want to hear the B.S. in vent.
I have tried pretty much every major MMO out and tons of these shitty ass Asian influenced F2P games. I believe that I could play any of them for a length of time given the correct community.
Overall I think the gaming that we remember is over. Technology has surpassed it. I hate hearing about how great UO was because no one would play it now. To do anything you first had to do something else. Chop Wood, Mine...etc. Want to learn to use a certain skill? Use it and the more you use it the better you got with that skill. Darkfall has that and no one played it because they wanted to spend their time playing the game, not getting things ready to play the game. So the Dev's then make it easier to gains skills, instead of taking months to be able to use a giant fireball, they make it take weeks... People think they want something in games, but they really don't.
People want a good community when they play a MMO, otherwise they'd stick with single player games. SWG had a good community at the start, I enjoyed that game. I enjoyed chilling in a watering hole in some player made town talking to others while some one played music to buff us up before we went out on a hunting trip to gather material for the doctor to make buffs...etc. Give me the same experience with no one talking and zero community and I'd been bored.
I agree that "it" has changed, but I don't agree that it's changed into something weird and scary. Rather it's changed into something simplistic and repetitive. What I don't understand about developers and publishers is why no one will try making a throwback virtual world and charging a premium fee for it. Yes a lot of sandbox fans are older and may not be the target demographic, but I submit that the target demographic doesn't always have to be the young. Thirtysomethings are in the prime of their professional lives and generally have much more disposable income than your average teen. Why not make UO2 and charge $49.99 a month. I'd pay it, and I doubt I'm alone.
This, exactly. $50 a month for a fee is nothing to me if a company can deliver an experience I enjoy. I drop that on lunch for my wife and I. There are more of "them" perhaps, but "we" have more disposable income.
The key is finding a way to pry it from our aging hands...
I'm waiting for a "premium" sandbox style game to come along eventually, with an extreme focus on customer service, perhaps a fee of something like $49.95 a month, no "item shop" or "ala carte" fees, catering to a more mature audience. I'm sure some indie developer will figure it out eventually if the larger developers don't.
The cell phone companies certainly did, which is why I pay $230 a month for an "unlimited" plan now as opposed to the old nickel-and-dime fees of the past. Unlimited text, voice, and data. Do I always get my "money's worth" from such a plan? No, but it's nice to not have to worry about additional fees. The phone bill is the same; every month. No matter how much I use it.
Agreed.
I'm surprised that with all these wunderkind developers, genius marketers, and MBA executives in this business, no one can do simple math and figure out that more than one market exists, and that people will pay a premium for services tailored to their liking.
Maybe someday these guys will wake up and the industry will expand in multiple directions instead of one.
Comments
When I try talking to friends about the magical times I had playing EverQuest, I feel like some old man explaining to FallOut Boy fans why Led Zeppelin was the shit back in the day.
Let me clue you in. If you could play pre-trammel UO, or pre-NGE Star Wars Galaxies, IT WOULD SUCK.
You all are looking at crap through nostalgia. Nostalgia blinds people to the negatives and makes the postiives seem almost mythical. Memory is selective and biased, and the games back then were no better (and often worse) than the games we have now. This is why no one makes them, because players wont play them now if they did (Darkfall has what? 10k subs? EVE had to trammel itself with empire to survive) and they wont be fun.
Just get over the castles in the sky you make out of past games, and accept the current ones for what they are.
I think you completely missed the point.
If the current day MMO's are so good as you say it is. Then why are they continue to fail? and fail? and fail again?
Why did Champions Online lost over 80% of the players within the first month?
Why is Star Trek Online going to lose over 80% of the players this first month?
Ever thought about it, that maybe these new MMO's just suck?
That they don't offer any challenge?
That they are so simplified, that you don't even have to use more then 2 braincells?
That they offer an attention span and have content that won't last beyond it's first month?
Just think about that, before blaming people to be stuck in nostalgia and being blind.
God forbid us, if all we ask is a MMORPG that has any form of challenge, make us use our brain just a tad little bit more and have an attention span and content / features that last us beyond the first month!
Cheers
This is a take on our MMO complaints that we have looked at in the forums. I would point out, that to be commenting on games that came out ten years ago you have to be older than most of the new players who have not played them. Being older is a requirement to comment, not an explanation for the comments as Mr Wood is proposing.
