All the veterans of mmos that played uo, eq, ac and those games thought we would see the idea of a virtual world expanded upon by later games, not become spowopag (single player online with other people around games) type games.
my first game was asherons call. my friends had been playing for a bit and got me to try it. they were all playing on darktide (free for all pvp server). I rolled a character on darktide and zoned into the game, as soon as i zoned in I died. see there were these jerks in the game in a guild called BLOOD. All they did was run around and kill noobies in starter towns. they were you basic basement dwelling living in momma house trolls. if someone was able to fight back they would leave them alone. they just wanted to kill the lowbies and people that couldnt actually hurt them. well i died about 15 times that day as soon as i made my character. i nearly quit but once i got over the feeling of wanting to go kick puppies I vowed one day every member of blood would die. so for 3 years me and my friends fought blood wherever we saw them, we defended dungeons from blood and other pkers so people could just farm and level up. we had our own little olthoi dungeon and we were a member of a anti pk guild along with several other guilds that wouldnt kill anyone unless we were attacked first. we were the sheriffs of a lawless land.
I eventually got enough money to buy a apartment, then a house, one of my friends had a villa we could hang out at. we felt like we lived in a virtual world. we would meet up at this guys villa or one of our houses, or in town and we would go out into the wilderness and slay monsters and protect the land from blood and other rpk guilds.
now you tell me one other mmo since swg that has offered that type of gaming experience and that has not been a buggy pile of crap. none to very few and none have been mainstream. most games dont offer that world anymore. there is no reason to have world interaction between players. most interaction comes when people group up while doing a quest just so they dont compete for spawns. they moved away from creating that virtual world that the first mmos hinted at. so no its not complete nostalgi, mmos have taken a step back from what they started as, and went a totally different path. they might as well be single player online games now that allow alot of people to play them at once. they are no longer mmos and most of them arent rpgs either even the ones that are supposed to be.
Very similar to UO in that way. The social atmosphere was very different than today's games, it was actually social. In UO players knew the top players, PKer and Anti-PK, yes, but also other top players on your "shard" (server). There were the blacksmiths that you knew you could count on for their quality and honesty. Same for the alchemists, bowyers, etc.
Then there were also the player created things that newer games have made into a Single Player event, such as the auction houses. These were players who used standard game mechanics for houses to hold auctions, and did it themselves like a real life auction.
Or the trade fairs, where players set the time and place and everyone went to buy, sell, trade, and even make their own future contracts between themselves for their merchandise or resources.
Players set their own paths, in what felt like as close to a real world as fantasy can make.
The only thing UO lacked was a reason for PKers to stop PKing. A reason that could be handled and dished out by the more civilized minded players in defense of their cause.
There is a reason UO is still around, the longest running mmo. There is a reason EQ is still around. There is a reason EVE online is still a beast.
These games all did something different, they didnt just copy someone else's idea and repackage it into a new box.
It is simple truth. Most of the MMO's of recent years have been trash.
It is kinda WoW's fault too. Wow showed big gaming companies that MMOs COULD make tons of money. So when a guy with an idea for a game comes to ask for money from a financeer, the financeer says "I like your idea, but make it more like WoW since that is a proven model" If a dev does actually get financing to make a game his way then he has to go to publishing companies. These are the guys that make sure it gets to the store shelves and onto Steam or other DL sites. They also force their ways onto devs as well.
A good example of this is Pirates of the Burning Sea which had a tough time getting a publishor. Eventually they settled on Sony but it was pretty late in the game. Then , out of nowhere with no warning right at the end of beta they introduced a giant patch that COMPLETELY changed the game and made it much, much more carebear and kiddy friendly. The changes were absolytely game changing and they introduced it right at the end of beta so players couldnt test it. The game released and all the beta testers(me included) erupted in disatisfaction with the changes. You have to understand, many followed this game for years and read the devs(flying labs) posts about how they wanted the game to be. It was why people liked it. It is why people wanted in the beta and why so many loved the game in beta. Then, litterally a day or 2 before the end of beta and a week or so before release they completely changed the design of the game. Most felt Sony pressured these changes onto Flying labs. Publishers are hard to find, especially ones that can distribute in North America, South America, and Europe. Flying labs had no choice but to change their wonderful niche pvp game into a "try to please everyone" carebear game.
I could give other exmples...
Agree with this post, the root of all evil lies with the suits with business degrees making decisions that dictate the direction devlopers have to work with
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
People argue with you because you obviously have the patience and imagination of a console gamer. Your quip about Minecraft pretty much sums up your whole philosophy on games in general - that a quick diversion is worth more than long-lasting depth and infatuation with something. I've also seen it every time you state you'd rather play a lobby-based game than anything else.
That is the complete polar opposite to the tenets this genre was founded on, and what other players tend to be attracted to.
