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Are we on the verge of a new golden era of MMOs?
Foomerang
Member UncommonPosts: 5,628
Im looking at the next few years of mmos being launched and this is what I see:
The Secret World
ArcheAge
Blade & Soul
Tera
Guild Wars 2
Star Wars: The Old Republic
World of Darkness
Dust 514/EvE
Undead Lab's Zombie mmos
I look at that list and I see rich selection of unique settings, combat styles, quest systems, end game options, social dynamics, and art direction. If you cant find something you like out of that list, Id say this genre is not for you.
Comments
Historically speaking a majority of those should flop. There has always been a level of optimism before you actually get to play something. I hope you're right though.
I agree but people will complain anyway. I mean if the game is not perfectly suited to that persons preference then they will complain about it.
Anyway, if those games hold up to their promises it looks to be a good few years.
I'm only familiar with GW2, Tera, and TOR. I am admittedly a fanboy, but I think GW2 is the one everyone should be watching.
TOR has high production values and will certainly be a high quality product, but from what I've seen the gameplay is...just more of the same. I don't really like the term "WoW clone", especially when talkinga bout a game that takes place in space, but in terms of gameplay it seems that way to me.
Tera is focused on its action combat. I think that's a really neat innovation, but I don't know much about what else it offers/doesn't offer.
GW2 is changing *so many things*, except for its standard fantasy setting. NCsoft has given ArenaNet a virtually unlimited budget and no hard time line for release, so they have the freedom to bite off whatever they want and take as long as they need to chew it. It's a pain in the rear to not know when it will be released, but I am 100% sure that the final product will be unlike any MMO before it.
Edit:
Another reason for GW2's success will be its business model. No subs means people can buy it without fear of commitment, and more importantly it is not in direct competition with WoW and TOR.
I think if ArcheAge can be sucessful and prove that the sandbox is still valid, and Guild Wars 2 can set a new standard for dynamic PVE, then I think maybe we can begin to see a "golden age".
As it stands I have my doubts about that list.
The Secret World - I like the unique concept, but it will be themepark all the way. Instanced PVP is confirmed. FC is a very instance reliant company. I'm leery if it will deliver anything other than a new theme.
Tera - I was kinda hyped about Tera, but my friends in beta had nothing good to say about it (They were huge Lineage fans). So I dunno.
Star Wars: The Old Republic - I predict this will be the most costly "WoW Clone" flop in MMO history. Sorry SW fans.
Dust 514/EvE - Hear this is going to be PS3 exclusive
Undead Lab's Zombie mmos - Sounds rad but it's gotta be like 5 years out
The genre always seems poised to make a leap forward, and several times in the past it has failed to do so. I'm not getting my hopes up, but many of these games do look like games I would play. Then again, those of us around a couple years back when AoC, WAR, and then Aion shortly after went live, know that the MMO industry can appear to be poised, but fall flat on it's face.
Cautiously optimistic, but aware of the history.
Currently Watching: TSW. << Very Eager for a Beta invite. Have experience with Beta Testing.
Not personally a big fan of raiding or current pve endgame mmo philosophy. Nothing wrong with it, I just sort of burnt out on it.
Hardcore raider in wow from Launch to.. about 7 months ago.
Currently Playing: Champions Online.
To me its just refreshing to see SciFi, High Fantasy, Chinese folk lore, Zombie Apocalypse, Contemporary Lovecraft, and clockpunk settings all coming out in the next few years.
It's going to be a good year or two. Even if a majority of them flop, I'd still think you'd get a few hundred hours of enjoyment out of each of the ones you'd be interested in. You'd have to be pretty cynical to not be excited about any of those titles (or this genre just isn't for you).
We should be due for another 'WoW moment' soon.
Currently Watching: TSW. << Very Eager for a Beta invite. Have experience with Beta Testing.
Not personally a big fan of raiding or current pve endgame mmo philosophy. Nothing wrong with it, I just sort of burnt out on it.
Hardcore raider in wow from Launch to.. about 7 months ago.
Currently Playing: Champions Online.
We are always 'on the verge'.
Thats what keeps us here waiting. We never seem to get there though.
The golden year for MMORPGs was meant to start with Rift, but... yeah, well.