Yes it is true that you can be jaded, I feel I am but that does not stop me forming a reasoned opinion. Otherwise we might as well also dismiss the comments of anyone under twenty as too juvenile and naïve. This argument works both ways, most of the fanboys are naïve teenagers so lets ignore their comments. You reach the stage where you listen to no ones opinion other than, strangely, those in you own age bracket. You can be as parochial about our age as the importance of where you live for example.
If you think concerns about F2P, the linear nature of MMO’s, item shops, instancing, soloing and easy mode are as logical as a man shouting at a cloud; then I beg to differ. If you cannot see there are real issues here, as many of our younger members do, you are living in the land of gaming comany PR.
As to the statement, “I submit though that businesses looking to turn a profit is nothing new to the world of games.” He is quite right, but misses the key trend. The corporate nature of MMO companies has increased drastically since the early days. Developers led the field because no one was sure what would work in a MMO. Now they think they know what works and it is all about marketing it to as many people as possible. Many of the heads of old MMO companies were designers, now they are nearly all corporate types.
It is common at thirty to question who you are, what you stand for and where you are going. Based on Mr Wood’s previous articles I think he like most of us has made some mistakes but on the whole does a fair job. Yes you do have a real job no matter what they tell you.
Haha, that made me laugh and it's true.. put any game aside and take a look at most of the people that are playing it, all the childish nonsense really makes me feel like that grumpy man down the street chasing kids off his lawn, but instead i'm now just without the paitents to acknowledge they are even there anymore lol.
I'm glad this is being brought up by a frontpage writer.
I honestly do think there is more then enough market for what we oldies want though, it's just the current wave of belief in the industry, that it isen't.
I say we should become more vocal in fact, and let them know this.
I wrote a lil piece on this verry subject not to long ago:
http://www.mmorpg.com/blogs.cfm/blogId/1436/entry/5643
I disagree with this article. I do not believe the linear nature that games have gravitated towards has anything to do with the wants or desires of the new generation of gamers.
Ultimately what gamers want is quality and content.
Whether that pill is delivered in the form of a linear or sandbox variety has very little to do with whether a game is successful or appeals to a larger crowd. Eve, LotRO, and WoW are examples of games like this. WoW or LOTRO's linear nature has nothing to do with the success those games have. That success is totally contributed to excellent quality and outstanding content. Eve is the only sandbox game left that delivers a high level of quality and content (or tools in the case of a sandbox), yet its sandbox nature doesn't hold it back in the least.
Bottom line is, the reason we're seeing tons of linear, instanced, shallow games is because they are cheap to produce and develop, You'll notice companies that make this type of game oftentime have multiple franchises (ie Cryptic). Their focus isn't long-term subscriptions. They don't design games that are meant to entertain people for years and years. They design games that will sell boxes/digital-downloads, and which will provide an influx of short lasting subscriptions that will fund their next project... thus continuing the cycle for the next shallow and linear game.
At the end of the day, there will always be more cheaply produced games flooding the market. And that means instanced, linear, shallow games. It's not because thats where the gamers hearts are, its because of corporate pocketbooks. At the end of the day, if any game is going to be successful, its going to be because of its quality and content levels... and that has zero to do with its linear or sandbox nature.
*another thing to keep in mind is that the average age of an MMO player is mid 20s, and getting older.
SOE did make money off pre-NGE and pre-CU SWG, alot more than they ever made from post NGE SWG. Not sure how you formed and opinion that they didn't make cash off pre-cu and did the NGE. All that happened was is that $OE got greedy, Smedley got greedy. He plays WoW not SWG and wanted a slice of that pie, he tried turning SWG into Everquest with the C/U/R/B and that didn't work so 6 months later he tried turning into WoW. Because he plays WoW and is a greedy man that wanted more money, despite the damn good takings he was already getting.
Before 2006 SWG had a playerbase for over a year that most big AAA companies would step over their own mothers for today! But Smedley trashed it in the quest for more, more, more bucks and ended up with the pathetic turd that has about 5k subscribers left. It was greed nothing else, I don't begrudge a profit. Why would I? I want the company that makes the game I like to make a good profit, but when people get greedy you end up where we are now. A few indepenant companies making the true MMORPGs and all the other greedy scumbags making AoC, WAR and STO and other crap like that.
If you couldn't make enough money out of 200k - 300k subscribers like you said then there'd only be 3 P2P games to choose from!
"Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron's cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience"
CS Lewis
i feel the same.
I'm 26 and started playing mmos from about 8-9 years ago or so. really loved old mmos where you could easly mess up your first chars and had to start all over again. Every new mmo now seems to be on easy mode..no real penalty for not doing a bit of research ahead for your chosen class.
I'm reading everyday the gaming news with the hopes a game like the old Anarchy Online, but a bit updated and without the messed up launch...it's being developed. No luck so far. Although Fallen Earth reminds me of the feeling I had when starting AO, it still needs some polish...and maybe some more people.
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. A. Einstein
I think this topic is good, it can also mean what happens when a game you used to like to play has changed too much since launch and has become a completely different game that you may not like anymore. The primary example would be World of Warcraft, back then instances/raids were not as easy as they are today and Epic gear actually meant something in those days, there was no emblem system and you actually had to really work for your epics, also there was 40 man raiding. Mounts were another thing, originally it was levels 40 and 60 and they used to cost more but now it's levels 20 and 40 and they don't cost as much, god dam it, I want my gold back... Leveling up wasn't fast and easy nether, in fact in those days you could level faster while in a group doing dungeons, nowhere days you just solo your ass without ever meeting a soul.
Speaking of souls, the worse thing that changed in WoW imho was the game's own community, most went from being friendly helpful people into brain dead forum trolls who say "N00b" to anyone new who wants helpful advise, they don't bother to help anyone and among other stupid things, it's really not fair, Blizzard have made the game too easy and most players have no mind at all now...obviously the stupid people thing was the final straw for me but I guess that's what happens when a game becomes too popular and old.
Nevermind I guess, all I can do now is move on, there are better games now and the best thing to do is ignore WoW and leave it to dust away in the shadows.
That's why I support companies like ICARUS. Fallen Earth is a good game. With a solid foundation. It has it's issues ofcourse. But it's a very solid game overall, with lots of content and features (a ton more then STO and CO alltogether) that can keep the average gamer busy for months.
Star Trek Online is still in the honymoon period. So you got lots of rabid fans defending it with every breath they have (after forking out over 300 bucks I cannot blame them really).
Just give it another week or two and even they will start to see for what STO really is (its already happening). Rushed, unfinished, shallow and broken core mechanics. And above all. No community.
The bulk of players (IMO) want quick in, quick out. Get to the end game, have the biggest and flashiest and create the biggest booms. Questing is there but no longer the same 'rush' when you find a good group and spend time just poking around, chatting and having a good old time killing stuff.
*shrug*
Box sales (and online stores for F2Ps) drive the market. Companies have to have a return in capital to survive. Give the masses what they cry for and (French Revolution anyone?) live another day.
There is a phenomenon in the movie industry which still bothers me. Gather a couple million bucks (or less) and make a truly crappy movie. Print a mass of DVDs and sell the crappy movie for $5-$10 on all the bargain racks in all the junk stores of the world. Make a profit in the millions of dollars. Pretty good for such a small effort overall. A lot of MMOs are taking this same tack.
That is not to say that none of the software marketers don't aim for a quality product. They do (sometimes). They have to to maintain longevity. But overall, more money comes in by faster turnout and quick deaths (of the games, not players). Thus we have a few good long term games that maintain a higher level of subs and a glut of 'soft' sometimes good, sometimes not so good games saturating the market.
I've always valued the ability to solo in an mmo when I choose, but I've always felt that mmos should reward group efforts, as well.
What we're starting to see is mmos penalizing group efforts. THAT is what scares me.
lol, it applies to EVERYTHING.
There is not a piece of media or social movement that has not experienced these waves of change.
On a larger scale, in the U.S. you can look at the 80's. People hate the 80's (lol, I was in a musical that my girlfriend at the time wanted me to join and it was set in the 80's. When the older people were giving dress and makeup tips to the younger people the younger people scoffed "people didn't really dress this way".) but the 80's are a rebellion to the 60's and 70's. 60's and 70's are a change from the 40's and 50's. We had to have the 40's and 50's because of the horrible 30's.
Of course the 30's happened because of the 20's. Culturally as well as the financial downfall.
I feel like it is a part of the wheel of time series:
"The Wheel of Time turns, and ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the age that gave it birth comes again."