Essentially, *you* are the enemy, and the kind of gamer that all the modern-day crap being shoveled out is aimed at.
~I want a game where I can do whatever I feel like, whatever comes to mind is an option, and that cumbersome depth is the spice of life for me. I prefer games that last a lifetime (I've played Dark Cloud 2 and Disgaea, *console games* for years at a time, respectively, and have milked Civ 4 for the last drops of it's lifeblood).
~You want a game that is fun *now*, doesn't require any thinking, nor develops any emotional attachment, and doesn't drag your attention away from the next big thing. You prefer games that last a month or so, then admittedly, you would like to move onto something else.
Funny post.
+1
(Narius is obviously just trolling these forums, but its still great to see the reactions he gets from actual gamers)
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
Old games have little to do with nostagia.. I miss climbing ladders.. I miss clicking on a door to open it.. I miss buying patterns and molds for crafting.. I miss weight issues.. I miss sizing being an issue.. I miss constitution being a factor in fighting.. I miss food and drink meaning something.. Classes of old were fun to play.. the games of the past really encouraged a wide selection of classes and roles to play.. ALTitis if you ask me.. I miss having 8 or more starting cities and zones.. I miss the dozens of leveling zones in which to play in.. I wish today's instancing would get NERFED to high heaven.. I prefer large zone open world PvP.. The list can go on and on..
It has nothing to do with EQ1 being my first major MMORPG.. It has to do with the mechanics of how it played.. Today's mmo's have been dumbed down in my opinion..
I think the reason so many people argue with you is simply how your opinion is presented. I'm not sure if you do it intentionally, but you often come off an attitude of:
"I am right because I am the majority, and you are wrong."
Once again, if you're not intending to communicate the above sentence, then your opinion is 100% okay. If you are though, then that would be why everyone argues with you .
Oh, i know why so many argues with me. What is a forum without a little argument.
But opinions cannot be right. I love Diablo 3 .. i am unabashed and will say it. However, there is no "right' preference. Some other people here obviously hate it as much as i like it. So i am not saying "i am right and you are wrong".
However, given how many copies D3 sold, and how prevalent its style of play is in MMOs, i would say "I am in the majority". Why shouldn't i say that if i believe it is the truth?
And it is also ok if people want to argue. After all, this is an internet forum, and that is for arguing, if nothing else.
That's absolutely fine then, but let's be clear on what we're arguing about here. I am not arguing that your opinion is invalid...that would be silly.
I am arguing that your presumption that the overwhelming majority of gamers want linear, themeparkish games like WoW and SWTOR, and only a minority want sandboxy games, is wrong.
And the evidence I will use is that Minecraft sold 6.5 million copies and has the graphics of a game made in 1992. It sold 6.5 million copies because people are dying for the kind of gameplay it offers, and the industry just isn't offering it up. Terraria, also sold many copies for the same reason with SNES graphics. And then you have Day-Z, like I said before, its release has caused ARMA 2 to be #1 on Steam for like 2 months or something...that's crazy!
I have seen so many arguments claiming that no one wants sandbox games because games like Darkfall and Mortal Online are so obscure. This is the silliest argument I have ever seen. Those games didn't do well because they are bad games. Not because they are sandbox games. When a GOOD sandbox game came out, people jumped all over it.
So in light of all this, I really can't see how you can say that only a "minority" of gamers want sandbox games. Would you call 6.5 million a minority? And mind you, those 6.5 million bought a game with graphics reminiscent of Wolfenstein 3D.
Well, minecraft has no subs and it is obvious not a MMO. If you want to total up ALL games sold, minecraft is obviously not a majority.
If you total up all MMO sold, and look at the percentage of sandbox sales, it is also in the minority.
6.5m is not trivial, i will grant you that. But there many more copies sold if you add up CODs, Dead Space ... and so on.
If someone ever releases a AAA quality (actual AAA quality in polish/features/graphics/support/performance etc.) sandbox MMORPG that doesnt' force FFA PvP, I'd think you'd easily pull in 1 million+ retained subs.
People argue with you because you obviously have the patience and imagination of a console gamer. Your quip about Minecraft pretty much sums up your whole philosophy on games in general - that a quick diversion is worth more than long-lasting depth and infatuation with something. I've also seen it every time you state you'd rather play a lobby-based game than anything else.
That is the complete polar opposite to the tenets this genre was founded on, and what other players tend to be attracted to.
Essentially, *you* are the enemy, and the kind of gamer that all the modern-day crap being shoveled out is aimed at.
~I want a game where I can do whatever I feel like, whatever comes to mind is an option, and that cumbersome depth is the spice of life for me. I prefer games that last a lifetime (I've played Dark Cloud 2 and Disgaea, *console games* for years at a time, respectively, and have milked Civ 4 for the last drops of it's lifeblood).
