I partly agree with the column but I dont think the problem is as complex as the article makes it be. Truth is that back then, when UO, EQ 1, AC 1 and even ShadowBane, were at their peaks. MMOs were made by enthusiasts and even though you could make some money, it was anything but mainstream.
Back then MMOs were about creating persistant, virtual worlds with immersion and very little like single player games. Today MMOs are big money and bean counters count how much development effort can be done for maximum profitability and creating an immersive, virtual world is hard and I would argue that it is still the niche market it was back then. Reason is that most gamers are well, gamers. They dont want virtual worlds, they want to be the hero.
So the industry has catered to the masses of gamers and instead of creating virtual worlds where not everyone can be the hero, they have instead created single player games in an MMO setting, where everyone is a hero. However it has the worst of both worlds. Having to stay online and also having gazillion of Gandolf or Luke DryWalker running around, interfering in the immersion of playing a single player game like Mass Effect.
So this is how the MMO industry is and it is not going to largely change. So what we old school virtual worlders can hope for is for a game that harkens back to the past but with new technologies such as up to date gfx and server technologies.
Well there you have it, so you are telling all of us that what we have now is the best we can expect. Until hardware improves enough to support the massive amount of programming it will take to change games from having dull and lifeless NPC's, to having them behave, at least with some semblance of rational thought.
I am not a programmer but that's kind of what I thought too.
As Kyleran said:
Pity
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Originally posted by moosecatlol Or . . . content. Nothing like a mmo being completed in less than a week after launch. Level designers seem to be lacking severely.
it's a question of time and resources
a PVP game - we can give you all you need
raider centric - we can put out a raid every other month
group centric - we can put out an instance cluster every 2-4 months
Quest centric - we can whip em out like no-ones business
Well there you have it, so you are telling all of us that what we have now is the best we can expect. Until hardware improves enough to support the massive amount of programming it will take to change games from having dull and lifeless NPC's, to having them behave, at least with some semblance of rational thought.
I am not a programmer but that's kind of what I thought too.
As Kyleran said:
Pity
IT is not a question of hardware/software it is a question of completely opposing desired results
the exact same encounter a one demographic will want a certain result returned, while another will want something completely different. player characters do not come with handy little flags to tell the AI witch demographic they belong too.
as I stated earlier there are games that do exactly what you say you want but since every current developer is chasing the "all demographics" market the ai has to be toned down to match.
There's a tendency, as written about here and across the MMO industry, for players to latch onto their favorite past games with a sense of erstwhile pride and more than a little bit of "rose-tinted" glory. We forget the reasons we left some old MMO flame, and isntead long fondly for the time in our MMO life when that game was the game. But the fact is, if we left a game and haven't been able to get back into it since those golden years, chances are its time in our gameplay life is over. That's not a bad thing, but we're only limiting our future enjoyment of new titles by clinging stubbornly to "the old days".
In my Baldurs Gate,theres no dumbing down patch tomorrow.
Theres no "rose-tinted" glory.
Good MMO today might be terrible shit tomorrow.
Problem is that theres no "rose-tinted" patcher which allows players to play the version of the game they want.
Its easy to do but its cheaper to say rose-tinted mumbo jumbo.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014. **On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
I also find it entertaining that those posting comments disagreeing with you are the exact same type of people you addressed in the article. Haha...
I was thinking the same thing, and I got a laugh out of it as well. The genre is young and has some growing pains to sort out. Eventually I think there will be games made for every style.
I still hope
Well, they are mostly all being made now, to a greater or lesser extent, but the problem goes back to one of Bill's main points, the game will not likely ever have the feature list or be styled how everyone wants.
It goes back to that weird thing many of us have where if a game has a couple features (or doesn't) then the entire game is written off. All the old games are there, but some people won't go back and play them because some evolution of the game wasn't to their liking. MMOs evolve, some people don't, and those people will be perpetually dissatisfied. Even if a game came out now that they love, it will evolve and then they will become disenfranchised again, through their own fault.
