One of todays MMO´s seems to be the notion of one-fits-all. But the future of MMO´s i believe lies in games targeting a certain playstyle rather than trying to please all and every players preferences.
I think we see more PvP-only, PvE-only etc.
Today, all games try cater to all playstyles, which really is impossible.
Shouldn't MMORPG try to create all sorts of playstyle's??
That was what we had. Instead....Today's MMO seems to be limiting itself by providing merly combat oriented gameplay instead of cattering towards different type of gameplay's mixing them up in a MMORPG.
We already have other genre's of gaming that provide PVP or PVE only game experiance's, not sure why someone would want that same experiance from a MMORPG.
The minute someone purposes making an innovative game the trolls will come out and squelch their inspiration. Half those trolls being the hardcore wall street investors who want a safe return and predictable income stats. The other half of the trolls will be the gamers themselves who habitually slap the hand that feeds them.
One of todays MMO´s seems to be the notion of one-fits-all. But the future of MMO´s i believe lies in games targeting a certain playstyle rather than trying to please all and every players preferences.
I think we see more PvP-only, PvE-only etc.
Today, all games try cater to all playstyles, which really is impossible.
Shouldn't MMORPG try to create all sorts of playstyle's??
That was what we had. Instead....Today's MMO seems to be limiting itself by providing merly combat oriented gameplay instead of cattering towards different type of gameplay's mixing them up in a MMORPG.
We already have other genre's of gaming that provide PVP or PVE only game experiance's, not sure why someone would want that same experiance from a MMORPG.
This is why I am hoping that FFXIV: A Realm Reborn is a success. Not only does it have one of the most robust crafting systems of any game in a long time it also boasts of actually needing that carpenter for certain improvements on your player made house.
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
Originally posted by Asm0deus If Wow would finaly roll over and die like it should we might see some changes...
WoW existing is not the problem. Developers are free to make whatever type games they want to. People need to get beyond the notion that WoW is a god that makes other people do things. It's a game. It can't stop other people from producing what they want and it doesn't sneak into peoples homes and force them to subscribe.
With a lot of other people here, I too have given up on MMORPGs. My main interest in this site is in the hope - possibly vain - that a new and dynamic genre rises from the MMO ruins.
At one point, I had a strong interest in MMOs, which came primarily from two factors: deep immersion, and a sense of accomplishment.
Immersion versus Convenience
A lot of things have killed the immersion over the years - not least of all the unwillingness of MMORPG players to, you know, RP - but the most glaring in my eyes is the insidious onset of convenience. The problem is, convenience kills immersion. Instant travel is bad enough, but the real death of the open-world MMORPG has been the dungeon queue system. Yes, it's convenient, it saves a lot of time. A "YOU WIN, GAME OVER, CONGRATULATIONS!" screen with a screenshot of your character in T199 armor would save even more time. But it would kill the game, and the sense of enjoyment and accomplishment that used to come from traveling to a distant location, taking on a challenge, and coming out victorious.
I realize no one wants to go back to twenty minute travel times to dungeons, myself included. But I would really like to go back to when it actually made sense to spend time in the open game world. (Can we at least go back to open game worlds?) Developers need to figure out how to balance that - that is why, presumably, we pay them the big bucks.
Accomplishment and the Hampster Wheel
I used to find the sense of accomplishment in-game very satisfying. And then came the expansion. And the next one, and the next one. And then I realized, all my accomplishments would mean next to nothing in a few months, and so I gave up trying.
The problem is, sooner or later gamers figure out that the conventional MMORPG model is a hampster wheel. You just run around, and around, and around, and don't really go anywhere. For a short time the illusion can be maintained, but inevitably, it wears off.
What players need is accomplishment based on something other than grinding out levels and/or dungeon raids. That, I think, is why PvP arena games like League of Legends are taking off. Competitive PvP isn't something you just grind out and gets replaced with the next expansion; it's a real accomplishment to go up on the rankings. It's also why conventional RPGs haven't gone out of style; players love the real accomplishment of finishing a long and difficult story line.
MMORPGs may have a future. But if so, it would involve . . .
Less Of:
Zoned content
Repetitive content
Level cap/max gear being raised/outdated every six to twelve months
Scripted encounters
Single-player content
and More Of:
Player interaction
Open world content
Events and other unrepeated content
Player actions impacting the world
Game expansion in terms of breadth (more classes, more skills, greater variety in gear, etc.) rather than just level cap +5, weapon DPS +10
With a lot of other people here, I too have given up on MMORPGs. My main interest in this site is in the hope - possibly vain - that a new and dynamic genre rises from the MMO ruins.
At one point, I had a strong interest in MMOs, which came primarily from two factors: deep immersion, and a sense of accomplishment.
Immersion versus Convenience
A lot of things have killed the immersion over the years - not least of all the unwillingness of MMORPG players to, you know, RP - but the most glaring in my eyes is the insidious onset of convenience. The problem is, convenience kills immersion. Instant travel is bad enough, but the real death of the open-world MMORPG has been the dungeon queue system. Yes, it's convenient, it saves a lot of time. A "YOU WIN, GAME OVER, CONGRATULATIONS!" screen with a screenshot of your character in T199 armor would save even more time. But it would kill the game, and the sense of enjoyment and accomplishment that used to come from traveling to a distant location, taking on a challenge, and coming out victorious.
I realize no one wants to go back to twenty minute travel times to dungeons, myself included. But I would really like to go back to when it actually made sense to spend time in the open game world. (Can we at least go back to open game worlds?) Developers need to figure out how to balance that - that is why, presumably, we pay them the big bucks.
Accomplishment and the Hampster Wheel
I used to find the sense of accomplishment in-game very satisfying. And then came the expansion. And the next one, and the next one. And then I realized, all my accomplishments would mean next to nothing in a few months, and so I gave up trying.
The problem is, sooner or later gamers figure out that the conventional MMORPG model is a hampster wheel. You just run around, and around, and around, and don't really go anywhere. For a short time the illusion can be maintained, but inevitably, it wears off.
What players need is accomplishment based on something other than grinding out levels and/or dungeon raids. That, I think, is why PvP arena games like League of Legends are taking off. Competitive PvP isn't something you just grind out and gets replaced with the next expansion; it's a real accomplishment to go up on the rankings. It's also why conventional RPGs haven't gone out of style; players love the real accomplishment of finishing a long and difficult story line.
MMORPGs may have a future. But if so, it would involve . . .