~You want a game that is fun *now*, doesn't require any thinking, nor develops any emotional attachment, and doesn't drag your attention away from the next big thing. You prefer games that last a month or so, then admittedly, you would like to move onto something else.
Not anymore. If you look at the current MMOs, people who like lobby-based dungeon runs are obviously the target audience.
What crap? I will take a Dead Space game (typical good console game) over something boring crap like UO or EQ any day. There is so little depth in their combat system.
Of coures i want to move on. Who wants to play a single game for years? I am all for game hopping. I have like 10 MMOs installed on my machine. You think anyone have time to spend years in each?
But no thinking? I just wrote a spreadsheet to calculate effective health with different vit/resist/armor (and other skill effect) for Diablo 3. Optimizing gear in D3 is 100x more complicated, and more fun than a old game like UO or EQ.
In the past you got more game for less money. Now you get less game for more money, while being beat over the head to spend more in the shop.
In the past gaming was serious because you didn't want to die and you made friends to group with. Now people just stand around watching other charactors do dance moves and argue about politics, whether game is better than WOW, or whether someone is gay or not.
"I'm so disappointed with today's MMOs. Why can't they release something like those in the golden age of MMOs like UO?" and many others like this.
I just started playing MMORPGs two years ago so I'm definitely not a veteran in the genre. I'm just wondering, are those games in the "golden age" really that great or are these people just intoxicated by the feeling of nostalgia, and/or the good feeling provided by their very first MMO experience which can never be replicated no matter what developers do?
My first MMO was UO and I dont want a developer to recreate UO, I'm just waiting for a developer to create a holodeck that I can buy so I can spend the rest of my life in it.
People argue with you because you obviously have the patience and imagination of a console gamer. Your quip about Minecraft pretty much sums up your whole philosophy on games in general - that a quick diversion is worth more than long-lasting depth and infatuation with something. I've also seen it every time you state you'd rather play a lobby-based game than anything else.
That is the complete polar opposite to the tenets this genre was founded on, and what other players tend to be attracted to.
Essentially, *you* are the enemy, and the kind of gamer that all the modern-day crap being shoveled out is aimed at.
~I want a game where I can do whatever I feel like, whatever comes to mind is an option, and that cumbersome depth is the spice of life for me. I prefer games that last a lifetime (I've played Dark Cloud 2 and Disgaea, *console games* for years at a time, respectively, and have milked Civ 4 for the last drops of it's lifeblood).
~You want a game that is fun *now*, doesn't require any thinking, nor develops any emotional attachment, and doesn't drag your attention away from the next big thing. You prefer games that last a month or so, then admittedly, you would like to move onto something else.
Not anymore. If you look at the current MMOs, people who like lobby-based dungeon runs are obviously the target audience.
What crap? I will take a Dead Space game (typical good console game) over something boring crap like UO or EQ any day. There is so little depth in their combat system.
Of coures i want to move on. Who wants to play a single game for years? I am all for game hopping. I have like 10 MMOs installed on my machine. You think anyone have time to spend years in each?
But no thinking? I just wrote a spreadsheet to calculate effective health with different vit/resist/armor (and other skill effect) for Diablo 3. Optimizing gear in D3 is 100x more complicated, and more fun than a old game like UO or EQ.
LOL, yes, he was correct, you are in fact, the enemy that we continue to rail against.
No offense, but you must be thwarted at every turn.
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
LOL, yes, he was correct, you are in fact, the enemy that we continue to rail against.
No offense, but you must be thwarted at every turn.
Pvp, uh?
I guess you need at least two side to play pvp. I don't think you can thwart me. Let's all war with words and vote with our wallets. The market will decide who wins.
If someone ever releases a AAA quality (actual AAA quality in polish/features/graphics/support/performance etc.) sandbox MMORPG that doesnt' force FFA PvP, I'd think you'd easily pull in 1 million+ retained subs.
I doubt it, simply because people willing to play sandbox games are so fragmented as to what they expect or want out of them. Just removing FFA PvP is going to knock a lot of them out of the running. Lots of people who claim to want sandboxes only want sandboxes that have that feature. Then throw in forced grouping, no instances, player housing, no levels/skill-based, etc. and you've got tons of people who won't touch it because it doesn't have their pet elements.
See, it isn't like MMOs are a binary system where everyone either likes themeparks or they like sandboxes, there are dozens of different styles of play and especially on the sandbox side, you'll never get a significant number of people to agree on what constitutes a worthwhile sandbox game.
I think the reason so many people argue with you is simply how your opinion is presented. I'm not sure if you do it intentionally, but you often come off an attitude of:
"I am right because I am the majority, and you are wrong."
Once again, if you're not intending to communicate the above sentence, then your opinion is 100% okay. If you are though, then that would be why everyone argues with you .