DAoC is still there doing what it does. Same with EQ. Same with UO. Same with Lineage (kind of, not in NA anymore). They all evolve because MMOs really aren't static, including EQ and its clones. This still offer all or most of what they used to. The things that change are because there were players and devs weren't satisfied with the status.
that can actually be avoided. the reason mmo's get blasted for not have feature A or feature B is because they still actively market towards the demographics in witch that particular feature is important, partly because in many organizations marketing and development aren't on speaking terms. you have a choice you can go for "everybody" and deliver exactly what's already on the market or you can actively select a target audience and market accordingly. Worked well for EVE
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
Well here is a question.
If an NPC is confronted by a more powerful force, would it not make sense for that character to try to run or protect itself? And also, If a stronger NPC see's you coming would it not make sense for that NPC to try and stalk you and hunt you down for a kill? You might be walking down a path, unaware of said character, who then waits for an opportunity to surprise and ambush you.
Instead we get stationary mobs that wait for the player who obviously has the upper hand to annihilate them, and then complains how easy it was.
Why can't the former be done instead of the latter? Is it a programming issue? A gameplay issue? If it can be done, then why isn't it?
It used to be done, that's how mob AI used to work. It is how it works in Darkfall.
The reason it isn't done is because that would be hard, and AAA MMOs aren't allowed to be hard. They need to be instanced and scaled so no one ever loses or gets frustrated. It needs to be identical to WoW to even get funding.
I think what you are talking about is just simple aggro. The NPC spots you and runs after you. You run away and eventually his aggro diminishes and he runs back to former spot.
What if you attack a group of NPC's and they run or call for reinforcemnent? Perhaps they might offer you terms for surrender or something like that. Lots of things that haven't been done but it seems every game I play is simply, there is a mob, go kill it, collect loot, repeat.
I don't consider myself hardcore but that doesn't mean I don't like difficulty or surprises in my game. PvP is not what I want either however. What I want is challenging PvE gameplay that does not always follow the set pattern.
Is it possible?
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Make the NPCs have more human behaviour and I think we will be on the right track to more enjoyment in our fantasy worlds.
It's not been a technical or programing problem for a long time. it's been a balancing one. It's been tried b4 problem scaling difficulty of ai to match the abilities of any particular player is a guessing game at best. The wider a games demographic range the more slop gets built into the system.
Well here is a question.
If an NPC is confronted by a more powerful force, would it not make sense for that character to try to run or protect itself? And also, If a stronger NPC see's you coming would it not make sense for that NPC to try and stalk you and hunt you down for a kill? You might be walking down a path, unaware of said character, who then waits for an opportunity to surprise and ambush you.
Instead we get stationary mobs that wait for the player who obviously has the upper hand to annihilate them, and then complains how easy it was.
Why can't the former be done instead of the latter? Is it a programming issue? A gameplay issue? If it can be done, then why isn't it?
It used to be done, that's how mob AI used to work. It is how it works in Darkfall.
The reason it isn't done is because that would be hard, and AAA MMOs aren't allowed to be hard. They need to be instanced and scaled so no one ever loses or gets frustrated. It needs to be identical to WoW to even get funding.
I think what you are talking about is just simple aggro. The NPC spots you and runs after you. You run away and eventually his aggro diminishes and he runs back to former spot.
What if you attack a group of NPC's and they run or call for reinforcemnent? Perhaps they might offer you terms for surrender or something like that. Lots of things that haven't been done but it seems every game I play is simply, there is a mob, go kill it, collect loot, repeat.
I don't consider myself hardcore but that doesn't mean I don't like difficulty or surprises in my game. PvP is not what I want either however. What I want is challenging PvE gameplay that does not always follow the set pattern.
I wish posters in this thread would state what they mean by player driven world. I'm thinking that would have different meanings for different people. Crafting is player driven isn't it? But not all like crafting. If it was done like it was in SWG, where players felt part of the overall creation, it would be good. There was a lot of trading.
What else could be player driven? Grouping? I think one poster here explained well why this doesn't work well anymore, overall. I have reached a point in FFXIV where I can't advance without doing a dungeon for which I can't find a group. So that became a game killer. Some people shout to find the needed group balance. I turned my shout off because of the gold seller spam.