Trends also recycle around. Using your example, kids today are wearing 80's fashion. It has been around for about 5 years now. It is slowly turning into early 90's neon fashion, since the last year or so.
I wouldn't be surprised to see someone attempt a 3d uo-like game soon.
Well THAT and if they forget to put in something to make you strive to stay alive it's usually a knee jerk reaction and the debuff SO Severe it makes you want to go strangle them (see Allods Online and FoD)
Plus I'll tell all of you right now Ever since Tabula Rasa took a nose dive (since it lost funding to continue and the devs got lazy)
I've been looking for something similar ever since, I got lost in WoW 1.x as it had fun combat, a great quest system, and a wonderful storyline I was familiar with after playing all their RTS titles for Warcraft. Unfortunately when they allied themselves with Vivendi Universal they got rid of two greats of the IP and things progressively went downhill Ultra fast. So now WoW is nothing more than a watered down Warcraft themed EQ. When WAR hit I had hopes it would be good as I recognized that IP as well and generally liked Warhammer Fantasy alright but it's not my favorite GW product. IT was ok but still not what I'm after and while Fallen Earth is a nice title it's Nuclear Apocalyptic and I just can't get into radioactive wasteland games lol
Tabula Rasa was great to me in the fact it had a superb storyline and you weren't some super soldier just some average person who got recruited into the Resistance of Humanity to fight the bane and someday reclaim Earth. You met various aliens along the way whom you helped and helped you, the game was great graphically and soundwise. Just too bad they got their rug pulled out from under them and they crashed and burned...I guess sometimes you DO need a bigger dev team than just 6 people. Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't all just to fund Richard Garriott's trip to space.....
Well I agree, sick of looking for a challenging MMO that is more "like the good old days". I seem to have strayed back to single player games in the meantime, simply because I'm not paying for a game that you can play while not in front of the computer (EvE), a super bloating marketing piece of crap (WoW), or something that keeps getting watered down and unbalanced (War).
The most fun I have had lately was LAN play of Borderlands and FPS are not my thing but there was fun to it.
Another Cash Cow (F2P) game called Battlefield Heroes was fast Furious action shooter that could quite easily have filled the void until something fit what I want comes out. That was until I gave up trying to get resolve the PunkBuster issue of being kicked every 3 minutes.
They then decided to upgrade the game and I now get kicked out of the game by PB because it simply won't run properly.
I think apart of your article misses one BIG piece of the puzzle, the Devs always point to your machine being "broken" and speaking down to you as if you don't know even where the power point switch is let alone having a stable system. Now I've been into computers for 30 yrs and know how to tell things to run. I am heading back to University for another degree (3 years long) and have a new $15k PC, you'd think that they would ask for my help in resolving their issues instead of passing to another moron who is reading a script written back when the game was in concept, bah.
My point is until We the People stop lining the pocket of these Morons, we won't get close to a Older Style Game!
There are only two games on my maybe list atm, Mortal Online and Earthrise, as they "seem" to give something I'm after. Who knows if they'll do the trick because so much can screw a game.
Besides, with all the big publishers loosing so much (I'm glad) I think the focus shall shift into the hands of smaller teams of independant devs once again. Big boys forget that they get too big for their boots and someone else out there is better than they are. All they need to do is make something good and we shall have a look, try, and maybe, just maybe, stick around to see it grow and flourish into something memorable....
Just to clarify something folks. I didn't say that all of the ills of the MMO industry come down to this one, single thing. It's a contributing factor, but of course bad games are going to fail. A bad game is a bad game, a game without polish lacks polish. That's why i didn't make any specific reference to any game in particular. It's because this is an underlying issue. The article refers to people who are just generally dissatisfied with the core designs of today's MMOs. Issues like polish and implementation are topics for another day's column.
Personally, I don't share your pessimism about business philosophy. doing the whole "pull the wool over your eyes" thing works when you're talking about businesses that rely on single purchases for their primary source of revenue. The appeal of going to all of the trouble to make an MMO, however, is the idea that there might be a continued revenue stream. I would suggest that an MMO company looking to maximize its revenue would look at ways to entice people to stay over the long term, not to fool them into buying the box. The box is just the beginning, the real money's in the subs.
Just my opinion though.
The last paragraph - ending with "the box is just the beginning, the real money's in the subs" - is it only an opinion, or are you privy to some hard data?