Because it's not about opinion, it's about reality. Right and wrong have nothing to do with it. There are financial realities that drive business. Those realities win 100% of the time. I might even agree with some people that there are elements of gameplay I'd like to see come back. So what? That doesn't represent the majority and as such, it's not going to happen.
It's like arguing against gravity. It doesn't matter what you say, reality wins.
This is more true now than ever. But don't forget, even the Blizzard team were indie deves with no money at one time. You know what made them so great? They made fun games without caring so much about the bottom line. There are still developers out there with the passion to make great games. Finding a publisher who cares about anything but money is probably the biggest hurdle right now, I would assume.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
This is more true now than ever. But don't forget, even the Blizzard team were indie deves with no money at one time. You know what made them so great? They made fun games without caring so much about the bottom line. There are still developers out there with the passion to make great games. Finding a publisher who cares about anything but money is probably the biggest hurdle right now, I would assume.
The world is very different than when Blizz first started. You can get away with a lot less art and polish.
If you don't have millions in your budget, you can't afford great looking games with all the bells and whistles. If every game looks like Minecraft 99.999999% of them will fail.
If someone ever releases a AAA quality (actual AAA quality in polish/features/graphics/support/performance etc.) sandbox MMORPG that doesnt' force FFA PvP, I'd think you'd easily pull in 1 million+ retained subs.
I doubt it, simply because people willing to play sandbox games are so fragmented as to what they expect or want out of them. Just removing FFA PvP is going to knock a lot of them out of the running. Lots of people who claim to want sandboxes only want sandboxes that have that feature. Then throw in forced grouping, no instances, player housing, no levels/skill-based, etc. and you've got tons of people who won't touch it because it doesn't have their pet elements.
See, it isn't like MMOs are a binary system where everyone either likes themeparks or they like sandboxes, there are dozens of different styles of play and especially on the sandbox side, you'll never get a significant number of people to agree on what constitutes a worthwhile sandbox game.
I actually believe the majority of sandbox player don't want FFA PvP unless it's optional, as that is what makes a sandbox is by creating options, in a sandbox nothing should be forced, so forced grouping is a big no no for a sandbox game, only optional feature's should be delivered within a sandbox game.
Instances are needed but they can be done seamlessly, example Fallen Earth, it has instances that seperate's you, but you will not encounter a load screen, you just walk into a play and see a message that you are in a instance. let's be honost the amount of people playing games in this genre is so much bigger that when you would have a great MMORPG even if it's a sandbox these day's you can do them without instances, in a succesfull fun MMORPG you don't want to wait hours/day's maybe even weeks to get a chance at the high lvl boss because there allot of groups camping all over the place, very understandable that it could be done with the old school mmoprg but we have to many people now.
A sandbox MMORPG can satisfied a hugh amount of playstyles, the bigger problem lies within today's community who for some reason feel that if something is in the game they should get it all and get it now.
Another example is seeing how many people at lvl 1 perhaps 2 already ask "how long to cap lvl" you see those people arn't really MMORPG players in the sence I see them, doesn't mean I can dictate what a reall MMORPG player is but purely my opinion on how I view it, they obviously seek fun andit seems for them they believe the fun is at cap lvl, they ignore the full journey, they lack the ability to make their own journey as all they are used to is being led.
Information is at our finger tips, and those who have gotten into this genre while internet became mainstream will never understand what it is we (atleast some of us) oldschool players want from our MMORPG experiance.
This doesn't mean that all old school players where content with how oldschool MMO's worked cause I am sure there is a large segement of oldschool players that do enjoy what this genre has become, cause we oldschoolplayer also know and read all the complaints back in the day's on the forums, and due to all those complaints this genre became what it is today, still enjoyed by allot more people then we had back then.
Still have hopes though that there will be a developer that understands that to create a sandbox you need to offer options that go beyond the feature's of single/multiplayers games.
Again nothing wrong with games today for a very large majority of players as they enjoy them, but please let's some of use sandbox players also get a game that gives us freedom, options, close to nex gen graphics and gameplay and above all combat and none combat professions.
What people call grind today was what I saw as natural progression due to the nature of the more sandbox type games. You lived the life of that character in a fantasy or sci fi world, overall it was a believeble ingameworld. These day''s MMORPG do not give me a different feel then all the other online games already give me (which I also enjoy)
I still have to lol when I read the message from Bioware from bringing the RPG back into MMORPG by presenting Story. As if story stands for RPG. I do feel it holds up for singleplayer RPG's, but in a MMORPG in a persistant world that story should be your and the developers are there to give you the tools to carve your own story. But then again we are back at the point of many players not willing or able to understand that amount of freedom a game can offer and if a game offers to much freedom they feel misguided and don't know what to do get bored and leave.