Developers need to take into account there will be gold sellers, and what they will do about it, beforehand! and not just suspend players because they have too much money, so they must be buying gold, gold which is very hard to come by in this game, by the way.
Well there you have it, so you are telling all of us that what we have now is the best we can expect. Until hardware improves enough to support the massive amount of programming it will take to change games from having dull and lifeless NPC's, to having them behave, at least with some semblance of rational thought.
I am not a programmer but that's kind of what I thought too.
As Kyleran said:
Pity
IT is not a question of hardware/software it is a question of completely opposing desired results
the exact same encounter a one demographic will want a certain result returned, while another will want something completely different. player characters do not come with handy little flags to tell the AI witch demographic they belong too.
as I stated earlier there are games that do exactly what you say you want but since every current developer is chasing the "all demographics" market the ai has to be toned down to match.
Yea yea I get that. But you are basically saying that things cannot change and therefore will not.
I have to disagree about the can not part.
Well everyone seems to think sandbox player driven content is the way to go but I feel that is also going to fail.
Time will tell.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Well there you have it, so you are telling all of us that what we have now is the best we can expect. Until hardware improves enough to support the massive amount of programming it will take to change games from having dull and lifeless NPC's, to having them behave, at least with some semblance of rational thought.
I am not a programmer but that's kind of what I thought too.
As Kyleran said:
Pity
IT is not a question of hardware/software it is a question of completely opposing desired results
the exact same encounter a one demographic will want a certain result returned, while another will want something completely different. player characters do not come with handy little flags to tell the AI witch demographic they belong too.
as I stated earlier there are games that do exactly what you say you want but since every current developer is chasing the "all demographics" market the ai has to be toned down to match.
Yea yea I get that. But you are basically saying that things cannot change and therefore will not.
I have to disagree about the can not part.
Well everyone seems to think sandbox player driven content is the way to go but I feel that is also going to fail.
Time will tell.
they won't change as long as games try to fit everyone under the same tent. or have you been asleep over the last decade?
and I never once mentioned sandbox nor was I referring to it. that's just one demographic among many
I forgot to mention my other main point, which is that so many don't actually disappoint.
If you were to read forums like this, you would think pretty much every game in existence is a disappointment. If you were to go into the games and talk to those playing them you would find most people to be happy and enjoying their game.
It is the certain crowd who does want it all, who does have reasonable expectations, who does think a game should be made in their image who is really disappointed. Does that mean every game launched is a success and did it right? Of course not, but as a whole they are doing far better than you'd ever think by reading these forums.
These forums have said for years that WoW is the worst game ever (no I don't personally enjoy it either). This is in despite of its massive success and how many millions of people truly enjoy it every day. People say GW2 is a disappointment, yet plenty of people continue to play it day after day and by all accounts it appears to be doing well.
These forums simply tear down games. The majority who tends to enjoy the games don't waste time running around the internet posting about them, they tend to sit in there and enjoy them.
So basically, most of them truly don't disappoint.
I forgot to mention my other main point, which is that so many don't actually disappoint.
If you were to read forums like this, you would think pretty much every game in existence is a disappointment. If you were to go into the games and talk to those playing them you would find most people to be happy and enjoying their game.
It is the certain crowd who does want it all, who does have reasonable expectations, who does think a game should be made in their image who is really disappointed. Does that mean every game launched is a success and did it right? Of course not, but as a whole they are doing far better than you'd ever think by reading these forums.
These forums have said for years that WoW is the worst game ever (no I don't personally enjoy it either). This is in despite of its massive success and how many millions of people truly enjoy it every day. People say GW2 is a disappointment, yet plenty of people continue to play it day after day and by all accounts it appears to be doing well.
These forums simply tear down games. The majority who tends to enjoy the games don't waste time running around the internet posting about them, they tend to sit in there and enjoy them.
So basically, most of them truly don't disappoint.
these forums also represent an untapped market share. Once of the reasons you keep seeing mmos launch; contract; f2p hail mary is because that market share is divided among divergent demographics not something that can be fit under one roof.