Less Of:
Zoned content
Repetitive content
Level cap/max gear being raised/outdated every six to twelve months
Scripted encounters
Single-player content
and More Of:
Player interaction
Open world content
Events and other unrepeated content
Player actions impacting the world
Game expansion in terms of breadth (more classes, more skills, greater variety in gear, etc.) rather than just level cap +5, weapon DPS +10
Dynamic encounters
Multi-player content
Something that must be stressed is that this notion that MMOs have hit some cliff and are simply all bad is highly subjective. Truth is what you may not like others may like, so it is best to abandon this doom and gloom viewpoint in favor of an ever expanding realization that like all other forms of mediums and art MMORPGs go through the cycles of birth, growth, death, and then finnally re-birth. MMOs are still fairly young when compared to other forms of Interactive Art, so much of what is happening is the naturally recuring growing pains. Here is the real key you can either contribute to their further maturation, or you can slide in tothea pessamistic valley of despair and truly miss out on the great things to come.
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood "I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
No innovation, almost every BIG MMO wants to copy WOW for the cash money.
That have been really true for a long time but it is becomming less and less true now however.
Wow is finally losing players now and it seems that many smarter publishers actually are trying to slowly change things now.
Funny enough is it Microsoft that puts most money into a innovative game right now by backing Undead labs "Class 4". It is the first really innovative MMO with a good financial backing I can remember unless you consider UO and AC to have good backings (at the time they had but it was peanuts compared to what MMOs cost today).
But the times are changing and even Microsoft have figured that out. Only EA and Activision seems to not seen it yet.
Those independant developers already exist. Why aren't they receiving your money -now- when it matters? What makes you above the 'lowest' common denominator? Who 'should' be playing an MMO? What game can I play 'god mode' in? Your opening statements are chock-full of insinuations, misrepresentations, and outright insulting of your fellow players. Not exactly a good start to developing a more challenging 'social' experience, I'd wager, but wholly consistent with my not-so-ancient memories of the TERA forums.
As to your sandbox comments...I'm somewhat more inclined to agree to an extent. Permadeath -is- a major rejection to a lot of people; that happened in the tabletop genre also. Full loot pvp is a non-starter in terms of large appeal because it's nothing more than a haven for griefers. Once you remove those two chunks of silliness though, then you have room to start working on something that will appeal to multiple playstyles. And make no mistake...sandboxes, more than any other MMO, require multiple playstyles. To be otherwise would be to create a world where everyone is similar, and I don't think that's the experience -any- of us are looking for.
Just to answer some of your questions (no insults were intended! I should have gone into more detail)
Those who 'should' be playing mmos are those that enjoy them. At the heart of all mmos are two things, in varying degrees of course; competition and cooperation. If you dont like one/both of these things, then mmos are simply not games where you will have fun. Yeh you can play through most mmos entirely solo, never speaking to a single person...but to me, not enjoyable and entirely pointless, why not stick to console where graphics and gameplay are better? If you hate competition, you are in for a real rough time, as almost every goal in an mmorpg is based on being better / having better gear than others, building the strongest clan...hell, killing others...Or even competing with yourself to simply keep improving/developing.
The problem I was refering to is that designers dont listen to me, or people ike me, who want compeition and challenge and ongoing (undending) development, they listen to this group playing in constant misery, complaining in chat and forums about how they hate the grinding, the level disparities, better/worse gear than others, dungeons bieng to long/hard, getting ganked, or having to rely on others to progress. And the result is all the basic tenants of an mmo are stripped away to satisfy this larger/louder player base that hate the game, and mmos in general.
What happened to stat allocation? Removed to protect people from making mistakes, or making builds that weren't as strong as others. Funny you mention Tera, because in that case, what happened to skill allocation? Removed because again, choice = bad, cookiecutter = good! You even get pvp/bg gear from pve bosses, because having to actually pvp to get pvp gear is discrimination against pve players! Many mmorpg ads now boast that everyone can have all skills and use all gear, etc, as if this is a good thing? It isnt, infact such games are no longer rpgs in any sense of the term.
The point is, why change a genre to suit players that hate that genre? Would you put guns in Skyrim because a cod fanatic complained about it? You are simply turning it into the games that these people should be playing in the first place, which for many is a 2D platformer or onrails shooter. Why not keep mmorpg games for mmorpg players?
I see MMOs headed down the same road I got off when I quit playing console games. (Except sports games, I quit playing those when it progressed to actually having to be good at golf, Tiger Woods)
I recenty posted my experiance with Driver 3. I played Driver 2 with a group of friends daily for months on end. It was hard and loads of fun. Driver 3 came out, I rented it and beat it in 5 days of play after work....WTF?
Now MMOs are all "Rush to endgame", and dare I say completely lack any RP. I think the lack of RP comes from the "rush to endgame" attitude.
For me, I say "Fine.", "You all can have them, I'm out.".
I have found an enviornment that is dynamic, includes lots of player to player interaction, and gives me more of a sence of accomplishment that cannot be taken away with an email that proclaims, "Thanks for teh support, but we are closing the servers.". Don't get me wrong, I understand all my characters arent really mine and belong to the Devfs, publishers yadda yadda. But, when I build and paint a minature, then go roll real dice with other real people that have to actually interact with me.. that interaction IS mine.
Maybe in the far distant future the "Next Big Thing" will explode onto the scene...But untill then, all MMOs will be to me is something to do when there is nothing to do, not as it used ot be when I would plan around a MMO.
With a lot of other people here, I too have given up on MMORPGs. My main interest in this site is in the hope - possibly vain - that a new and dynamic genre rises from the MMO ruins.
At one point, I had a strong interest in MMOs, which came primarily from two factors: deep immersion, and a sense of accomplishment.
Immersion versus Convenience
A lot of things have killed the immersion over the years - not least of all the unwillingness of MMORPG players to, you know, RP - but the most glaring in my eyes is the insidious onset of convenience. The problem is, convenience kills immersion. Instant travel is bad enough, but the real death of the open-world MMORPG has been the dungeon queue system. Yes, it's convenient, it saves a lot of time. A "YOU WIN, GAME OVER, CONGRATULATIONS!" screen with a screenshot of your character in T199 armor would save even more time. But it would kill the game, and the sense of enjoyment and accomplishment that used to come from traveling to a distant location, taking on a challenge, and coming out victorious.