This is more true now than ever. But don't forget, even the Blizzard team were indie deves with no money at one time. You know what made them so great? They made fun games without caring so much about the bottom line. There are still developers out there with the passion to make great games. Finding a publisher who cares about anything but money is probably the biggest hurdle right now, I would assume.
No, that's entirely wrong. They still had their bottom line, WoW just happened to come at a time when broadband Internet exploded and people were looking for something to do online with all that bandwidth. They were at the right place at the right time. There will never be another WoW, nor will there ever be a WoW-killer. It was a fluke. Yes, Blizzard made a good game, but it wasn't the game that made the money, it was the availability of the game that made the money and suddenly, Blizzard was flush with cash that they never expected to have. I'll admit, they have parlayed that extra money into a very impressive game, but that just proves they're a decent company, not that they've done anything special.
The fact is, the MMO marketplace is far smaller than most people want to admit. The 12 million people playing WoW aren't playing it because it's an MMO, they're playing it because it's WoW. When they leave WoW, chances are they're going to Farmville or Minecraft, not the next MMO. I keep seeing developers wanting a chunk of that WoW pie and most of those people couldn't care less about another MMO. Once they're tired of WoW, they're going to go do something else entirely. The number of people who play MMOs, just because they are MMOs, is probably under 5 million, if that. With tons of games available, fighting for that very small number of players, it's no wonder most fail.
It's not so much that the games were better in a technical way. It's that the game play were more inspired and more specific. It would be like if all ice cream makers switched to just 16 shades of vanilla and 16 shades of chocolate of finely engineered ice cream because one company outstripped the rest with their vanilla and chocolate flavored ice cream.
Sure it "taste" better than the old ice cream but some people like strawberry ice cream and don't like chocolate and vanilla much. Or don't want so many doses of vanilla/chocolate with no other choice besides small companies experimenting with ice cream usually of terrible quality.
That's the MMORPG market these days. We're stuck with so many WoW feeling games which in my opinion is a hollow gaming experiences for MMORPG. I was introduced to MMORPG's with the idea that we would get worlds and communities and that's what separated them from just multiplayer games. UO, M59, EQ, DAoC, Anarchy Online, AC1 and etc. were all unique feeling games even if they weren't for everyone.
Honestly most of the newer MMORPG’s could just be single player/ 16 player multiplayer games. Try Kingdoms of Amular if you don't believe me. It's a WoW clone MMOPRG like single player game and not much is lost without other players.
The gaming market in general is terrible to be fair. I have also come to the conclusion that I'm an old jaded gamer as well. The industry has lost its heart or maybe just it's balls.
Honestly most of the newer MMORPG’s could just be single player/ 16 player multiplayer games. Try Kingdoms of Amular if you don't believe me. It's a WoW clone MMOPRG like single player game and not much is lost without other players.
Oh .. that is a great point. Many new MMOs are moving in the SP/co-op small group MP games. "MMO" is a convenient label for them .. but aside from that, the genre has changed.
And i have been making that point before .. there is no loss if you take away the open world in many of the MMOs and replace it with a lobby. The gameplay style will remain and many players probably won't even notice.
This could've really been the super genre, I think. The place where normal genres and games came to get better. It's been very clear for a long time that this is absolutely and postively out of the question now.
We're content with shit, I guess. Best way I can figure.
This could've really been the super genre, I think. The place where normal genres and games came to get better. It's been very clear for a long time that this is absolutely and postively out of the question now.
We're content with shit, I guess. Best way I can figure.
Back when the genre started I remember how bright eyed everyone was talking about the future. How when the tech got there we'd be seeing amazing simulated worlds, tv shows about MMOs (like Portal from G4) and all sorts of stuff.
Now when you ask the average gamer about MMORPGs they laugh and call them a stupid waste of time. This is what WoW and its clones have brought the genre to. The genre did not survive the invasion of publishers. And so long as a couple million casual non gamers that play WoW enjoy running on a virtual treadmill forever, we'll keep getting garbage.
Now when you ask the average gamer about MMORPGs they laugh and call them a stupid waste of time. This is what WoW and its clones have brought the genre to. The genre did not survive the invasion of publishers. And so long as a couple million casual non gamers that play WoW enjoy running on a virtual treadmill forever, we'll keep getting garbage.
Garbage for YOU, fun entertainment for others.
Don't confuse preference and quality. You don't like the style, i get it. Many others do.
Now when you ask the average gamer about MMORPGs they laugh and call them a stupid waste of time. This is what WoW and its clones have brought the genre to. The genre did not survive the invasion of publishers. And so long as a couple million casual non gamers that play WoW enjoy running on a virtual treadmill forever, we'll keep getting garbage.
Garbage for YOU, fun entertainment for others.
Don't confuse preference and quality. You don't like the style, i get it. Many others do.
Don't confuse popularity for quality, frequently are two different things entirely.
