I blame it on money, and greed, bottom line is that a current mmo can take hundreds of millions to make, you have to ask yourself why that is, and the only answer I can come up with is that people are greedy bastards.
I mean lets face it, mmo or big developers are the footballers or sports stars of the gaming world, their given way to bloody much money for their work. its disgraceful.
If any developer, lets say blizzard, were to pay their staff minimum or at least average wages, and then give them a bonus at the end, possibly a % of profits, they would have been able to make wow for a fraction of the costs.
But that would have meant the employee's seeing past their own greed and taking a smaller wage packet until the project was complete, and lets face it, no one in their right mind is going to take a smaller pay packet when they can earn more.
the world revolves around greed, its a sad sad truth.
The op seems to be positing that Feature Bloat is a good thing for a developing game...
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
To echo several other.... Yes OP it is only you. (because generic stamements have to be true)
No i do not think it is companies getting lazier, rather the fact that the playerbase is about 100 times larger these days calling for a lot less focus and a "broader appeal". When EQ was released the only big competition was Ultima Online a open world with not all the much to do in it. You had to create your own adventure for most of it. And i can not remember the quests in EQ to be much better then the rest i have played. But ofc you will remember it so because it was your "first love" and things was new and fresh. Sad to say sonny it is mostly nostalgia.
As for the size and mass of the game and it's content they need to be balanced or severe boredom will set in. If you have a world the takes days to cross on foot but is filled with just empty space does not make for good gameplay.
Start small and then expand on it. Helps in quality control and polish or..start like Vanguard, huge and then fall flat on face.
Excellent point. EQ had vast areas of vland nothing ness that you could runthrough if you wanted. EQ also made it harder for people that chose different races to reach each other and play together. Bigger doesn't necessarily mean better. Any idiot can make a massive empty map and fill it with spawns.
That didn't work i'm sorry.
Some game like Lineage2 did launch this trend "have a very strong but tiny core, then expend". But it turned out to be very displeasing for the players. When you play a new mmo you expect a full and rich world, and not a combat system that get updated once every 6 month for free. Look at Tera went the same way and isn't doing fine for the same reasons.
An mmo cannot start small, because it is not what expect mmo gamers.
Lineage 2 had many flaws at release, but that was definitely not one of them.
"When you play a new mmo you expect a full and rich world, and not a combat system that get updated once every 6 month for free."
Wait... so the regular free expansions of L2 were a bad idea and poorly received? Y'know, I'm convinced at this point that half the people here feel that just because they want something to be true then it is true, despite data, history or any kinf of actual fact or reality.
Cheers
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein "Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
To echo several other.... Yes OP it is only you. (because generic stamements have to be true)
No i do not think it is companies getting lazier, rather the fact that the playerbase is about 100 times larger these days calling for a lot less focus and a "broader appeal". When EQ was released the only big competition was Ultima Online a open world with not all the much to do in it. You had to create your own adventure for most of it. And i can not remember the quests in EQ to be much better then the rest i have played. But ofc you will remember it so because it was your "first love" and things was new and fresh. Sad to say sonny it is mostly nostalgia.
As for the size and mass of the game and it's content they need to be balanced or severe boredom will set in. If you have a world the takes days to cross on foot but is filled with just empty space does not make for good gameplay.
The reason i liked EQ so much was it wasnt a solo based game and the world was large there was always a place you havant fully explored yet, i dont like to sit in one spot i like to keep moving seeing new areas i havant seen before and sadly current games dont have this because of such a small landmass they have 1-2 week and you can see everything there is to see in newer games like rift and if u played somwhat seriously you could get max lvl and well geared withing a fortnight of Rift or WoW. EQ in your eyes might of been a world that takes days to cross on foot with what you call empty space, what i see is a world where every area was somewhere different rdy to explore it was nice since there was no map and was easy to get lost if you wernt paying attention but thats adventure for you. Games nowaday give you everything and basicly tell you how and what path you should follow to get to the end its like a maze with no dead ends just keep following the one path infront of you and you will get to the end eventualy. I realy hate predictable games which is why i dont realy like the new MMORPG and loved Everquest. People spend to much looking at what they see infront of them then the bigger picture
The reason i liked EQ so much was it wasnt a solo based game and the world was large there was always a place you havant fully explored yet, i dont like to sit in one spot i like to keep moving seeing new areas i havant seen before and sadly current games dotn have this because of such a small landmass they have 1-2 week and you can see everything there is to see in newer games like rift and if u played somwhat seriously you could get max lvl and well geared withing a fortnight of Rift or WoW. EQ might of been a world that takes days to cross on foot with what you call empty space, what i see if a world where every area was somewhere different to explore it was nice since there was no map and was easy to get lost if you wernt paying attention but thats adventure for you. Games nowaday give you everything and basicly tell you how and what path you should follow to get to the end its like a maze with no dead ends just keep following the one path infront of you and you will get to the end eventualy. I realy hate predictable games which is why i dont realy like the new MMORPG and loved Everquest. People spend to much looking at what they see infront of them then the bigger picture
could not aggree more. Exactly my mind, EXACTLY. You can make a okay MMO going off of WoW's example, and to make it that much more fun, make the world MASSIVE going off of EQ's example and right off the bat you would have so much to do. My one and only complaint about Rift was that it was so small, so SO small. When I hit level 50 I wanted to explore! but there was nothing to explore, very sad
Just you.. I believe all game developers are looking forward to create a outstanding game that "us" will enjoy it. and I'm sure that this time will come and that game is like a bomb that will explode your mind that all the player that played that game will enjoy it every now and then..