I realize no one wants to go back to twenty minute travel times to dungeons, myself included. But I would really like to go back to when it actually made sense to spend time in the open game world. (Can we at least go back to open game worlds?) Developers need to figure out how to balance that - that is why, presumably, we pay them the big bucks.
Accomplishment and the Hampster Wheel
I used to find the sense of accomplishment in-game very satisfying. And then came the expansion. And the next one, and the next one. And then I realized, all my accomplishments would mean next to nothing in a few months, and so I gave up trying.
The problem is, sooner or later gamers figure out that the conventional MMORPG model is a hampster wheel. You just run around, and around, and around, and don't really go anywhere. For a short time the illusion can be maintained, but inevitably, it wears off.
What players need is accomplishment based on something other than grinding out levels and/or dungeon raids. That, I think, is why PvP arena games like League of Legends are taking off. Competitive PvP isn't something you just grind out and gets replaced with the next expansion; it's a real accomplishment to go up on the rankings. It's also why conventional RPGs haven't gone out of style; players love the real accomplishment of finishing a long and difficult story line.
MMORPGs may have a future. But if so, it would involve . . .
Less Of:
Zoned content
Repetitive content
Level cap/max gear being raised/outdated every six to twelve months
Scripted encounters
Single-player content
and More Of:
Player interaction
Open world content
Events and other unrepeated content
Player actions impacting the world
Game expansion in terms of breadth (more classes, more skills, greater variety in gear, etc.) rather than just level cap +5, weapon DPS +10
Dynamic encounters
Multi-player content
Something that must be stressed is that this notion that MMOs have hit some cliff and are simply all bad is highly subjective. Truth is what you may not like others may like, so it is best to abandon this doom and gloom viewpoint in favor of an ever expanding realization that like all other forms of mediums and art MMORPGs go through the cycles of birth, growth, death, and then finnally re-birth. MMOs are still fairly young when compared to other forms of Interactive Art, so much of what is happening is the naturally recuring growing pains. Here is the real key you can either contribute to their further maturation, or you can slide in tothea pessamistic valley of despair and truly miss out on the great things to come.
I'm with Gudrunix on this one. Say whatever you and the other Themepark enthusiasts want, I don't want the Themepark stuff and am not buying it. I want a world like Gudrunix describes and I want it well made.
That's not "doom and gloom", it's what I'm willing to pay for. I'm not "abandoning" what I want and paying for what I don't want.
Devs have figured out that they can steal players from other games and expand their playerbase by making their games easier, faster, and more casual friendly.
The future is 20 minute dungeon runs, automatic dungeon grouping, and level cap in 40 hours played.
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
I think the future for MMO's over the next 5 years is rather bleak.
First, we have seen several very expensive MMO games fail miserably from a financial point of view. Some of those games would be DCUO and SWTOR. A company that makes a lot of MMOs (Funcom) just had to make massive layoffs to stay afloat after sales of TSW didn't meet expectations.
Overall, to make a "AAA" MMO, the costs seem to be skyrocketing and the likelihood of success seems to be shrinking. Furthermore, it is rumored that even WoW is beginning to see its subscribers decline. The only bright spot for MMO's appears to be GW2, but that isn't a subscription model. Other MMOs are successful as free to play with real cash upgrades. According to industry executives, about 2% of the players in those games actually pay cash for items.
In other words, when an executive looks at the cost of making an MMO plus the amount of time they require and the amount of risk involved (given how many have failed financially), it really isn't a surprise that we're likely to see far fewer MMO games.
In my opinion, we have already seen the wave of WoW clones, which failed. Any company looking at trying to make the money WoW did will also have to now consider why so many WoW clones failed. Which is to say they'll have to be innovative games, which probably just increases the risk of the game. SWTOR tried it with voice acting and failed.
Furthermore, what players expect in an MMO has also increased. It is no longer acceptable to release a half-developed game with lots of bugs at launch. It is no longer acceptable to have only a few end-game dungeons at launch with the promise to eventually develop more. It is no longer acceptable to have PvP as an afterthought in a game. It is no longer acceptable for the graphic engine to faulter when 60 players are in the same location, and yet still deliver high quality graphics.
Lastly, hardware is changing. Tablets are becomming much more popular, but doing an MMO on a tablet seems strange.
In my opinion, a developer needs to thread the needle between sandbox endgame with a meaningful impact (for longevity and community aspects) and themepark leveling (for casual gaming). While I'd love to see DAOC 2, the reality of the failures of SWTOR and WAR are unlikely to allow EA/Bioware to make another MMO game in the near future.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar Authored 139 missions in VendettaOnline and 6 tracks in Distance
Devs have figured out that they can steal players from other games and expand their playerbase by making their games easier, faster, and more casual friendly.
The future is 20 minute dungeon runs, automatic dungeon grouping, and level cap in 40 hours played.
40 hours played ... it is no where close to that fast. The record on WOW is like 4-5 days played, and that is before MOP. So my guess is that it is closer to 100 hours, than 40.
20 min dungeon runs? That sounds right. In fact, you can go faster when you are geared.
One of the reason behind so few AAA sandbox games is tech. Mmo's in general have been stunted due to tech limitations. This is aside from the obvious concentration over the years by developers on copied mechanics and fast cash grabs.
The future of mmo's is the creation of true virtual worlds. Larger worlds with self sustaining mechanics allowing characters the resources to create their own content. This needs to be seemless within the world created and not just external toolsets like NWN which will always be nothing more than a gimic underutilized by the larger playerbase. Emphasis will be on offering players complete control over their characters and environment. This is the only way the social community can expand. A player must be able to exist in the virtual world without limitation.
Current mmo's off little to nothing new when it comes to player interaction. In fact they have often limited it. The new drive to create community websites and include facebook and twitter only distracts from the game. The only point of contact a player needs to organize and communicate is in game. It provides yet another reason to log into it. Every tool outside a game only helps in keeping players out of the virtual world for longer periods of time. If tools exists they should be accessable in an immersive manner within the game. On top of this nothing has been done since the dawn of mmo creation to expand and develope expanded control of your character in the virtual world.
What I would like to see:
- True sandbox mechanics. A developer must have access to advanced and dedicated sandbox mmo world builders. The developers already building in house engines capable of true virtual world emulation will be the companies cornering the market of future mmo's. Seeing how an engine can take as long or longer to build than an mmo (once a builder is obtained) puts companies without one years behind those already planning for the future (ie. a future of high bandwidth, cloud gaming environments). Once cloud gaming takes over (customized for mmo needs) a world builder engine is all the company really has and player side clients would be effectively gone. The entire gameplay must be contained within the world and not separated by instances and barriers designed to split the community up. Phasing must be limited. Micro-phasing could be used where minor interactions to enhance individual encounters but without removing a player from the world itself.
