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MMO's are crap because of lack of community and marketing towards low intelligence buyers
JIUBHUNNY420
Member Posts: 131
I hate to be the guy to point out the obvious, or sound like I am deeming a population or group of people (Which is not what I am here to do today) but the truth is, Modern MMO's are normally fun mechanically, but lose staying power because of lack of an intelligent friendly community.
The main reason for this being, MMO companies are run like super mega-corps now, the budgets have gotten huge since WoW took MMO's to the mainstream and by doing so forced the hand of corporate heads to start using market trends, instead of player feedback to make games.
An MMO is no longer made like EQ or even Vanguard was, which is to say a group of friends or developers sit down and say "Heres an idea for an online world, now lets try and make something unique that WE Personally find enjoyable.
The Modern day MMO developer sits down with a group of Marketing Analysts and Big Money Backers and tells them why their model will provide a successful amount of income to warrant the big budget they want for the game. To do this, they do what I call "The Music Industry Version of MMO creation".
See in the music industry its well known that when an artist gets big and starts running with a major label, they make an album thats roughly 2/3's mainstream attracting songs, songs that appeal to mostly the general populas, and then only a few songs make it onto the album that are turely "The bands style" stuff that keeps the diehards around, but not enough to overshadow their new Mainstream audience.
I have seen that EQN is now that biggest in development game on MMORPG, simply based off the name alone, even though SOE has failed so many people in the past, people are looking passed that now because of how moderately successful Planeside 2 was. Why was PS2 a success
What am I getting at with all this? EQN will dissapoint alot of people, there will be heated debates, there will be new fans attracted to the idea of a big name being "Cool" finally, like what we saw with current Star Trek movie re-releases. There will be the select diehards who see a number of their favorite features (Although sorely cut to a minimum amount of interesting or unique features) and stick with the game for the name brand itself and years of nostalgia to warrant still playing.
But there will never be a solid community, by making a game that appeals to a majority, they have to lower the intelligence of the mechanics, the patience involved in the more interesting aspects of games like EQ1, and it divides the community because you have the people who are "Just there to have fun for a few minutes" and the people who are looking for a new hobby to dedicate a real amount of time and energy to.
The game might be mechnically sound, which is why people will have a hard time bashing it, but the truth is the company made the divide in the first place to appeal to the "Distant Majority" that has never even heard of EQ, rather than the diehards who made it big in the first place.
Its also obvious to see this in games like ESO, where the developers are new to the genre and dont have a god figurehead like smedly whose good at lieing and manipulating words to appeal to everyone. ESO was made as a MMO first and an Elder Scrolls game second and it shows. Even though they have gone back and adding small things like FPS combat and werewolves doesnt mean that the core game wont still be an MMO with ES skin, although at least a little more conviincing now.
J-Hun Lookin to Creep Yall!
Comments
Naw. The main difference is instead of one largely like minded community as in old games, or niche games, there are many many communities in a single game.
It will still disappoint a lot of people simply because no game can lift up to some people's unreasonable expectations.
“Microtransactions? In a single player role-playing game? Are you nuts?”
― CD PROJEKT RED
The developers are not trying to make a game that appeals to "The Deveoplers" interests. They are trying to make a game that yes appeals to your intrests and mine, and the hardcore raider over there, and the solo quest grinder over there, and the pvper in the middle, and thats a wholly flawed idea as you jut stated becuase you cant please everyone.
So I guess you and me more agree than we disagree.
J-Hun Lookin to Creep Yall!
OP. You're right. The problem started when WoW went mainstream. So, all the investment into MMO's required that the developers copy WoW. There was a gold rush when it was really just fool's gold. Well, it pretty much ruined MMO's to the point that everyone thinks it's the subscriptions -and not the tired gameplay- that is the reason why MMO after MMO has failed. Now, we have a mad rush for free-to-play. Of course, the majority of the people want f2p. But, this makes sense since the majority of the people won't pay a dime, anyway.
Good part of why I still have reservations about EQN. I've loved the EQ series, even EQOA, but based on the direction they've gone with EQ2 I just can't shake the feeling that they are going to end up aiming at a dumbed down/extremely casual experience, despite whatever hyping they do on twitter or whatever.
And even if a great game was put out, the modern day MMO playerbase just ain't what it use to be. The community always does it's best to make a game unbearable.
Until details are out I guess it doesn't really matter what anyone thinks, but those are my fears for EQN at this point.
Um I didn't mention anything about developers or developer interests. Nor did I state that they can't please everyone, or that they should or should not try.
I'm stating the games are not crap, the communities are not crap. I'm stating that there is more than one community in a game now, they are no longer a largely cohesive single unit.
I'm stating your premise that the community is crap is false because there is not a single community, there are multiple communities and it is your job to find the community in whatever game you want to play that you like.
One fix, as you pointed out, is to focus on one niche of gamers. That would work well provided the players themselves recognize that the game will not attract the widest audience, which means the devs won't have money for specific features. If that community accepts that then great... I have my doubts about people accepting that these days though.