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
Now when you ask the average gamer about MMORPGs they laugh and call them a stupid waste of time. This is what WoW and its clones have brought the genre to. The genre did not survive the invasion of publishers. And so long as a couple million casual non gamers that play WoW enjoy running on a virtual treadmill forever, we'll keep getting garbage.
Garbage for YOU, fun entertainment for others.
Don't confuse preference and quality. You don't like the style, i get it. Many others do.
Don't confuse popularity for quality, frequently are two different things entirely.
Of course not. And popularity and quality are not mutually exclusive.
This is more true now than ever. But don't forget, even the Blizzard team were indie deves with no money at one time. You know what made them so great? They made fun games without caring so much about the bottom line. There are still developers out there with the passion to make great games. Finding a publisher who cares about anything but money is probably the biggest hurdle right now, I would assume.
No, that's entirely wrong. They still had their bottom line, WoW just happened to come at a time when broadband Internet exploded and people were looking for something to do online with all that bandwidth. They were at the right place at the right time. There will never be another WoW, nor will there ever be a WoW-killer. It was a fluke. Yes, Blizzard made a good game, but it wasn't the game that made the money, it was the availability of the game that made the money and suddenly, Blizzard was flush with cash that they never expected to have. I'll admit, they have parlayed that extra money into a very impressive game, but that just proves they're a decent company, not that they've done anything special.
The fact is, the MMO marketplace is far smaller than most people want to admit. The 12 million people playing WoW aren't playing it because it's an MMO, they're playing it because it's WoW. When they leave WoW, chances are they're going to Farmville or Minecraft, not the next MMO. I keep seeing developers wanting a chunk of that WoW pie and most of those people couldn't care less about another MMO. Once they're tired of WoW, they're going to go do something else entirely. The number of people who play MMOs, just because they are MMOs, is probably under 5 million, if that. With tons of games available, fighting for that very small number of players, it's no wonder most fail.
I was speaking more of their earliest games like Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and Diablo 1 back in the mid-nineties. They did still have a bottom line, but that wasn't the main focus. The main focus was creating a good game. It was probably fun for them to do it. I often wonder how fun creating MMOs is these days.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
Comments
Very similar to UO in that way. The social atmosphere was very different than today's games, it was actually social. In UO players knew the top players, PKer and Anti-PK, yes, but also other top players on your "shard" (server). There were the blacksmiths that you knew you could count on for their quality and honesty. Same for the alchemists, bowyers, etc.
Then there were also the player created things that newer games have made into a Single Player event, such as the auction houses. These were players who used standard game mechanics for houses to hold auctions, and did it themselves like a real life auction.
Or the trade fairs, where players set the time and place and everyone went to buy, sell, trade, and even make their own future contracts between themselves for their merchandise or resources.
Players set their own paths, in what felt like as close to a real world as fantasy can make.
The only thing UO lacked was a reason for PKers to stop PKing. A reason that could be handled and dished out by the more civilized minded players in defense of their cause.
Once upon a time....
Agree with this post, the root of all evil lies with the suits with business degrees making decisions that dictate the direction devlopers have to work with
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
Funny post.
+1
(Narius is obviously just trolling these forums, but its still great to see the reactions he gets from actual gamers)
The above is my personal opinion. Anyone displaying a view contrary to my opinion is obviously WRONG and should STHU. (neener neener)
-The MMO Forum Community
Old games have little to do with nostagia.. I miss climbing ladders.. I miss clicking on a door to open it.. I miss buying patterns and molds for crafting.. I miss weight issues.. I miss sizing being an issue.. I miss constitution being a factor in fighting.. I miss food and drink meaning something.. Classes of old were fun to play.. the games of the past really encouraged a wide selection of classes and roles to play.. ALTitis if you ask me.. I miss having 8 or more starting cities and zones.. I miss the dozens of leveling zones in which to play in.. I wish today's instancing would get NERFED to high heaven.. I prefer large zone open world PvP.. The list can go on and on..
It has nothing to do with EQ1 being my first major MMORPG.. It has to do with the mechanics of how it played.. Today's mmo's have been dumbed down in my opinion..
hmm .. TOR sold 2M copies despite not holding on to subs.
AOC sold what, 800k? 1M copies?
Diablo 3 sold 6.5M in the first week .. despite all the problems.
Well, minecraft has no subs and it is obvious not a MMO. If you want to total up ALL games sold, minecraft is obviously not a majority.
If you total up all MMO sold, and look at the percentage of sandbox sales, it is also in the minority.
6.5m is not trivial, i will grant you that. But there many more copies sold if you add up CODs, Dead Space ... and so on.
If someone ever releases a AAA quality (actual AAA quality in polish/features/graphics/support/performance etc.) sandbox MMORPG that doesnt' force FFA PvP, I'd think you'd easily pull in 1 million+ retained subs.
Not anymore. If you look at the current MMOs, people who like lobby-based dungeon runs are obviously the target audience.