- The evolution of tech like SOEmote. I do not believe full motion capture will ever fully take over convention player controls but enhancements to RP could make a huge impact on an mmo. This does not mean everyone will suddenly fully RP but I would bet everyone would make use of it. The evolution of tools like this is the future of game interaction. When cloud gaming becomes a reality, the game will be accessable from nearly any device (tablet, phone etc). Vitrual toolsets will be required for those using such clients that do not limit gameplay interaction and immersion in anyway. This facilitates ease of access in order to attract new players as well so they do not need to learn a complex UI and simplifies use of complex in game mechanics.
- Text to voice conversion tools and voice alteration. Some like Siri that offers players the ability to not just convert what they say into text but to convert they normal voice into customized character themed accents and for npc text to voice conversion. Voice actors need to die out. Harsh perhaps to say but it kills and limits game development. Existing games could also use text to voice conversion to offer greater immersive qualities. On the fly conversion into quality voice accents would allow developers to heavily simplify voice overs. The first developer to create such powerful tools in house would save a ton of cash on lease and make a ton leasing the software. The point of all this is that real player voice in game will never enhance immersion unless they are professional voice actors themselves. Every player must have easy to use toolsets to allow full virtual world control. Access to UI elements through voice control would also be included.
- Improved physics. Sub category from above but games will not evolve unless we start seeing things like wall scaling, crouch and crawl, sneak mechanics, true object interaction all available to everyone (not just class specific).
- Vastly Improved AI. Along with character and in world interaction the least improved mechanic is any game for that matter is npc/mob AI. An mmo must have it's pve element driven by true AI and not scripted events. When mobs begin to act more like players the mmo will finally be truely immersive. The greatest challenge to developers right now is making an mmo where the game world changes. The only way to do this is to have the pve evironment react to players in the same way players react. Mobs should have goals and be able to reach those goals dynamically be it simple territorial survival or world/region domination. The one area developers should have been concentrating on is the one area they have been ignoring and cheating on since the dawn of video games. To be "out thunk" by a mob instead of simply losing to one through mathematical cheats allowing them to breaks rules not available to players is the ultimate feat in game development ... something utterly abandoned by current developers. When encounters no longer require scripted events this frees up developers creating content like dungeons. Every time you enter one it will be different due to advanced AI.
Also enviroments should be conceptual and not block balanced like normal dungeons. To hell with players wanting by-the-numbers dungeons runs. These players are ruining mmo's. They want a console game experience. There should be small and large dungeons control by dynamic AI. From 10 minute to dungeons that take days to explore (for those who actually remember games like that).
-Slower advancement and a game without the need of seperate end game systems. An mmo must offer engaging gameplay through out so called leveling process. If advancement is limited it must be a goal reached in months or years and not days. As an example: I played Asheron's call for 3-4 years without ever reaching level cap. You could partake in 99% of the content by simply reaching "high" levels and cap was close to meaningless. The game at cap was the exact same game you leveled through. All mmo's should be this way. The world you play in should never, ever become meaningless and segregated from the playerbase. I know GW2 attempted this but the only true way to accomplish it is through a living, breathing mmorpg world that supplies all resources for gameplay.
The last years, MMOs aren't going well...What is happening?
I believe that, most people and especially the old gamers had enough with the same concepts, types of gameplay, the lack of real communication and social gameplay!
For me, the final hope lies with the Sandbox MMOs.
What do you think?
What do I think we had good mmo's years ago. Then the dev's got lazy and just tryied to copy/paste/insert game funciton from xgame into their game. Now most of the stuff we get for mmo's is old borring and there is no inovation. It is the same old this is wow v.x.
I don't know what the future holds but there is not many games out there lurking about that even has my hype meter above meh.
I forsee more cash shops or freemium games (though I'm convinced a sub could work if the player felt like they were getting value for money as opposed to just forking over cash until "something" was added to the game) I see more games starting than being completed because of costs.
As tools get better there will be more indy games but they will have an uphill battle because players will look at them and expect "indy ideas" but at AAA quality.
I think some companies will either completely play it safe or just pull out of mmo's as they are just too risky of an investment.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I forsee more cash shops or freemium games (though I'm convinced a sub could work if the player felt like they were getting value for money as opposed to just forking over cash until "something" was added to the game) I see more games starting than being completed because of costs.
As tools get better there will be more indy games but they will have an uphill battle because players will look at them and expect "indy ideas" but at AAA quality.
I think some companies will either completely play it safe or just pull out of mmo's as they are just too risky of an investment.
Interestingly enough MS got out shortly after WoW they cut there losses on a number of projects and just packed up. I was angry at the time having friends working on Mythica and looking forward to the game, but looking back they may have been the smart ones.
I think as development tech gets better, engines become cheaper to either build or license and graphics hit a plateau, the barrier to entry will drop and more developers will take more risks on different and more varried games. I also think when Blizzard announces their next MMO, more investors will think about putting money in MMO's because WoW will finally be a "passed" achievement and not a looming shadow. Don't confuse that as meaning WoW will be irrelevant it just will be the elephant that left the room, not the one standing in it.
I see more games starting than being completed because of costs.
Interesting notion. But honestly, that's always been the case (note long lists of Vaporware games always being present within the gaming industry). You're predicting the past...heh.
I hope, some day, to see fewer people promoting their personal agendas as the specific 'best' path future games must take--particularly Reactionary agendas.
But we know how unlikely that ever is to ever happen here, right?
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.
I see more games starting than being completed because of costs.
Interesting notion. But honestly, that's always been the case (note long lists of Vaporware games always being present within the gaming industry). You're predicting the past...heh.
I hope, some day, to see fewer people promoting their personal agendas as the specific 'best' path future games must take--particularly Reactionary agendas.
But we know how unlikely that ever is to ever happen here, right?
I say that because as tools get better and cheaper (as was mentioned above) you will see more people trying their hand in the mmo space. But I fear they will then find out that it takes quite a bit just to get these games playable if not amazing.
There is also more failure in the pipeline because what it takes to get a AAA game to market has incraesed quite a bit.
Look at how many more games have been mentioned, how many more we know of and how many have not made it to market, have even been closed down (not including CoH as that did have a long life) so soon after launching if they were lucky to launch.