I think you could have made the same point without even using the word intelligence. It's not necessarily about intelligence, it's more about commitment. How do we attract everyone (as you said) including those not willing to play a game with a steep learning curb. I've yet to play a MMO where I haven't been able to learn the game if I had the will and I'm not an intelligent guy.
Again, it's about the will to commit rather than intelligence. If I believe at the end of the day that the game is offering something fun than I am more likely to conquer the learning curb no matter how steep. Ideally though the game is fun from the get go and becomes more fun the more you play it without intimidating the user along the journey but that is hard to accomplish, especially if you try to appeal to everyone.
I really fail to see how you've made the point that MMORPG's are crap because of lack of community, and marketing towards the low intelligence buyers.
MMORPG's are crap because they are trying to mimic WoW. We don't need another WoW. If we wanted to play a game like WoW, we'd play WoW.
I'd be more inclined to state that they're marketing towards the lowest denominator in terms of gaming aptitude. Not so much intelligence. It just so happens that, because it's being marketed towards such a being, we've been getting a very steady influx of incompetents. Edited in: I think the key word here, however, is "market". A hobby doesn't and shouldn't need to be marketed. Because it's a fucking hobby. If it's a good game, it'll spread like wildfire through nothing but word of mouth.
Other than that, OP pretty much hits the nail on the head. It's the same shit with modern CoD versus oldschool Atari, Super Nintendo, or even Playstation games. They were built around the fact that legitimate gamers were playing them. That isn't the case now.
Lmao ! Op, ty. ^ pretty well this. The same could be said for anything. Including democracy. Yup, you don't even need to know anything about an issue to vote. All you need is to be bombard by your favorite media outlet to make a decision or pick the most attractive face. So it's pretty well an indictment of our entire society.
MMOs of the past were WAY more diverse and served many different audiences, both within their own games and in the genre as a whole.
Each MMO was VASTLY different from one another, so if you didn't like once, there's a good chance you'd like another.
Even within the SAME MMO, DAoC and UO provided a metric fuck load of features for crafters and people who loved housing, while also supplying the best PvP to date, and some awesome PvE.
Nowadays, every AAA MMO appeals to the same type of player, and the games are so thin and featureless that it cannot offer anything for anyone but that ONE type of player. It's ironic, that in the industry's effort to appeal to everyone, they appeal to less people than original MMOs did, and their declining numbers reflect that.
Then it must not take much to please him. Some people like to think to be entertained. WoW is not for those people.
I used to love WoW so it can't be low intel............oh wait...........
All joking aside, I agree, It's not an intelligence factor. I think it's more of an expectation factor. People were promised so many things and no one can truly deliver. But yet it's still expected. I just posted in a thread on the upcoming FF14 release. People say it's bad because it lacks innovation.
So developers are under undue pressure from unrealistic expectations. They can't release a game that has things that has been done before or they run the risk of being blackballed as a WoW Clone regardless if the game is good or not. So now, Games have to spend large amount of budgets on gimmicks and other non-MMO like features and develop a game called "Not-WoW Online"
You and I have been over that same issue loads of times. I don't agree, lets leave it at that.
Sorry, nothing you can really disagree with. AAA MMOs are far more similar today than they were of yesterday.
No they aren't. MMOs of the past could do it with smaller budgets and worse tech. We should at least see things that match early MMOs, if not exeed them. Instead we get things worse than shit made in the 90s;,.
The genre was completely different back then. What brought about the biggest change was exposure to the PC and internet grew around the world. The PC in general was a niche market around the time you're referring to. The cost of entry into said market wasn't in reach for as many families. Then the internet craze struck, social networking grew, WOW grew, etc...
Now those people are being fed games on their IOS devices. They've moved on from the PC, which explains the declining populations in popular MMO's like WOW. As well as declining PC sales... It would also explain the change in console gaming as well as game designs in this next generation, they seem to be going with an open-world focus.
I think we're finally at that crossroads many have been waiting for. The time when the true casual market moves on to smaller less game focused devices.
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Personally I havent played an mmo that really made me think as they all have simple gameplay, and I have been playin mmos since Ultima Online to Final Fantasy 11 to WoW and many more. The only thinking that was required in the older mmos were that you had to be more cautious because the penalties were harsher. And my brother likes WoW because its very polished, it has a great story, it has a large open seamless world, the combat is fun meaning not too slow and not too fast, and most of all because hes very busy in real life from going to college and working on airplanes and helicopters and so the game can be fun even if played for a short time.
The only games in general that actually requires thinking are games like Portal and RTS/TBS games. mmos and rpgs in general are simple compared to them.
Hell I know a girl that goes to MIT that loves WoW but I guess that means she has low intelligence right?
Just because some people suck at games and like them easy does not mean they have a low intelligence.
Some people lack coordination, others are lazy of just have better skills at other things, or have short of time.
But personally do I wonder if it wouldn't be best if the super casual crowd moved over to play on IPADs and phones instead of PCs. We would get cheaper games but they would be more challenging.