And all this is why i stop playing mmos, as i did before, i come here to check news and stuff and maybe try something from time to time, but my last hype mmo was gw2 and ended being dissapointing after months of playing (i started since closed beta), now they try us to keep us playing every 15 days with "or lose the content forever" menace, enagenate and punish if u are not there every 15 days playing.
So it became stressing, to the point of: wanna travel? sorry u will miss content forever, have hard job times? sorry u will miss content forever and so on.
Plus announcing no expansions because they dont want playerbase to "disperse" is another dissapointing point of it, as you said here i come and go with expectation of the game going better but at the end you stop playing completily and forget it for sure.
Problem is it infects and becomes a subconcient disease ,because then you aproach other mmos with a resilent feeling of pre-conception about future failure, that extends to every online game afterwards, gladly we haves still not online required games to enyoy gaming time, but at same time the feeling of missing the online world, because of elitist content and pressure or lackust half made games.
In my opinion people are just gettin tired from this entire genre without even realizing it! Thismust be because of the mass production of these stupid clones .
Good write Bill. One thing that I think the Industry has gotten wrong is catering to the casuals. Yes I know they are the majority and companies want to get as many into a game right out of the gate. But what is wrong with this is you are going to loose subs, everyone of them have, everyone. If someone would build a game for the hardcore then the casuals will follow and bitch and moan but they will play, why? because epic things happen. I see these games come out and they hype on the fact that they sold 1 million copies of their game only to see their subs go from 1 million to 200K after the free month. And why would they stay? they've already level capped, end game isn't much at that point and PVP is of course broken, they all are.
The key is to build a game for Hardcore players, at a level cap of 50 it should take at least a couple of months to reach that, minimum. Dungeons and Raids should take weeks if not months to accomplish not hours or days. In todays games if a guild or group downs the final boss in the biggest raid in the game nobody really cares, why? because the game had just came out three weeks before and everyone raced to the ending, with the dev's holding their hand all along the way, "come on, hurry up people and see how easy we made this for you to do" At this point I have nothing else to do but complain about how stupid the game is, why because I finished it after 3 weeks and have nothing else to do.
Good write Bill. One thing that I think the Industry has gotten wrong is catering to the casuals. Yes I know they are the majority and companies want to get as many into a game right out of the gate. But what is wrong with this is you are going to loose subs, everyone of them have, everyone. If someone would build a game for the hardcore then the casuals will follow and bitch and moan but they will play, why? because epic things happen. I see these games come out and they hype on the fact that they sold 1 million copies of their game only to see their subs go from 1 million to 200K after the free month. And why would they stay? they've already level capped, end game isn't much at that point and PVP is of course broken, they all are.
The key is to build a game for Hardcore players, at a level cap of 50 it should take at least a couple of months to reach that, minimum. Dungeons and Raids should take weeks if not months to accomplish not hours or days. In todays games if a guild or group downs the final boss in the biggest raid in the game nobody really cares, why? because the game had just came out three weeks before and everyone raced to the ending, with the dev's holding their hand all along the way, "come on, hurry up people and see how easy we made this for you to do" At this point I have nothing else to do but complain about how stupid the game is, why because I finished it after 3 weeks and have nothing else to do.
Peace
Lascer
Sure!!
Hardcores are never disappointed in their games!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Good write Bill. One thing that I think the Industry has gotten wrong is catering to the casuals. Yes I know they are the majority and companies want to get as many into a game right out of the gate. But what is wrong with this is you are going to loose subs, everyone of them have, everyone. If someone would build a game for the hardcore then the casuals will follow and bitch and moan but they will play, why? because epic things happen. I see these games come out and they hype on the fact that they sold 1 million copies of their game only to see their subs go from 1 million to 200K after the free month. And why would they stay? they've already level capped, end game isn't much at that point and PVP is of course broken, they all are.