Like Skyrim? Need more content? Try my Skyrim mod "Godfred's Tomb."
I see more games starting than being completed because of costs.
Interesting notion. But honestly, that's always been the case (note long lists of Vaporware games always being present within the gaming industry). You're predicting the past...heh.
I hope, some day, to see fewer people promoting their personal agendas as the specific 'best' path future games must take--particularly Reactionary agendas.
But we know how unlikely that ever is to ever happen here, right?
I say that because as tools get better and cheaper (as was mentioned above) you will see more people trying their hand in the mmo space. But I fear they will then find out that it takes quite a bit just to get these games playable if not amazing.
There is also more failure in the pipeline because what it takes to get a AAA game to market has incraesed quite a bit.
Look at how many more games have been mentioned, how many more we know of and how many have not made it to market, have even been closed down (not including CoH as that did have a long life) so soon after launching if they were lucky to launch.
While I don't doubt we'll see an increase in failed MMO's as the cost of entry to development goes down. But I hope it'll take a turn like micro-brewing did. You see one big/national sucess like Sam Adams helped generate a great deal of interest in finely crafted smaller breweries. There have certainly been flop breweries who put out crap beer as "hand crafted" and I'm sure even more brewers that never even made it to market, but today I can go into a large chain gorcery story and pick from at least 3 decent micro brews, and if I go to a more upscale market I'm likely to find tens if not hundreds of micro brew options. The mass market stuff is still there and still sells more than my favorite beers every will, but today as opposed to even ten years ago I've got more options and most of them are quality.
When I started playing mmoprg's with Ultima Online in ~1998 and was amazed at this unique game experience I thought how with rapid technology advancement it might look in future. This is what I thought:
Mmorpg's will evolve in more interesting games-virtual worlds. They will have working enviroment, AI will be great and not easily predictiable, weather will have an impact on combat, terrain, your character vitals and stamina and many more, gameplay will be even more varied, crafting will be more unique and complex, there will be more dynamic and unpredicitable game world. Mmorpg's will be made more safe and less prone to exploits and botting.
Basically I thought that unique gameplay type of virtual world - sandbox will be expanded, flaws and exploitable mechanics will be fixed and generally game will be more varied and whole mmorpg concept will be bigger and better. I thought that UO concept will be made better and richer.
I thought that exploiters, botters and cheaters will be get ridden of. Never thought that game companies will take their place with cash shops.
Damn how wrong I was and how young I was.
No I don't try to predict anythign now - cause all sensible predictions would be preety depressing.
to be honest the future of mmos looks pretty grim.
the costs to make them are astronomical, the market is sautrated with games, the profit model is in jeopardy with the advent of b2P and F2P, and fail rate is very high and irrelevent of budget. the games require high maintenance and the fans are the most critical in existance. it takes 5 years to make content for 1 month.
funcom will be out of business soon
EA i believe will back off mmo's with all there failures
Hard to say with sony, but the parent company is in the shitter and they havent had a hit game in 13 years.
all that will be left will be Blizzard ( and if titan fails to impress thats it for them)
and NCSoft will probabally become the dominant force in mmo's
as much as i like mmo's...i cant see many investors wanting to take chances on this these days at least not in the west.
hopefully im wrong.
Hmm.
To be fair the arguments you make above apply to non-mmo console and AAA PC games as well. Nobody in the industry nor Wall Street knows exactly how things will shape up although most of Wall Street and other investors are placing bets on simpler cellphone/tablet-friendly games taking the lead.
There were some articles not too long ago showing the year-over-year stock results of most major games publishers and Wall Street as a whole is very pessimistic on all game companies right now. Every publisher's stock - including Activision/Blizzard's (whose stock was the best of the bunch but that wasn't saying much) has been taking a major nosedive. And I read there are rumors Activision is looking to sell Blizzard. Which I suppose is understandable considering how badly their stock tanked.
Dunno if MoP has helped raise it but my guess is unless MoP produces numbers that exceed the prior expansions Activision's stock will tank even further as investors will read it as a sign the MMO consumer market has been tapped out to the max (read: no further major opportunities for accellerating growth unlike with cellphones and tablets).
Early MMOs (and console games too) had smaller budgets because the tech within reach of consumer's budgets was also more primitive compared to what's out there today.
I don't normally pay attention to things like that except in this instance it impacts an industry I'm very fond of. I love video games and if the people who front the money (venture capitalist firms, Wall Street finance, big banks, etc) think population preference trends are leading away from all forms of high-end video games as we've known them it makes me wonder what we'll all be gaming 10 years from now.
Anyway...you raised some good points. I often wonder about these things myself. I even wonder if the day will come when we all look back and remember fondly when there actually were still major MMOs being made - even if they underperformed marketshare-wise. I guess I wonder if the investors and Wall Street placing their bets on cell phone / tablet games are making the right bets and MMOs as we know them today (themepark or sandbox) are in their final ascendant twilight years.
Judging by what we are seeing this year, the future appreantly is single player oriented games with co-op features so they can charge a monthly and call them MMOs......As for sandboxes, Im just not sure...It seems like every time I try a sandbox it ends up being FFA PVP with some guy who has maxxed every skill just waiting for every noob in the game to enter so he can slaughter them and brag how great he is.
Comments
Shouldn't MMORPG try to create all sorts of playstyle's??
That was what we had. Instead....Today's MMO seems to be limiting itself by providing merly combat oriented gameplay instead of cattering towards different type of gameplay's mixing them up in a MMORPG.
We already have other genre's of gaming that provide PVP or PVE only game experiance's, not sure why someone would want that same experiance from a MMORPG.
This is why I am hoping that FFXIV: A Realm Reborn is a success. Not only does it have one of the most robust crafting systems of any game in a long time it also boasts of actually needing that carpenter for certain improvements on your player made house.
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
WoW existing is not the problem. Developers are free to make whatever type games they want to. People need to get beyond the notion that WoW is a god that makes other people do things. It's a game. It can't stop other people from producing what they want and it doesn't sneak into peoples homes and force them to subscribe.
With a lot of other people here, I too have given up on MMORPGs. My main interest in this site is in the hope - possibly vain - that a new and dynamic genre rises from the MMO ruins.
At one point, I had a strong interest in MMOs, which came primarily from two factors: deep immersion, and a sense of accomplishment.