You can't even measure someones intelligence with how good they play chess, how could you measure it with MMOs?
No they weren't.
Yes there are a great many MMO's today that are very similar to each other.
It is also true there are a great many MMO's today that are very different from each other. Just like yesterday.
It is also true there is an order of magnitute more games. That means many more games that are similar and many more games that are different.
Everything you stated is false and hyperbole.
There's so much wrong here about what you're trying to say that I made an account just to respond.
1.)
You qualify your statement by saying you're not here to deem a large group of people (deem of what, I don't know, because you don't finish that sentence). Unfortunately, you go ahead and do exactly that in your post, please learn to write with a single unifying theme.
2.)
MMO budgets were always huge, especially compared to other games. I don't know how you got such an unrealistic view of game development, business, or real world economics, but people do not invest in someone's passion unless it is going to make a return. I submit that there was never actually a time when MMO development was done without thinking about the kind of market that it appeals to and how it's going to appeal to them.
To state it plainly, MMO's are made by large and wealthy corporations because unlike other genres, MMO's practically require sizable investment.
3.)
MMORPG's and gaming in general has become a massive and quite "mainstream" market. Gaming as an industry has widely overshadowed Hollywood in profits for a decade now (or longer) and will likely continue as the dominant form of entertainment. No developer in their right mind is going to risk bankruptcy developing for a tiny niche of people unless they have a steady revenue stream already. Do you like video games? Be thankful that they appeal to the mainstream, or there wouldn't be enough money to MAKE them.
4.)
Gamers are fickle and difficult to analyze as a market. Unlike other forms of entertainment, gamers are vocal and even the tiniest decisions become massive polarizing debacles that rage throughout the internet. There have been many examples (some I can recall off the top of my head) where a large vocal fanbase requested a feature, when the feature was added, an even larger more vocal fanbase grew up against it.
To develop a video game is to find a niche, find a design you like, and follow it through even if people complain which, certain as the sun rises, they will complain because gamers are fickle and annoying as consumers. Look at the recent backlash against XBOX followed by a huge petition to return the much-maligned features as an example. This doesn't invalidate market testing, it supports it.
If you're sticking with me here, by now you understand that you *need big money backers to make massive multiplayer video games, and those video games have to be designed based on an unifying idea that has to be determined to be worth the money invested*.
5.)
Of course EQN will disappoint people, but it may not have anything to do with the developers. It may, in fact, have to do with many old EQ players that have gotten jobs, had families, or developed their lives in other ways and no longer play MMO's (or do so in a limited fashion). This will leave the main audience to be the new era of gamers which is comprised mostly of younger folk with more considerable free time. This means that the only way to determine a good direction for the game is to.. do market analysis.
6.)
A solid community happens in every single MMO. It's pretty simple, MMO's are like little slices of real-life. You don't go outside and wade through a battalion of idiots and then complain loudly about how "the community sucks" because that's just stupid (or maybe you do, I don't know.) Nonetheless, the key in each MMO is to *FIND* a good community that aligns with your playstyle and maturity level.
Much like real-life (which MMO's try to mimic socially) you don't expect a random, large collection of people to be pleasant and interesting, so you find a club, hobby, or sport, and find people who you like to be around based on those common interests.
Game mechanics do not create a strong community, a community can create little pockets of strong community and that's often the best you can hope for in large-scale multiplayer games. You should be happy they're catering to people who like different mechanics, instead of only catering a select few who can't support the game in the long run.
7.)
You are looking at the past with nostalgia-tinged glasses. I submit that EQ was not that great, it was an endless grind that only had the novelty of being large-scale multiplayer. If you're suggesting that this game is "hardcore" and only intelligent people support it, that is absolutely hilarious, because you're saying only intelligent people are willing to put up with endless boring grinds for their next tiny incremental upgrade. I would think a tolerance for endless repetition reflects more on someone's lack of intelligence than becoming easily bored by doing the same thing ad nauseum.
8.)
Just because someone is "casual" does not make them less intelligent or less capable gamers.
In real life, I'm a highly paid professional with several advanced degrees and strong scientific background. Because of the demands of everyday life, I do not have ten hours a day to grind away on a game. On the flipside, I make plenty of money I'm more than willing to spend liberally on video games *if I believe they're rewarding and interesting enough*.
What makes a great MMO is a player base who demands a high quality game that doesn't rely on cheap, boring grinds to form the basis of gameplay under the ridiculous pretense of appealing to "hardcore" gamers.
I love difficult games, even in the midst of medical school I was more than happy to play a game like EVE, XCOM, or Dark Souls if the game was interesting and didn't rely on grinding as the main form of challenge.
To that end, I'm rather tired of hearing the same argument trotted out over and over that "casuals" are inherently stupid and bad at video games, and that gaming is dying because it's appealing to that market. Sorry, but you're completely wrong and gaming is *stronger* for its appeal to casuals, not weaker.
Not AAA MMOs, which is what we're talking about here. Not any MMos with a budget.