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King of MMO Devs
chaod1984
Member Posts: 271
Hi,
Wanted to pose a question...who do you think are the kings of MMO's as far as devs go. Give a good explanation. I think it's Funcom...as much as people complain about their inability to launch a game, I still think they make the best MMO's granting the best experience. AO had the best and most in-depth stat system as well as several fun instanced dungeons especially Temple of the Three Winds. I now play AoC and love that just the same. The combat is unforgiving and fast and the dungeons are just as good (if not better) than AO.
Give your thoughts!
Comments
I don't see how anyone but blizzard deserves the crown currently.
It is Blizzard, there is no debate...
Chins
Blizzard most definitely, Arenanet is up there as well.
Number one is definately - Blizzard (Do I even have to say why?)
Other contenders for the number two spot are...
SOE (I know they've caused a bit of trouble recently, but they have still made some of the best MMO's around.)
Trion (Definately deserves a mention due to the huge success of Rift.)
ArenaNet (Guild Wars, enough said.)
Turbine (Lord of the Rings Online is probably the best adaption of a book ever, in any form of media.)
Funcom (Age of Conan and Anarchy Online are two of the best MMO's available right now, imo.)
Other than those above I don't think there are many other game developers that deserve a mention quite as much as they do.
Edit *I forgot to add Funcom*
I don't mean to sound big headed... But I know Voldemort.
Hmm... individual lead designers or companies? By the examples given I guess it's companies.
ANet: willingness to do things differently, old Blizzard people who worked on successes as Diablo, Starcraft, Warcraft and Battlenet, and interesting skill and combat design (plus one of the best art design teams around if not the best)
Blizzard: I mean the old team that worked on WoW vanilla, their talent pool has become diluted over the course of years with too many new people coming in and too many of the old, very talented guard having left to either work on Titan or completely left Blizzard (to work on GW/GW2 or Torchlight and such)
CCP: for what they managed to create with EVE Online
The ACTUAL size of MMORPG worlds: a comparison list between MMO's
The ease with which predictions are made on these forums:
Fratman: "I'm saying Spring 2012 at the earliest [for TOR release]. Anyone still clinging to 2011 is deluding themself at this point."
ArenaNet
They've only made one game, but it's the best game ever made. Their second game looks promising, too, but it's too soon to say.
ArenaNet. the fact is the true magic makers from Blizzard left years ago, and some of them are at Anet.
I don't like to crown an entire company, the great talents are individuals. If I would have to choose a company it would probably be Arenanet, they actually have the most number of good devs right now.
Here are a few great guys:
Lord British: TR might have failed badly but he is more or less the guy who invented computer RPGs (not MMOs as some say, M59 was released 1 /2 year before UO). If you look it up you notice that he had his hands in many successful MMOs, Lie UO and Lineage. He might be burnt out now or not, time will tell.
Strain: The man behind Diablo, Warcraft 3, Guildwars and most of GW2 as well. leads zombie lab now, one of the worlds best programmers and an excellent dev.
Kaplan: Like Wow or not, this guy do know how to make a game people like (even if Wow originally was Strains idea). It will be interesting to see how Titan will do once it releases.
Ray from Bioware (don't ask me to spell his last name plz). The guy who gave us BG 1 &2 and Neverwinter nights. Not sure if he can make a good MMO as well, we have to wait and see for that but his trackrecord is impressing.
Brad "The Vision": EQ is still the game that turned MMOs into what they are today. Vanguard failed because it was so poorly coded that the indie devs laughted at him but the ideas behind the game was not bad. He might come back later or not, but he have made an impression on the genre that wont go away anytime soon.
There are a whole bunch of other people as well, I am just too tired to count up them all.
And I can't agree with OPs favorite Funcom because while they do have some talented people (particularly in their art department) they have so far lacked a good lead programmer. Both AO and AoC were far too buggy to really become the game they should have been and they have always been too slow with getting in new materials. I do hope they get better at these things with TSW, the concept of the game really sounds awesome.
A company needs both a good "vision" and a good lead programmer. The only dev I know that are good at both these things today is Strain (Garriot were the best at coding once but it was a long time ago since he coded a large game, I still would give him silver here) and therefor I would give him the crown as king of MMOs right now.
That's Ray Myzuka.
I agree that Dr. Myzuka and Mr. Strain are among the best game developers out there. But anyway, if I had to choose a company, then it would be Arenanet.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
I like ANet, but I hesitate to name them for this based on the strength of one not-quite MMORPG and one unreleased game.