What crap? I will take a Dead Space game (typical good console game) over something boring crap like UO or EQ any day. There is so little depth in their combat system.
Of coures i want to move on. Who wants to play a single game for years? I am all for game hopping. I have like 10 MMOs installed on my machine. You think anyone have time to spend years in each?
But no thinking? I just wrote a spreadsheet to calculate effective health with different vit/resist/armor (and other skill effect) for Diablo 3. Optimizing gear in D3 is 100x more complicated, and more fun than a old game like UO or EQ.
In the past you got more game for less money. Now you get less game for more money, while being beat over the head to spend more in the shop.
In the past gaming was serious because you didn't want to die and you made friends to group with. Now people just stand around watching other charactors do dance moves and argue about politics, whether game is better than WOW, or whether someone is gay or not.
My first MMO was UO and I dont want a developer to recreate UO, I'm just waiting for a developer to create a holodeck that I can buy so I can spend the rest of my life in it.
Evil will always triumph because good is dumb....
LOL, yes, he was correct, you are in fact, the enemy that we continue to rail against.
No offense, but you must be thwarted at every turn.
"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
Pvp, uh?
I guess you need at least two side to play pvp. I don't think you can thwart me. Let's all war with words and vote with our wallets. The market will decide who wins.
Game on!
I doubt it, simply because people willing to play sandbox games are so fragmented as to what they expect or want out of them. Just removing FFA PvP is going to knock a lot of them out of the running. Lots of people who claim to want sandboxes only want sandboxes that have that feature. Then throw in forced grouping, no instances, player housing, no levels/skill-based, etc. and you've got tons of people who won't touch it because it doesn't have their pet elements.
See, it isn't like MMOs are a binary system where everyone either likes themeparks or they like sandboxes, there are dozens of different styles of play and especially on the sandbox side, you'll never get a significant number of people to agree on what constitutes a worthwhile sandbox game.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
This is more true now than ever. But don't forget, even the Blizzard team were indie deves with no money at one time. You know what made them so great? They made fun games without caring so much about the bottom line. There are still developers out there with the passion to make great games. Finding a publisher who cares about anything but money is probably the biggest hurdle right now, I would assume.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.
The world is very different than when Blizz first started. You can get away with a lot less art and polish.
If you don't have millions in your budget, you can't afford great looking games with all the bells and whistles. If every game looks like Minecraft 99.999999% of them will fail.
I actually believe the majority of sandbox player don't want FFA PvP unless it's optional, as that is what makes a sandbox is by creating options, in a sandbox nothing should be forced, so forced grouping is a big no no for a sandbox game, only optional feature's should be delivered within a sandbox game.
Instances are needed but they can be done seamlessly, example Fallen Earth, it has instances that seperate's you, but you will not encounter a load screen, you just walk into a play and see a message that you are in a instance. let's be honost the amount of people playing games in this genre is so much bigger that when you would have a great MMORPG even if it's a sandbox these day's you can do them without instances, in a succesfull fun MMORPG you don't want to wait hours/day's maybe even weeks to get a chance at the high lvl boss because there allot of groups camping all over the place, very understandable that it could be done with the old school mmoprg but we have to many people now.
A sandbox MMORPG can satisfied a hugh amount of playstyles, the bigger problem lies within today's community who for some reason feel that if something is in the game they should get it all and get it now.
Another example is seeing how many people at lvl 1 perhaps 2 already ask "how long to cap lvl" you see those people arn't really MMORPG players in the sence I see them, doesn't mean I can dictate what a reall MMORPG player is but purely my opinion on how I view it, they obviously seek fun andit seems for them they believe the fun is at cap lvl, they ignore the full journey, they lack the ability to make their own journey as all they are used to is being led.
Information is at our finger tips, and those who have gotten into this genre while internet became mainstream will never understand what it is we (atleast some of us) oldschool players want from our MMORPG experiance.
This doesn't mean that all old school players where content with how oldschool MMO's worked cause I am sure there is a large segement of oldschool players that do enjoy what this genre has become, cause we oldschoolplayer also know and read all the complaints back in the day's on the forums, and due to all those complaints this genre became what it is today, still enjoyed by allot more people then we had back then.
Still have hopes though that there will be a developer that understands that to create a sandbox you need to offer options that go beyond the feature's of single/multiplayers games.
Again nothing wrong with games today for a very large majority of players as they enjoy them, but please let's some of use sandbox players also get a game that gives us freedom, options, close to nex gen graphics and gameplay and above all combat and none combat professions.