The key is to build a game for Hardcore players, at a level cap of 50 it should take at least a couple of months to reach that, minimum. Dungeons and Raids should take weeks if not months to accomplish not hours or days. In todays games if a guild or group downs the final boss in the biggest raid in the game nobody really cares, why? because the game had just came out three weeks before and everyone raced to the ending, with the dev's holding their hand all along the way, "come on, hurry up people and see how easy we made this for you to do" At this point I have nothing else to do but complain about how stupid the game is, why because I finished it after 3 weeks and have nothing else to do.
Peace
Lascer
Sure!!
Hardcores are never disappointed in their games!
Weird comment but I'll address it. Didn't say Hardcore players were never disappointed in game, mostly likely they are not most disappointed in the new games
I forgot to mention my other main point, which is that so many don't actually disappoint.
If you were to read forums like this, you would think pretty much every game in existence is a disappointment. If you were to go into the games and talk to those playing them you would find most people to be happy and enjoying their game.
It is the certain crowd who does want it all, who does have reasonable expectations, who does think a game should be made in their image who is really disappointed. Does that mean every game launched is a success and did it right? Of course not, but as a whole they are doing far better than you'd ever think by reading these forums.
These forums have said for years that WoW is the worst game ever (no I don't personally enjoy it either). This is in despite of its massive success and how many millions of people truly enjoy it every day. People say GW2 is a disappointment, yet plenty of people continue to play it day after day and by all accounts it appears to be doing well.
These forums simply tear down games. The majority who tends to enjoy the games don't waste time running around the internet posting about them, they tend to sit in there and enjoy them.
So basically, most of them truly don't disappoint.
these forums also represent an untapped market share. Once of the reasons you keep seeing mmos launch; contract; f2p hail mary is because that market share is divided among divergent demographics not something that can be fit under one roof.
The reason you see them contract is because you will never hold all of the players that try your game, ever. In this day and age everyone is aware of a game before it launches so there isn't some hidden group you can market it to later to expand further. Instead you get everyone to try it at first and then a group of them stick.
I doubt any company releases an MMO expecting it to grow. Instead they launch it and have an expected level out amount.
I still play to SWG, you see what i mean ? on emu alas. It could have been the big one if they havent destroyed it. Now i'm waiting for the next big one. I hope it will be Therepopulation but in the meantime i don't see anything that approach the interest and the pleasure i had to play SWG.
Perhaps Star Citizen too ?
But for sure we need something big, something intriguing ,something beautiful, something immersive and with a big craft systemand housing and a sandbox obviously.
I forgot to mention my other main point, which is that so many don't actually disappoint.
If you were to read forums like this, you would think pretty much every game in existence is a disappointment. If you were to go into the games and talk to those playing them you would find most people to be happy and enjoying their game.
It is the certain crowd who does want it all, who does have reasonable expectations, who does think a game should be made in their image who is really disappointed. Does that mean every game launched is a success and did it right? Of course not, but as a whole they are doing far better than you'd ever think by reading these forums.
These forums have said for years that WoW is the worst game ever (no I don't personally enjoy it either). This is in despite of its massive success and how many millions of people truly enjoy it every day. People say GW2 is a disappointment, yet plenty of people continue to play it day after day and by all accounts it appears to be doing well.
These forums simply tear down games. The majority who tends to enjoy the games don't waste time running around the internet posting about them, they tend to sit in there and enjoy them.
So basically, most of them truly don't disappoint.
these forums also represent an untapped market share. Once of the reasons you keep seeing mmos launch; contract; f2p hail mary is because that market share is divided among divergent demographics not something that can be fit under one roof.
The reason you see them contract is because you will never hold all of the players that try your game, ever. In this day and age everyone is aware of a game before it launches so there isn't some hidden group you can market it to later to expand further. Instead you get everyone to try it at first and then a group of them stick.
I doubt any company releases an MMO expecting it to grow. Instead they launch it and have an expected level out amount.
Again I reference EVE last I checked it's still increasing not contracting
Here's quite another thought about that topic. While I'm not consider myself as overly 'religious' I'm under the impression, most people hunger for something they can believe in. And while religions more and more lose their ground people on the same time lose their crutch. Here's where MMOs seem to promise some hope for many players, even if they never would admit that. MMOs of course can never replace a livelong religious faith and there's probably the root for all those disappointments. Don't get me wrong, thats not a pro-religion statement. Just as I see the facts.
