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Is everything a fail?
Torgrim
Member CommonPosts: 2,088
Seems like every new MMO that comes around the corner is a fail, it dosent matter if it lack content, have plenty of content, poor graphics, great graphics ect.
I know I am one of those that screams fail now and then, and I know what kind of MMO I want.
And that MMO I want will prolly never ever be made.
Why so much fail in the eye of a gamer?
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Comments
It's just the industry not realizing yet that the average gamer became older, smarter, wiser and has evolved. We need more than just premade content (which often is dumbed down as well to "suit the whole family") to occupy ourselves with.
We are like kids of 14 years old still getting toy cars and dolls for our birthdays.
V_V
My brand new bloggity blog.
It's probably a trend of MMO development, since we do not have a tremendous history of MMOs anyway, this is probably the first down in the trend. Pretty soon, those that have spent a great deal of time studying and working their tail off for the last four or five years, maybe longer, will step up and produce some amazing MMOs, or at least the trend will go upward. I hope.
It can not get much worse can it? I, myself, am sick to death of the mediocrity that floats around this genre of the game industry.
At least Bethesda continues to demonstrate that long term developer teams can make something amazing. i.e. Skyrim.
Im playing mmo's sinds '99 and had my burnouts in between also, ive not played for years mmorpg's but i always play solo games and some multi player FPS/RTS games.
Maybe take a breake or play solo game or do something else and get the enthousiasme back for mmo's after a while?
Dont always seek same kind of mmo games. Play sandbox or themepark maybe that helps?
100% this.
The majority of MMO players are now in their 30s and what entertained us when we were teenagers and just starting to play MMOs no longer does. Devs are still developing MMOs for 13yr olds whilst their player base has grown up and now needs more complex and engaging content to entertain them.
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
It's like back in the beginning of MMO a 8 year old got a toy that was meant for a 15 year old, now we get a toy meant for a 8year old when you are 20 years old.
Don't like this trend at all.
If it's not broken, you are not innovating.
Its realy rare that a company can keep improving on a series thats keep getting better and get huge fans base becouse of quality like ELder Scrolls series, not many can achieve this. Skyrim was and still is awesome specially with all the great mods that we prolly will get over the years.
But mmo's when we where 13 where alot more mature then todays mmo's:)
<Pessimism>
Until EA decide to buy them out and it all goes to shit
</Pessimism>
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
My theory is that they try to maximize profit by casting a big net of the ages a game will appeal to, beat down the developers creativity with budget and time constraints, and end up pleasing no one. It is corporate vision versus what could be called,"Craft". It's why so much Indie music, movies, and yes, games are so impressive. They are the craft of a real live person. Not something shoved at you from a drive-through window.
Ballerinas are always on their toes. Why don't they just get taller ballerinas?
When I purchase a game, I am spending money that I have earned through the sweat of my brain. When FunCom screwed up the launch of Conan, I cried "fail" because ... well, it was screwed up after newb island, and FunCom is as swift as molasses in January when it comes to player problems.
I cried "fail" for Chronicles of Spellborn, not because of gameplay (which was very good), but because the publisher did almost zero advertising and almost zero hyping on the MMO sites, no one played. I called "fail" on the publisher.
Other than these two examples, I have not called "fail" about a game just because I don't like it.
Hedonismbot: Your latest performance was as delectable as dipping my bottom over and over into a bath of the silkiest oils and creams.
FAIL!!!!
Just kidding. I guess, you answer your question in your post. When we started playing MMoRPGs we came in a great new world. In our first game/games we had much fun, because it was something completely new. So we didnt or didnt want to recognize some mistakes in this/these game/s. Now we know the MMoRPGs and we have whishes for our perfect game. Now we recognize the mistakes and we dont like them, because we only want our perfect MMoRPG (and well never get it, because everyone wants something special).
I guess, thats the reason why we dont like new games so much and not because the games are so much worse then our first games.
Greets Niffi
I had all but forgotten about The Chronicles of Spellborn. LOVED that game, it was a real breath of fresh air and gave me at least, a real sense of exploration, and danger. Remember "Little Tyke"? That little bastard WTFPWN'ed me the moment I stepped into the 2nd zone and it was a real achievement when I had got strong enough to beat him. One of my most memorable MMO experiences
TCOS could have been quite a success if the publisher hadnt all but ignored it. There was ZERO advertising or promotion of the game, which is what killed it. So Sad.
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
Perhaps a sign to us that we should stop playing video games as we get older?
Its not about video games in general. I still would say that the vast majority of console video games are played by teenagers, but MMOs are a different beast as those that grew up playing them still do....
Teenagers as a rule dont have enough of an attention span to be able to play MMOs now
Cluck Cluck, Gibber Gibber, My Old Mans A Mushroom
No offense, but Eve had about the same level of advertising when it launched. Word of mouth is all you really need if your product is good enough.
You can't please everyone. No matter what a game does, there will be a lot of people who don't like it. But you don't need everyone to like it. If you can get 1% of gamers worldwide to pay to play your game long-term, that's enough to get very rich.
Yes, in a word: Jaded
It's just the industry not realizing yet that the average gamer became older, smarter, wiser and has evolved.
I know what kind of MMO I want.