Sadly this is toted every year and every year we get the same promises of amazing "next gen" mmorpg's but what we actually get is a mixture of wow clones, broken releases, unimaginitive use of classic IP's and general dross.
Of all those games in the list, only The Secret World sparks any interrest for me, the rest are all flops in the making, SWTOR being the biggest of them all, will possibly be the single biggest large IP flop of the year.
Simple answer, it's unlikely.
Expresso gave me a Hearthstone beta key.....I'm so happy
SW will likely only be a flop due to timing if at all. (I'm still of the opinion that it will be a moderate success) Rift already has coralled some of the growing disaffected WoW players, but it's basically the same endgame, so Rift will loop and ebb for a bit.
SW's market is other WoW players.. they aren't looking to change the game, and had Rift not been released, they would be poised to easily take all of the disaffected WoW types.
As it stands though, the IP is strong and may yet pull in enough people to make a dent.
Right now, the general burnout of WoW players is going to grow until these games hit launch. When they do, there's no telling how the market will react. I predict that the earlier games will get substantial players early on, and either wane, or retain. If they wane, then the latter releases will get their chances to break the market. If they retain, then they'll hold onto the market.
This year is the time to release a good, polished game, because this year is when your major competitor has the largest appearance of weakness, that will take some serious PR to rewrite.
Currently Watching: TSW. << Very Eager for a Beta invite. Have experience with Beta Testing.
Not personally a big fan of raiding or current pve endgame mmo philosophy. Nothing wrong with it, I just sort of burnt out on it.
Hardcore raider in wow from Launch to.. about 7 months ago.
Currently Playing: Champions Online.
In the past developers have made games, sold them and moved on to new development.
Now, MMOs are the companies themselves and firms are working on them. This makes them heavily more invested than normal games that get released.
Take for example the Coca-Cola Company. The Coca-Cola Company released a product that replaced their normal product called "New Coke." New Coke was received so poorly that their sales dipped for years to come and Pepsi was allowed ot rise from the ashes of it. In the mid-80s Coca-Cola rebranded New Coke as Coca-Cola Classic and started inventing new brands as well as purchasing potato chips companies.
Coca-Cola might come out with 50 new flavors a year now. 48 of those might fail. That's the same as these MMOs. Somewhere around 9/10 businses are likely to fail. MMOs are no exception. They need a clientel just like any other product.
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
I think it's all up to the players. A lot of folks just seem too jaded with high and often conflicting standards of what they want.
I think what MMORPG players really need is selective memory erasing, so they can get that first time thrill they felt of immersion and wonder. Now a lot of them simply grudgingly play.
I guess this makes MMORPGs sound like Heroin >.>
/insert lag spike joke
The next big things will be an old school MMO (Archeage or similar) AND a real MMOFPS (Dust or Firefall or Planetside Next)
IIRC, Warhammer Online and Age of Conan were touted as something high and lofty along those great lines you're aiming for. See how all that turned out.
But you are right in one thing. This genre is not for me. It hasn't been for years now.
Enjoy that blind optimism. I certainly was right before AoC came out.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
I really think that Undead Labs MMO could really jumpstart a new breed of MMOs on PCs and consoles in the West. The team members behind it are proven and known for innovation. Jeff Strain basically came up with the WoW model, with James Phinney (also at Undead Labs now) created the GW model, and now they are going to change MMOs again.
Then why post on a site that's about MMORPGs? The blindness is lulsy.
Currently Watching: TSW. << Very Eager for a Beta invite. Have experience with Beta Testing.
Not personally a big fan of raiding or current pve endgame mmo philosophy. Nothing wrong with it, I just sort of burnt out on it.
Hardcore raider in wow from Launch to.. about 7 months ago.
Currently Playing: Champions Online.
I don't know about that.
Tera and Tera clone are/will be drowning in their own backyard and I don't know why anyone still has optimism that they will do well here. SW has already stated that it really isn't an MMO, just not in plain english. I have yet to see any footage that GW will be anything other than WoW with new controls, but the B2P option makes it so damn tempting. You do know that Failcom is developing The Secret World?