And Funcom? lol no...
You have to say Blizz I guess... they are the ones that people use as a benchmark and reference point, and they are the ones that have cracked the mainstream market in any kind of menaingful way. People that havent even heard of the term 'MMORPG' have heard of WoW.
I don't think this all makes them a 'good' dev, but that isnt the question I guess, and no one says kings have to be 'good'
Blizzard, because kings usually:
1. are famous
2. have influence on others
3. try to please the largest possible amount of people to stay in power
I'm not going to go for Dev company (would be Blizzard) but rather single developer.
Jake Song; He's gone from working for other big companies to be at the head of making successful MMO's in the past, Lineage, Aion etc to finally being able to gather a good budget and latest technology to create his own MMO exactly how he wants it.
I'm fairly sure that's every Dev dream.
Nice posts! I forgot about ArenaNet and can agree that it should be in the Top 3...I dont think they have enough street cred yet to be labeled No. 1.
Blizzard, imho, was too "pop culture" for me to ever accept it as any kind of "king"...it's like people that call Elvis the King of Rock n Roll even though all of his hits were written by someone else and Chuck Berry personified the idea of Rock n Roll so much better.
Same with Blizz....they took past ideas, made them brighter, shinier and made them work better, but never really went beyond that. At worst they are hacks, at best they are apprentices that took notes on how many mistakes their master made.
The reason I say Funcom is is because everytime they put out a game there is an immediate learning curve because they always introduce a new philosophy to MMORPG's. Whether it be with combat, skill building or whatever, they always bring something new to the table, they are always pioneers of one thing or another and that, to me, is way more important than actually taking something somebody already made and making it better.
Blizzard is obviously the king of MMO devs. My favourite tho would be CCP, Turbine and Anet. I also like NCsoft a bit, even tho the west department hasn't done the best work so far, their games have a certain quality to them and their on-going dedication to development is astounding imo. I also applaud the fact that they do reactivation weeks, I have no idea why more companies don't do this.
I dont know who to pick really, I'll give it some thought and edit this post later perhaps.
I cant say just of the top of my head who has made the most innovations etc, but surely it isnt Blizzard. I can count their own ideas on one hand. They are very good at borrowing and improving stuff to make it theirs, but directly from blizzard drawing board? Nowai.
Marketing department however, blizzard is king
)
CCP no contest
Guild Wars is NOT a MMO
its a Diablo cloney. Not MMO.
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
1. CCP - gets top vote for creating a sustainable open world that itegrates both casual and hardcore play styles.
2. Blizzard - for showing the world that MMOs didn't have to be released half finished.
Funcom will get honorable mention for their aspirations with The Secret World.
RIP TK-421. Best imperial guard ever.
It is funny how people get worked up about this.
Arenanet makes everyone else look bad.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
well if you want to do that then Bethesda Software is the best MMO developer because of Elder Scroll
Philosophy of MMO Game Design
I'd root for Bioware but they have seemingly sold their soul to EA. Anyways Arenanet has something under its belt already in the MMORPG front - unlike Bioware or Bethesda.
I skate to where the puck is going to be, not where it has been -Wayne Gretzky
Even I as a long time (since the first Guild Wars beta) Anet fanboy have to admit that Anet cannot at the moment be put in lists like this. As someone else said, you can't claim a developer is the best MMO developer based on a non-mmo and an unreleased mmo. It's funny that people (both fanboys and haters) still try to put Guild Wars into the mmo genre.
Nexon clearly has the best devs, they are let down by their publisher though. When you look at gameplay in Nexon games they are always a cut above the rest.
Sigil games online.
i kid i kid
I say original devs of fallen earth, while not a popular answer they did so much with verty little so i give them props.
The following statement is false
The previous statement is true
Well to use the correct acronyms, correct if wrong:
MMO = That's a bunch of games (many the umbrella for below)
MMOG = eg LoL that don't fit the rpg but have lots of players interacting.
MMORPG = massively with the rpg (eg wow, war, Order&Chaos Online)
CORPG = cooperative with the rpg (eg GW, Vindictus, Pocket Legends)
multiplayer = only ever a few ppl in game 1UP, 2UP etc..
----
back OT : CCP, ArenaNet, Blizzard, Jagex, Spacetime Studios (mobile mmos), Trion, Turbine, Funcom et al. all doing good work in different ways. Any company that releases an MMO and is profitable/adds interest to their game is worth their salt in this genre.
http://www.gdcvault.com/play/1014633/Classic-Game-Postmortem