I think you must be wrong. It must be the case that you *can* make box sales of an MMO the primary source of revenue, since that is how single-player games make profits. In such a case, any income from retaining subs can be viewed as the icing on the cake and you would increase the investment in marketing that aims to maximise initial profits (strategy A), and decrease the investment in sustaining the MMO by balancing it just with the income from the players that do actually stay (strategy
.
I know it is trendy to pick on STO at the moment, but offering lifetime subscriptions based on the expectations and hype, and not experience of the actual game you are buying a lifetime subscription for, is an example of strategy A. Introducing MT into a subscription game, as is also happening in STO as well, is kind of an example of strategy B.
In fact now that I think about it, both these things about STO I have mentioned are great examples of profiteering from the fact that a fool and his money are soon parted. Buying a lifetime subscription for a game you've never played is foolish. Participating in MT while paying a subscription too, is not as clearly foolish but it is certainly getting there.
Now, you might argue that this is no good because people wont stand for it in the long run. I think you might be surprised. And I think there might be a lot of gamers out there that don't feel "fooled" if they buy an MMO that they only play for a month or two, if it was fun while it lasted. And maybe it is unfair to call them fools, because they felt they got their moneys worth.
The bottom line though is your premise that "the box is just the beginning, the real money's in the subs" is only one strategy that is championed by WoWs success, a success which publishing houses are finally perhaps beginning to realise is not repeatable.
/applaud
Well put, sometimes these devs think you're an idiot and what's funny is that sometimes just a few weeks later they feel like total asses when low and behold it WAS their problem. Point in case the original PB Fiasco over at EA/DICE's F2P BF:H, They told us NON-STOP "Well it must you guys cause we have no problems at all!" "Well it must be because you're using Windows 7...We only support XP and only SP2" "Well we now support Vista and Windows 7 but it's cause your using this or that or because your system is inferior" Then "Well everyone we found out the problem, it was a line in our code that was causing everything to go haywire"
If only companies would just FRICKEN FESS UP to making a mistake instead of being like a five year old when asked "Who did this?" "I dunno"
Well THAT and if they forget to put in something to make you strive to stay alive it's usually a knee jerk reaction and the debuff SO Severe it makes you want to go strangle them (see Allods Online and FoD)
Plus I'll tell all of you right now Ever since Tabula Rasa took a nose dive (since it lost funding to continue and the devs got lazy)
I've been looking for something similar ever since, I got lost in WoW 1.x as it had fun combat, a great quest system, and a wonderful storyline I was familiar with after playing all their RTS titles for Warcraft. Unfortunately when they allied themselves with Vivendi Universal they got rid of two greats of the IP and things progressively went downhill Ultra fast. So now WoW is nothing more than a watered down Warcraft themed EQ. When WAR hit I had hopes it would be good as I recognized that IP as well and generally liked Warhammer Fantasy alright but it's not my favorite GW product. IT was ok but still not what I'm after and while Fallen Earth is a nice title it's Nuclear Apocalyptic and I just can't get into radioactive wasteland games lol
Tabula Rasa was great to me in the fact it had a superb storyline and you weren't some super soldier just some average person who got recruited into the Resistance of Humanity to fight the bane and someday reclaim Earth. You met various aliens along the way whom you helped and helped you, the game was great graphically and soundwise. Just too bad they got their rug pulled out from under them and they crashed and burned...I guess sometimes you DO need a bigger dev team than just 6 people. Sometimes I wonder if it wasn't all just to fund Richard Garriott's trip to space.....
Really loved TR gameplay but tbh got lvl 50 on a thrax guardian in 1 month playing about 2hrs/day maybe a bit more during weekends. TR was fun but really one of the easy mode mmos of which almost everyone here complains about
Only two things are infinite, the universe and human stupidity, and I'm not sure about the former. A. Einstein
I just wish they had kept up with the development of the game and did what they SAID they would do instead of going half arsed and RG running off into the stars.
i find your statement surprising;. when some would claim that human behaviour has had the most profound change in history over the past 20 short years, technology being the prime contributor to the change.
"fun is fun"... hmm what is fun? i enjoy fishing - do you?
Technology has changed but people haven't changed. When I grew up there were no cell phones. Kids today never knew a world without cell phones. Does that mean the kids today have a different brain structure? A <cell phone lobe> in their brains which I lack? I hardly think so.