And that MMO I want will prolly never ever be made.
i think because the market was smaller, so they could afford to be niche. these days, your game is a "fail" if it's too niche. as game companies got bigger, they needed more money. so they had to attract more gamers. thanks to the internet, that happened. these days the media will pounce if you have something a little politically incorrect, so game companies have to emply spin merchants and dumb everything down.
it's not the devs' fault. it's ours. in reality, the games which are made and built in the same way as those golden age games we loved so much, are the f2p games that auto-fail for being f2p, or their graphics aren't totally awesome compared to aaa games. i mean, we can't be satisified with gamePLAY unless it's got sweet graphics, zero bugs and has every known feature from wow plus every feature from every add-on and mod in every game that came before.
swtor didn't let you move the ui. so what? why is that an auto-fail? to be honest, it didn't bother me any. didn't have hi-res graphics? so? still looked okay. sure, the game was a bit of a yawn, but it's not completely useless. i got as much out of it as i did pretty much any other single-play game i ever played.
unfortunately, our raging is as much a marketing technique as anything. we have tried to destroy every game in the past few years EXCEPT wow. what does that say? it says i reckon a lot more people here go play wow than will admit.
warhammer online? despite the lack of appearance customization, i liked it. aoc? it's not that bad for what it is. combat was quite cool. lotr? some people like it.
yet, they fail to us for sometimes the silliest of technical reasons.
i have to say, if i were a gaming company, i wouldn't want to make an mmo. there's just no customer appreciation for even the little things.
you decide to do one little thing different to wow, or not include one system from wow, and you're auto-fail.
boom.
You mean why are there so many games developed that you don't like but that thousands of others do like? Maybe it's you and not the games or the developers. I'm guessing you're not really willing to consider that train of thought.
i have this strange theory that all the good mmo's stem from a few really good people. They just move companies and improve their craft each game.
quick someone crossreferene progressive jobs from EQ with DAOC and WOW. From this list find the top 3 and find out what game their working on now.....
The industry is a mess right now.
Before World of Warcraft brought MMOs into practically everyone's home, and before Sony brought hybrid DVD players into everyone's home in the form of the Playstation 2, console and computer video games were still considered something of a child's pastime, or a hobby for the so-called introverted "nerds" and "geeks" (or as one unconscionable slag put it, "basement dwelling trogs").
Popularity of the industry has only really blossomed in the past decade, at least in terms of catching the eye of eager investors looking to make a profit on the "next big thing". While this has brought a larger cash influx into the industry, it has also drawn a more unscrupulous crowd of greedy executive types looking for a way to make a quick buck in a growing industry that is seeing a lot of profit.
There's a much larger rift between game developers and their customer base, now more than ever before.
Take E3 as an example. Prior to 2006, E3 was an industry trade show that also embraced the fans of the companies that were showing their wares. E3 then was very close to what PAX is now; a way for gamers to connect with the industry giants that made their favorite games.
But as the event AND the industry grew, the costs that each developer or publisher spent to out-do their neighbors grew as well. It's all marketing flash and dazzle. Why do you think Sony was sinking so much cash into their E3 after-parties?
Throw into this mix the lure of big money being spent by major retailers for sizable orders, the swarm of major investors looking for the next triple-A title or console to sink their money into, and the cross-breeding of other entertainment media getting in bed with the game industry to expand their franchise marketability-- not to mention the unsavory business practices of some major publishers (Universal-Vivendi, Infogrames/ATARI, Electronic Arts) looking to acquire any established license that shows the faintest signs of a quick profit... These guys just want a quick return on investment!
Some guy in a $2,000 suit doesn't want to be forced to rub elbows with a guy in a sweaty T-shirt he just got as free swag from two booths down the convention aisle. Screw the fans!
All you, THE CUSTOMER, are now is a target for viral marketing, hype, more marketing, more hype, and a lot more marketing. (Anyone that owned a Sony PSP wonder why the PS Vita offers all the same features that the PSP was supposed to offer at launch, but didn't?)... But hey! Cheer for us and we throw a plastic bag at you with a free T-shirt that advertises our company logo!
It's a race to rush "the next big thing" out the door before the competition does. If it's PC based, there's more room to get away with something that's incomplete, yet functionable, because they can always patch it with updates later. Gamers keep buying them because they keep swallowing the BS.
Since people keep rushing to buy these incomplete PC titles before they're fully patched and updated, is it any wonder why they keep feeling like failures?
It has a lot to do with the "life of the game."
So an average game upon launch has a game life of between 40-100 hours. Some added things like multiplayer might shoot it forward a little bit. But these games are designed to be limited releases and a newer better version of the same game is released 1-2 years later.
An MMO has a game life of 160 hours.... a month. An MMO is expected to last up to 5 years meaning that an MMO has a life expectancy of 9600 hours.
This means that the design of the game has to be very limited and has to be open enough to allow for introduction of new dungeons, new raids, and total alterations.
This is generally why MMOs have really crappy graphics and are full of bugs. It's not bad programming, it's just limitations of the genre.
If all MMOs were like Red Dead Redemption where you were expected to stop playing the game after 200 hours the industry would be fine and would create new innovative MMOs.
But MMOs are kind of just those time sucker things that are designed to incubate a population.
Website: http://www.thegameguru.me / YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/users/thetroublmaker
MMOS being made today:
1 - WoW clones, none of which are as established or polished as well as WoW.. destined for eventual failure.
2 - Games that break away from the theme-park WoW model, none of them have AAA budets or talent because no one wants to take the risk of funding a game that doesn't fall in line with the WoW model. Usually ridden with bugs, imbalances, or just generally bad gameplay due to this.. destined for failure.
3 - EVE, an anomaly. Would fall into category 2 except it's actually successful and a good game in it's market.. a market that pretty much consists of EVE and EVE only, which is a huge reason it's such a success.