Immersion versus Convenience
A lot of things have killed the immersion over the years - not least of all the unwillingness of MMORPG players to, you know, RP - but the most glaring in my eyes is the insidious onset of convenience. The problem is, convenience kills immersion. Instant travel is bad enough, but the real death of the open-world MMORPG has been the dungeon queue system. Yes, it's convenient, it saves a lot of time. A "YOU WIN, GAME OVER, CONGRATULATIONS!" screen with a screenshot of your character in T199 armor would save even more time. But it would kill the game, and the sense of enjoyment and accomplishment that used to come from traveling to a distant location, taking on a challenge, and coming out victorious.
I realize no one wants to go back to twenty minute travel times to dungeons, myself included. But I would really like to go back to when it actually made sense to spend time in the open game world. (Can we at least go back to open game worlds?) Developers need to figure out how to balance that - that is why, presumably, we pay them the big bucks.
Accomplishment and the Hampster Wheel
I used to find the sense of accomplishment in-game very satisfying. And then came the expansion. And the next one, and the next one. And then I realized, all my accomplishments would mean next to nothing in a few months, and so I gave up trying.
The problem is, sooner or later gamers figure out that the conventional MMORPG model is a hampster wheel. You just run around, and around, and around, and don't really go anywhere. For a short time the illusion can be maintained, but inevitably, it wears off.
What players need is accomplishment based on something other than grinding out levels and/or dungeon raids. That, I think, is why PvP arena games like League of Legends are taking off. Competitive PvP isn't something you just grind out and gets replaced with the next expansion; it's a real accomplishment to go up on the rankings. It's also why conventional RPGs haven't gone out of style; players love the real accomplishment of finishing a long and difficult story line.
MMORPGs may have a future. But if so, it would involve . . .
Less Of:
Something that must be stressed is that this notion that MMOs have hit some cliff and are simply all bad is highly subjective. Truth is what you may not like others may like, so it is best to abandon this doom and gloom viewpoint in favor of an ever expanding realization that like all other forms of mediums and art MMORPGs go through the cycles of birth, growth, death, and then finnally re-birth. MMOs are still fairly young when compared to other forms of Interactive Art, so much of what is happening is the naturally recuring growing pains. Here is the real key you can either contribute to their further maturation, or you can slide in tothea pessamistic valley of despair and truly miss out on the great things to come.
"Never pay more than 20 bucks for a computer game."-Guybrush Threepwood
"I hate to advocate drugs, alcohol, violence, or insanity to anyone, but they've always worked for me."-Hunter S. Thompson
That have been really true for a long time but it is becomming less and less true now however.
Wow is finally losing players now and it seems that many smarter publishers actually are trying to slowly change things now.
Funny enough is it Microsoft that puts most money into a innovative game right now by backing Undead labs "Class 4". It is the first really innovative MMO with a good financial backing I can remember unless you consider UO and AC to have good backings (at the time they had but it was peanuts compared to what MMOs cost today).
But the times are changing and even Microsoft have figured that out. Only EA and Activision seems to not seen it yet.
Just to answer some of your questions (no insults were intended! I should have gone into more detail)
Those who 'should' be playing mmos are those that enjoy them. At the heart of all mmos are two things, in varying degrees of course; competition and cooperation. If you dont like one/both of these things, then mmos are simply not games where you will have fun. Yeh you can play through most mmos entirely solo, never speaking to a single person...but to me, not enjoyable and entirely pointless, why not stick to console where graphics and gameplay are better? If you hate competition, you are in for a real rough time, as almost every goal in an mmorpg is based on being better / having better gear than others, building the strongest clan...hell, killing others...Or even competing with yourself to simply keep improving/developing.
The problem I was refering to is that designers dont listen to me, or people ike me, who want compeition and challenge and ongoing (undending) development, they listen to this group playing in constant misery, complaining in chat and forums about how they hate the grinding, the level disparities, better/worse gear than others, dungeons bieng to long/hard, getting ganked, or having to rely on others to progress. And the result is all the basic tenants of an mmo are stripped away to satisfy this larger/louder player base that hate the game, and mmos in general.
What happened to stat allocation? Removed to protect people from making mistakes, or making builds that weren't as strong as others. Funny you mention Tera, because in that case, what happened to skill allocation? Removed because again, choice = bad, cookiecutter = good! You even get pvp/bg gear from pve bosses, because having to actually pvp to get pvp gear is discrimination against pve players! Many mmorpg ads now boast that everyone can have all skills and use all gear, etc, as if this is a good thing? It isnt, infact such games are no longer rpgs in any sense of the term.
The point is, why change a genre to suit players that hate that genre? Would you put guns in Skyrim because a cod fanatic complained about it? You are simply turning it into the games that these people should be playing in the first place, which for many is a 2D platformer or onrails shooter. Why not keep mmorpg games for mmorpg players?
I see MMOs headed down the same road I got off when I quit playing console games. (Except sports games, I quit playing those when it progressed to actually having to be good at golf, Tiger Woods)
I recenty posted my experiance with Driver 3. I played Driver 2 with a group of friends daily for months on end. It was hard and loads of fun. Driver 3 came out, I rented it and beat it in 5 days of play after work....WTF?
Now MMOs are all "Rush to endgame", and dare I say completely lack any RP. I think the lack of RP comes from the "rush to endgame" attitude.
For me, I say "Fine.", "You all can have them, I'm out.".
I have found an enviornment that is dynamic, includes lots of player to player interaction, and gives me more of a sence of accomplishment that cannot be taken away with an email that proclaims, "Thanks for teh support, but we are closing the servers.". Don't get me wrong, I understand all my characters arent really mine and belong to the Devfs, publishers yadda yadda. But, when I build and paint a minature, then go roll real dice with other real people that have to actually interact with me.. that interaction IS mine.
Maybe in the far distant future the "Next Big Thing" will explode onto the scene...But untill then, all MMOs will be to me is something to do when there is nothing to do, not as it used ot be when I would plan around a MMO.
I'm with Gudrunix on this one. Say whatever you and the other Themepark enthusiasts want, I don't want the Themepark stuff and am not buying it. I want a world like Gudrunix describes and I want it well made.
That's not "doom and gloom", it's what I'm willing to pay for. I'm not "abandoning" what I want and paying for what I don't want.
Once upon a time....
Devs have figured out that they can steal players from other games and expand their playerbase by making their games easier, faster, and more casual friendly.
The future is 20 minute dungeon runs, automatic dungeon grouping, and level cap in 40 hours played.
I think the future for MMO's over the next 5 years is rather bleak.