Comments
I know what you mean and i think its dispicable.
The op seems to be positing that Feature Bloat is a good thing for a developing game...
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Self-pity imprisons us in the walls of our own self-absorption. The whole world shrinks down to the size of our problem, and the more we dwell on it, the smaller we are and the larger the problem seems to grow.
To echo several other.... Yes OP it is only you. (because generic stamements have to be true)
No i do not think it is companies getting lazier, rather the fact that the playerbase is about 100 times larger these days calling for a lot less focus and a "broader appeal". When EQ was released the only big competition was Ultima Online a open world with not all the much to do in it. You had to create your own adventure for most of it. And i can not remember the quests in EQ to be much better then the rest i have played. But ofc you will remember it so because it was your "first love" and things was new and fresh. Sad to say sonny it is mostly nostalgia.
As for the size and mass of the game and it's content they need to be balanced or severe boredom will set in. If you have a world the takes days to cross on foot but is filled with just empty space does not make for good gameplay.
This have been a good conversation
When all a game does is make new zones,that is aprt of that LAZY design we are talking about.
I want REAL content otuside of what normally makes up a game,we expect zones and we expect mobs.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
Lineage 2 had many flaws at release, but that was definitely not one of them.
"When you play a new mmo you expect a full and rich world, and not a combat system that get updated once every 6 month for free."
Wait... so the regular free expansions of L2 were a bad idea and poorly received? Y'know, I'm convinced at this point that half the people here feel that just because they want something to be true then it is true, despite data, history or any kinf of actual fact or reality.
Cheers
There isn't a "right" or "wrong" way to play, if you want to use a screwdriver to put nails into wood, have at it, simply don't complain when the guy next to you with the hammer is doing it much better and easier. - Allein
"Graphics are often supplied by Engines that (some) MMORPG's are built in" - Spuffyre
The reason i liked EQ so much was it wasnt a solo based game and the world was large there was always a place you havant fully explored yet, i dont like to sit in one spot i like to keep moving seeing new areas i havant seen before and sadly current games dont have this because of such a small landmass they have 1-2 week and you can see everything there is to see in newer games like rift and if u played somwhat seriously you could get max lvl and well geared withing a fortnight of Rift or WoW. EQ in your eyes might of been a world that takes days to cross on foot with what you call empty space, what i see is a world where every area was somewhere different rdy to explore it was nice since there was no map and was easy to get lost if you wernt paying attention but thats adventure for you. Games nowaday give you everything and basicly tell you how and what path you should follow to get to the end its like a maze with no dead ends just keep following the one path infront of you and you will get to the end eventualy. I realy hate predictable games which is why i dont realy like the new MMORPG and loved Everquest. People spend to much looking at what they see infront of them then the bigger picture
could not aggree more. Exactly my mind, EXACTLY. You can make a okay MMO going off of WoW's example, and to make it that much more fun, make the world MASSIVE going off of EQ's example and right off the bat you would have so much to do. My one and only complaint about Rift was that it was so small, so SO small. When I hit level 50 I wanted to explore! but there was nothing to explore, very sad
Just you.. I believe all game developers are looking forward to create a outstanding game that "us" will enjoy it. and I'm sure that this time will come and that game is like a bomb that will explode your mind that all the player that played that game will enjoy it every now and then..
I wouldn't say they are "lazier."
They are just shifting their focus from customers/long-term community to bottom-line/sales to gaming transients.