Eve and it's console expansion are great ideas, but I don't think there is going to much interaction between the two. World of Darkness might be interesting, but there just isn't enough available yet. Archeage has a promising look, but the developers are across the pond, and makes me a bit doubtful that it will have appeal over here.
A ZOMBIE MMO!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I don't know.................
It feels like selling ice to eskimos. Don't get me wrong, I like to shoot zombies as much as the next guy, but an MMO........
I couldn't agree more.
You should maybe add Firefall, Defiance, End of Nations and C9 to the list, just to emphasize the range in variety the upcoming 1-2 years will bring.
It's your life of course, but then what are you still doing here, hanging around forums of games of a genre you don't even like?
Sadly enough you're not the only one, there's quite a number of people hanging around here who have a thorough antipathy and aversion towards the majority of the MMO genre.
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."
Congratulations!
You reached lvl 80 of devil advocateness
"It has potential"
-Second most used phrase on existence
"It sucks"
-Most used phrase on existence
It's an persistent, open-world, survival MMO with zombies. That's why there is so much potential with it.
The list of titles on the horizon looks good, but then again, it always has, and if history tends to repeat itself we can probably expect most of those to be considered commercial failures when its all said and done.
I'd say if we got 5 of those to be decent hits we'd be way ahead of the curve.
"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
My response: Time will tell eh?
True, there are quite a bit of MMOs that look great, but we haven't had a chance to play them yet. So I guess we'll see.
(Though with me being a GW/GW2 fanboy, I have no doubt I'll fall in love with the game. So it looks like it will be for me).
But I'm also interested in The Secret World and swtor (if for no other reason, only because it's the Star Wars IP)
-Karesh
Well, the thing about the titles you just mentioned is that (as different as they were) they were all still in the linear themepark model (as is WOW).
AoC was only different in that it was marketed as a more mature game. The main feature it touted was the improved combat system by requiring players to be more interactive in combat by not only directing attacks, but directing defenses as well. Still a class based game that follows a very predictable linear progression model that involves fighting as a means to progressing.
WAR was almost a direct clone of WOW and it's innovation was only that it came up with "Public Quests" that allowed players in the same general area of a quest objective to automatically get thrown into a group so that they could work the objective together. Still a game in the mold of WOW......linear / gear progression based that involves monster bashing to get anywhere in the game.
Aion...rince repeat. It was NCSoft's crack at linear themepark gaming.......linear / gear progression based MMO with the same old crafting system, same old hunt monster / deliver message quest driven content system.
All three companies thought that by providing the same base formula that they would be able to co-op the existing WOW playerbase (about 60% of the MMO playerbase) and then make the final steal with their "slightly different" combat system, questing system, or.....Wings.
Guild Wars 2, for all its instanced story telling, seems like its going to attack the Holy Trinity of class makeup and should shake up things quite a bit. Giving all classes the ability to heal? Blasphemous!
ArcheAge appears to be the illegetimate offspring of Ultima Online & Lineage 2. The ultimate Sandbox / Linear hybrid. This game will feature a classless progression system, player housing, player driven economy, group ship based combat, FFA system, etc. It's got all those old MMO themes that a lot of folks have been asking for. Finally a sandbox with polish....will it get picked up in the West? Lets hope so!
Dust is a FPS that will be intergrated to take missions from players in EVE, but didn't know it was going to have other MMORPG elements built in.
SW:TOR (even though its still a WOW Clone) will be just as influential as the other non-linear titles will be. If SW:TOR fails, don't expect another AAA publisher to drop several hundred millions of dollars on another game that directly competes with World of Warcraft's audience. This means they may be more open to creating a more diverse selection of MMORPGs if they don't have to play to that casual base that makes up the majority of WOW's playerbase.
It is really hard to predict the future.
You might be right, if 2 or more of these games becomes big it would persuade the investors that MMO can be a good deal and inspire studios to make new fun MMOs.
On the other hand can they all fail and we could be on the beginning of the end. If companies like this still can't make a successful MMO and Blizzards Titan fails as well the genre will go down with Wow, at least in the west.
Or we could get a new single huge game that takes the torch after Wow and we get paste and copy from the last 7 years.
I like most of you hope that this really is the dawn of the golden years for MMOs but that is something we wont know until a lot later....