No, I don't particularly enjoy fishing. But just because my mother did (and she did) it doesn't automatically mean that I would be unable to enjoy it. If your parents enjoyed fishing would that mean that your generation would be unable to enjoy it? That's the point I was trying to make.
Some people are making the assumption that just because the first wave of mmorpg players enjoyed certain styles of games it means that the younger players today would automatically find those styles of games unenjoyable just because they are younger. The sorts of things which were popular then could be popular again if given a facelift and started over fresh. And yes, maybe correct some of the mistakes.
Exactly
Don't reinvent the car it's fine as is with the way it works
Newer techs though mean you DO HAVE to put in a better engine give it a better paint job a nicer radio and possibly put in a more economical tank (Engine - Game mechanics, Paint Job - Graphics, Radio - Sound/Music, Economical Tank - More payment options than just a CC#)
Your tears are like Gypsy Wine.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
You nailed it on the head and i was actually about to type this up and then ran across yours. The MMO community is what makes playing MMO's fun. I started with a game called The Realm in '97 and the community was small, probably less then 1000 total people played and payed just $5/mo. You knew people, you looked up to people, you knew when some one did something..etc. I was then invited into a early beta version of EQ. Again the community was small, you pretty much knew everyone on the server within 15 levels of you.
EQ came out and again at the beginning you knew everyone on your server, not just your guild. You talked to people in chat. The zone chat would have conversations between different parties in that zone. You some times had to work with the other groups to clear out other peoples problems(trains). If you were a dumb ass then everyone knew it and no one grouped and you left the game or rerolled and changed your attitude. You helped people and they helped you. Corpse recovery runs well after you should be in bed would occur. It was overall a great community.
When I played AC and AO, they also had great communities. I'm not for sure where it changed, but all of a sudden you started to play a game and if you weren't in vent then no one spoke to you. There was no community, you only knew the people in your vent which was probably also your guild, no one typed in chat. In my EQ guild everyone typed in chat all the time, now you join your guilds vent and you either have some 15 your old that wants attention and talks non stop or some ex marine telling everyone they know the best way to do what ever and for everyone else to shut up. They have rules that if your in game you MUST be in vent or you'll be kicked (and I've been in the same guild 6+ years), so I end up rolling a alt so know one knows i'm online because I don't want to hear the B.S. in vent.
I have tried pretty much every major MMO out and tons of these shitty ass Asian influenced F2P games. I believe that I could play any of them for a length of time given the correct community.
Overall I think the gaming that we remember is over. Technology has surpassed it. I hate hearing about how great UO was because no one would play it now. To do anything you first had to do something else. Chop Wood, Mine...etc. Want to learn to use a certain skill? Use it and the more you use it the better you got with that skill. Darkfall has that and no one played it because they wanted to spend their time playing the game, not getting things ready to play the game. So the Dev's then make it easier to gains skills, instead of taking months to be able to use a giant fireball, they make it take weeks... People think they want something in games, but they really don't.
People want a good community when they play a MMO, otherwise they'd stick with single player games. SWG had a good community at the start, I enjoyed that game. I enjoyed chilling in a watering hole in some player made town talking to others while some one played music to buff us up before we went out on a hunting trip to gather material for the doctor to make buffs...etc. Give me the same experience with no one talking and zero community and I'd been bored.
This, exactly. $50 a month for a fee is nothing to me if a company can deliver an experience I enjoy. I drop that on lunch for my wife and I. There are more of "them" perhaps, but "we" have more disposable income.
The key is finding a way to pry it from our aging hands...
I'm waiting for a "premium" sandbox style game to come along eventually, with an extreme focus on customer service, perhaps a fee of something like $49.95 a month, no "item shop" or "ala carte" fees, catering to a more mature audience. I'm sure some indie developer will figure it out eventually if the larger developers don't.
The cell phone companies certainly did, which is why I pay $230 a month for an "unlimited" plan now as opposed to the old nickel-and-dime fees of the past. Unlimited text, voice, and data. Do I always get my "money's worth" from such a plan? No, but it's nice to not have to worry about additional fees. The phone bill is the same; every month. No matter how much I use it.
Agreed.
I'm surprised that with all these wunderkind developers, genius marketers, and MBA executives in this business, no one can do simple math and figure out that more than one market exists, and that people will pay a premium for services tailored to their liking.
Maybe someday these guys will wake up and the industry will expand in multiple directions instead of one.
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