What people call grind today was what I saw as natural progression due to the nature of the more sandbox type games. You lived the life of that character in a fantasy or sci fi world, overall it was a believeble ingameworld. These day''s MMORPG do not give me a different feel then all the other online games already give me (which I also enjoy)
I still have to lol when I read the message from Bioware from bringing the RPG back into MMORPG by presenting Story. As if story stands for RPG. I do feel it holds up for singleplayer RPG's, but in a MMORPG in a persistant world that story should be your and the developers are there to give you the tools to carve your own story. But then again we are back at the point of many players not willing or able to understand that amount of freedom a game can offer and if a game offers to much freedom they feel misguided and don't know what to do get bored and leave.
No, that's entirely wrong. They still had their bottom line, WoW just happened to come at a time when broadband Internet exploded and people were looking for something to do online with all that bandwidth. They were at the right place at the right time. There will never be another WoW, nor will there ever be a WoW-killer. It was a fluke. Yes, Blizzard made a good game, but it wasn't the game that made the money, it was the availability of the game that made the money and suddenly, Blizzard was flush with cash that they never expected to have. I'll admit, they have parlayed that extra money into a very impressive game, but that just proves they're a decent company, not that they've done anything special.
The fact is, the MMO marketplace is far smaller than most people want to admit. The 12 million people playing WoW aren't playing it because it's an MMO, they're playing it because it's WoW. When they leave WoW, chances are they're going to Farmville or Minecraft, not the next MMO. I keep seeing developers wanting a chunk of that WoW pie and most of those people couldn't care less about another MMO. Once they're tired of WoW, they're going to go do something else entirely. The number of people who play MMOs, just because they are MMOs, is probably under 5 million, if that. With tons of games available, fighting for that very small number of players, it's no wonder most fail.
Played: UO, EQ, WoW, DDO, SWG, AO, CoH, EvE, TR, AoC, GW, GA, Aion, Allods, lots more
Relatively Recently (Re)Played: HL2 (all), Halo (PC, all), Batman:AA; AC, ME, BS, DA, FO3, DS, Doom (all), LFD1&2, KOTOR, Portal 1&2, Blink, Elder Scrolls (all), lots more
Now Playing: None
Hope: None
It's not so much that the games were better in a technical way. It's that the game play were more inspired and more specific. It would be like if all ice cream makers switched to just 16 shades of vanilla and 16 shades of chocolate of finely engineered ice cream because one company outstripped the rest with their vanilla and chocolate flavored ice cream.
Sure it "taste" better than the old ice cream but some people like strawberry ice cream and don't like chocolate and vanilla much. Or don't want so many doses of vanilla/chocolate with no other choice besides small companies experimenting with ice cream usually of terrible quality.
That's the MMORPG market these days. We're stuck with so many WoW feeling games which in my opinion is a hollow gaming experiences for MMORPG. I was introduced to MMORPG's with the idea that we would get worlds and communities and that's what separated them from just multiplayer games. UO, M59, EQ, DAoC, Anarchy Online, AC1 and etc. were all unique feeling games even if they weren't for everyone.
Honestly most of the newer MMORPG’s could just be single player/ 16 player multiplayer games. Try Kingdoms of Amular if you don't believe me. It's a WoW clone MMOPRG like single player game and not much is lost without other players.
The gaming market in general is terrible to be fair. I have also come to the conclusion that I'm an old jaded gamer as well. The industry has lost its heart or maybe just it's balls.
Oh .. that is a great point. Many new MMOs are moving in the SP/co-op small group MP games. "MMO" is a convenient label for them .. but aside from that, the genre has changed.
And i have been making that point before .. there is no loss if you take away the open world in many of the MMOs and replace it with a lobby. The gameplay style will remain and many players probably won't even notice.
This could've really been the super genre, I think. The place where normal genres and games came to get better. It's been very clear for a long time that this is absolutely and postively out of the question now.
We're content with shit, I guess. Best way I can figure.
Back when the genre started I remember how bright eyed everyone was talking about the future. How when the tech got there we'd be seeing amazing simulated worlds, tv shows about MMOs (like Portal from G4) and all sorts of stuff.
Now when you ask the average gamer about MMORPGs they laugh and call them a stupid waste of time. This is what WoW and its clones have brought the genre to. The genre did not survive the invasion of publishers. And so long as a couple million casual non gamers that play WoW enjoy running on a virtual treadmill forever, we'll keep getting garbage.
Garbage for YOU, fun entertainment for others.
Don't confuse preference and quality. You don't like the style, i get it. Many others do.
Don't confuse popularity for quality, frequently are two different things entirely.
"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
Of course not. And popularity and quality are not mutually exclusive.
I was speaking more of their earliest games like Warcraft: Orcs and Humans and Diablo 1 back in the mid-nineties. They did still have a bottom line, but that wasn't the main focus. The main focus was creating a good game. It was probably fun for them to do it. I often wonder how fun creating MMOs is these days.
Vault-Tec analysts have concluded that the odds of worldwide nuclear armaggeddon this decade are 17,143,762... to 1.