First, we have seen several very expensive MMO games fail miserably from a financial point of view. Some of those games would be DCUO and SWTOR. A company that makes a lot of MMOs (Funcom) just had to make massive layoffs to stay afloat after sales of TSW didn't meet expectations.
Overall, to make a "AAA" MMO, the costs seem to be skyrocketing and the likelihood of success seems to be shrinking. Furthermore, it is rumored that even WoW is beginning to see its subscribers decline. The only bright spot for MMO's appears to be GW2, but that isn't a subscription model. Other MMOs are successful as free to play with real cash upgrades. According to industry executives, about 2% of the players in those games actually pay cash for items.
In other words, when an executive looks at the cost of making an MMO plus the amount of time they require and the amount of risk involved (given how many have failed financially), it really isn't a surprise that we're likely to see far fewer MMO games.
In my opinion, we have already seen the wave of WoW clones, which failed. Any company looking at trying to make the money WoW did will also have to now consider why so many WoW clones failed. Which is to say they'll have to be innovative games, which probably just increases the risk of the game. SWTOR tried it with voice acting and failed.
Furthermore, what players expect in an MMO has also increased. It is no longer acceptable to release a half-developed game with lots of bugs at launch. It is no longer acceptable to have only a few end-game dungeons at launch with the promise to eventually develop more. It is no longer acceptable to have PvP as an afterthought in a game. It is no longer acceptable for the graphic engine to faulter when 60 players are in the same location, and yet still deliver high quality graphics.
Lastly, hardware is changing. Tablets are becomming much more popular, but doing an MMO on a tablet seems strange.
In my opinion, a developer needs to thread the needle between sandbox endgame with a meaningful impact (for longevity and community aspects) and themepark leveling (for casual gaming). While I'd love to see DAOC 2, the reality of the failures of SWTOR and WAR are unlikely to allow EA/Bioware to make another MMO game in the near future.
Not that strange.
"The simple is the seal of the true and beauty is the splendor of truth" -Subrahmanyan Chandrasekhar
Authored 139 missions in Vendetta Online and 6 tracks in Distance
There are also quite a few. Order and Chaos is a 3D wow clone. Check it out.
40 hours played ... it is no where close to that fast. The record on WOW is like 4-5 days played, and that is before MOP. So my guess is that it is closer to 100 hours, than 40.
20 min dungeon runs? That sounds right. In fact, you can go faster when you are geared.
One of the reason behind so few AAA sandbox games is tech. Mmo's in general have been stunted due to tech limitations. This is aside from the obvious concentration over the years by developers on copied mechanics and fast cash grabs.
The future of mmo's is the creation of true virtual worlds. Larger worlds with self sustaining mechanics allowing characters the resources to create their own content. This needs to be seemless within the world created and not just external toolsets like NWN which will always be nothing more than a gimic underutilized by the larger playerbase. Emphasis will be on offering players complete control over their characters and environment. This is the only way the social community can expand. A player must be able to exist in the virtual world without limitation.
Current mmo's off little to nothing new when it comes to player interaction. In fact they have often limited it. The new drive to create community websites and include facebook and twitter only distracts from the game. The only point of contact a player needs to organize and communicate is in game. It provides yet another reason to log into it. Every tool outside a game only helps in keeping players out of the virtual world for longer periods of time. If tools exists they should be accessable in an immersive manner within the game. On top of this nothing has been done since the dawn of mmo creation to expand and develope expanded control of your character in the virtual world.
What I would like to see:
- True sandbox mechanics. A developer must have access to advanced and dedicated sandbox mmo world builders. The developers already building in house engines capable of true virtual world emulation will be the companies cornering the market of future mmo's. Seeing how an engine can take as long or longer to build than an mmo (once a builder is obtained) puts companies without one years behind those already planning for the future (ie. a future of high bandwidth, cloud gaming environments). Once cloud gaming takes over (customized for mmo needs) a world builder engine is all the company really has and player side clients would be effectively gone. The entire gameplay must be contained within the world and not separated by instances and barriers designed to split the community up. Phasing must be limited. Micro-phasing could be used where minor interactions to enhance individual encounters but without removing a player from the world itself.
- The evolution of tech like SOEmote. I do not believe full motion capture will ever fully take over convention player controls but enhancements to RP could make a huge impact on an mmo. This does not mean everyone will suddenly fully RP but I would bet everyone would make use of it. The evolution of tools like this is the future of game interaction. When cloud gaming becomes a reality, the game will be accessable from nearly any device (tablet, phone etc). Vitrual toolsets will be required for those using such clients that do not limit gameplay interaction and immersion in anyway. This facilitates ease of access in order to attract new players as well so they do not need to learn a complex UI and simplifies use of complex in game mechanics.
- Text to voice conversion tools and voice alteration. Some like Siri that offers players the ability to not just convert what they say into text but to convert they normal voice into customized character themed accents and for npc text to voice conversion. Voice actors need to die out. Harsh perhaps to say but it kills and limits game development. Existing games could also use text to voice conversion to offer greater immersive qualities. On the fly conversion into quality voice accents would allow developers to heavily simplify voice overs. The first developer to create such powerful tools in house would save a ton of cash on lease and make a ton leasing the software. The point of all this is that real player voice in game will never enhance immersion unless they are professional voice actors themselves. Every player must have easy to use toolsets to allow full virtual world control. Access to UI elements through voice control would also be included.
- Improved physics. Sub category from above but games will not evolve unless we start seeing things like wall scaling, crouch and crawl, sneak mechanics, true object interaction all available to everyone (not just class specific).
- Vastly Improved AI. Along with character and in world interaction the least improved mechanic is any game for that matter is npc/mob AI. An mmo must have it's pve element driven by true AI and not scripted events. When mobs begin to act more like players the mmo will finally be truely immersive. The greatest challenge to developers right now is making an mmo where the game world changes. The only way to do this is to have the pve evironment react to players in the same way players react. Mobs should have goals and be able to reach those goals dynamically be it simple territorial survival or world/region domination. The one area developers should have been concentrating on is the one area they have been ignoring and cheating on since the dawn of video games. To be "out thunk" by a mob instead of simply losing to one through mathematical cheats allowing them to breaks rules not available to players is the ultimate feat in game development ... something utterly abandoned by current developers. When encounters no longer require scripted events this frees up developers creating content like dungeons. Every time you enter one it will be different due to advanced AI.
Also enviroments should be conceptual and not block balanced like normal dungeons. To hell with players wanting by-the-numbers dungeons runs. These players are ruining mmo's. They want a console game experience. There should be small and large dungeons control by dynamic AI. From 10 minute to dungeons that take days to explore (for those who actually remember games like that).
-Slower advancement and a game without the need of seperate end game systems. An mmo must offer engaging gameplay through out so called leveling process. If advancement is limited it must be a goal reached in months or years and not days. As an example: I played Asheron's call for 3-4 years without ever reaching level cap. You could partake in 99% of the content by simply reaching "high" levels and cap was close to meaningless. The game at cap was the exact same game you leveled through. All mmo's should be this way. The world you play in should never, ever become meaningless and segregated from the playerbase. I know GW2 attempted this but the only true way to accomplish it is through a living, breathing mmorpg world that supplies all resources for gameplay.
You stay sassy!
What do I think we had good mmo's years ago. Then the dev's got lazy and just tryied to copy/paste/insert game funciton from xgame into their game. Now most of the stuff we get for mmo's is old borring and there is no inovation. It is the same old this is wow v.x.
I don't know what the future holds but there is not many games out there lurking about that even has my hype meter above meh.
I forsee more cash shops or freemium games (though I'm convinced a sub could work if the player felt like they were getting value for money as opposed to just forking over cash until "something" was added to the game) I see more games starting than being completed because of costs.
As tools get better there will be more indy games but they will have an uphill battle because players will look at them and expect "indy ideas" but at AAA quality.
I think some companies will either completely play it safe or just pull out of mmo's as they are just too risky of an investment.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
Interestingly enough MS got out shortly after WoW they cut there losses on a number of projects and just packed up. I was angry at the time having friends working on Mythica and looking forward to the game, but looking back they may have been the smart ones.
I think as development tech gets better, engines become cheaper to either build or license and graphics hit a plateau, the barrier to entry will drop and more developers will take more risks on different and more varried games. I also think when Blizzard announces their next MMO, more investors will think about putting money in MMO's because WoW will finally be a "passed" achievement and not a looming shadow. Don't confuse that as meaning WoW will be irrelevant it just will be the elephant that left the room, not the one standing in it.
Interesting notion. But honestly, that's always been the case (note long lists of Vaporware games always being present within the gaming industry). You're predicting the past...heh.
I hope, some day, to see fewer people promoting their personal agendas as the specific 'best' path future games must take--particularly Reactionary agendas.
But we know how unlikely that ever is to ever happen here, right?
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.
I say that because as tools get better and cheaper (as was mentioned above) you will see more people trying their hand in the mmo space. But I fear they will then find out that it takes quite a bit just to get these games playable if not amazing.
There is also more failure in the pipeline because what it takes to get a AAA game to market has incraesed quite a bit.
Look at how many more games have been mentioned, how many more we know of and how many have not made it to market, have even been closed down (not including CoH as that did have a long life) so soon after launching if they were lucky to launch.
Godfred's Tomb Trailer: https://youtu.be/-nsXGddj_4w
Original Skyrim: https://www.nexusmods.com/skyrim/mods/109547
Serph toze kindly has started a walk-through. https://youtu.be/UIelCK-lldo
While I don't doubt we'll see an increase in failed MMO's as the cost of entry to development goes down. But I hope it'll take a turn like micro-brewing did. You see one big/national sucess like Sam Adams helped generate a great deal of interest in finely crafted smaller breweries. There have certainly been flop breweries who put out crap beer as "hand crafted" and I'm sure even more brewers that never even made it to market, but today I can go into a large chain gorcery story and pick from at least 3 decent micro brews, and if I go to a more upscale market I'm likely to find tens if not hundreds of micro brew options. The mass market stuff is still there and still sells more than my favorite beers every will, but today as opposed to even ten years ago I've got more options and most of them are quality.
When I started playing mmoprg's with Ultima Online in ~1998 and was amazed at this unique game experience I thought how with rapid technology advancement it might look in future. This is what I thought:
Mmorpg's will evolve in more interesting games-virtual worlds. They will have working enviroment, AI will be great and not easily predictiable, weather will have an impact on combat, terrain, your character vitals and stamina and many more, gameplay will be even more varied, crafting will be more unique and complex, there will be more dynamic and unpredicitable game world. Mmorpg's will be made more safe and less prone to exploits and botting.
Basically I thought that unique gameplay type of virtual world - sandbox will be expanded, flaws and exploitable mechanics will be fixed and generally game will be more varied and whole mmorpg concept will be bigger and better. I thought that UO concept will be made better and richer.
I thought that exploiters, botters and cheaters will be get ridden of. Never thought that game companies will take their place with cash shops.
Damn how wrong I was and how young I was.
No I don't try to predict anythign now - cause all sensible predictions would be preety depressing.
Hmm.
To be fair the arguments you make above apply to non-mmo console and AAA PC games as well. Nobody in the industry nor Wall Street knows exactly how things will shape up although most of Wall Street and other investors are placing bets on simpler cellphone/tablet-friendly games taking the lead.
There were some articles not too long ago showing the year-over-year stock results of most major games publishers and Wall Street as a whole is very pessimistic on all game companies right now. Every publisher's stock - including Activision/Blizzard's (whose stock was the best of the bunch but that wasn't saying much) has been taking a major nosedive. And I read there are rumors Activision is looking to sell Blizzard. Which I suppose is understandable considering how badly their stock tanked.
Dunno if MoP has helped raise it but my guess is unless MoP produces numbers that exceed the prior expansions Activision's stock will tank even further as investors will read it as a sign the MMO consumer market has been tapped out to the max (read: no further major opportunities for accellerating growth unlike with cellphones and tablets).
Early MMOs (and console games too) had smaller budgets because the tech within reach of consumer's budgets was also more primitive compared to what's out there today.
I don't normally pay attention to things like that except in this instance it impacts an industry I'm very fond of. I love video games and if the people who front the money (venture capitalist firms, Wall Street finance, big banks, etc) think population preference trends are leading away from all forms of high-end video games as we've known them it makes me wonder what we'll all be gaming 10 years from now.
Anyway...you raised some good points. I often wonder about these things myself. I even wonder if the day will come when we all look back and remember fondly when there actually were still major MMOs being made - even if they underperformed marketshare-wise. I guess I wonder if the investors and Wall Street placing their bets on cell phone / tablet games are making the right bets and MMOs as we know them today (themepark or sandbox) are in their final ascendant twilight years.