When we say a MMO is dying, generally we don't mean that we dislike the game or even that the population is declining -- though, admittedly, many people rationalize their sense that the game is dying by pointing to these. What is really meant is that the game is going out of style (or in the case of far too many modern MMOs, that the game was never in style from the start). It is hard to argue using objective measures, yet nevertheless intuitively we sense when this is happening, when a game no longer feels cutting-edge or innovative, when it no longer reflects well on your image of yourself as a gamer to admit that you are playing that particular game.
The reason most every MMO feels this way is that the entire genre seems to be "dying" -- i.e., going out of style, and each individual MMO participates in the fate of the larger genre. There was a time when playing MMOs put you in a class of elite gamers -- which was due to the combined impact of how hardcore old school MMOs were (demanding a great deal of time and skill from gamers) and their innovative use of the internet as a form of social interaction which was cutting edge at the time (this was before social networking). Today, on the other hand, MMOs are a bit more of a joke genre. Online social gaming no longer seems like a particularly innovative technology, and most MMOs are extremely dumbed down to be essentially the opposite of what they used to be (i.e., now they require very little time and very little skill). Modern MMOs compare to old-school MMOs the way late-80s glam rock bands like Poison compared to old-school rock bands like AC/DC.
When each new MMO is released, they essentially steal the majority of their essence from existing models in the genre, and then tack on some innovative concepts at the end. But because the genre itself is going out of style, everything they steal from that genre is also going out of style. And since all that stuff represents the meat and bones of the new game, it is already going out of style from day one . . . even if initially the population rapidly rises or if many people claim to like it.
This was not always the situation. Some people argue that all games are dying from the moment they are released, albeit slowly, like an aging human being. I disagree. Just like a young person is growing and developing until their early 20s, a game goes through this same process. In the case of a very successful game, like WoW, this actually continues well after their release. WoW didn't actually reach its pinnacle -- after which point it began its slow decline -- until years after its initial release. WoW was considered extremely "cool" at release, but this "cool" factor only increased with time, and eventually it became so popular even mainstream culture had heard of the game. Then it slowly started to become less cool, and now you are almost looked down upon if you admit to playing WoW."
This is the answer to this thread. It was Originally posted by Jjix /End Thread Now
Good write Bill. One thing that I think the Industry has gotten wrong is catering to the casuals. Yes I know they are the majority and companies want to get as many into a game right out of the gate. But what is wrong with this is you are going to loose subs, everyone of them have, everyone. If someone would build a game for the hardcore then the casuals will follow and bitch and moan but they will play, why? because epic things happen. I see these games come out and they hype on the fact that they sold 1 million copies of their game only to see their subs go from 1 million to 200K after the free month. And why would they stay? they've already level capped, end game isn't much at that point and PVP is of course broken, they all are.
The key is to build a game for Hardcore players, at a level cap of 50 it should take at least a couple of months to reach that, minimum. Dungeons and Raids should take weeks if not months to accomplish not hours or days. In todays games if a guild or group downs the final boss in the biggest raid in the game nobody really cares, why? because the game had just came out three weeks before and everyone raced to the ending, with the dev's holding their hand all along the way, "come on, hurry up people and see how easy we made this for you to do" At this point I have nothing else to do but complain about how stupid the game is, why because I finished it after 3 weeks and have nothing else to do.
Peace
Lascer
Sure!!
Hardcores are never disappointed in their games!
Weird comment but I'll address it. Didn't say Hardcore players were never disappointed in game, mostly likely they are not most disappointed in the new games
Weird comment , not really sure how to address it.
I beg to differ but it is exactly the opposite. Hardies are most disappointed and casuals the least.
There fixed it for you.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Comments
I partly agree with the column but I dont think the problem is as complex as the article makes it be. Truth is that back then, when UO, EQ 1, AC 1 and even ShadowBane, were at their peaks. MMOs were made by enthusiasts and even though you could make some money, it was anything but mainstream.
Back then MMOs were about creating persistant, virtual worlds with immersion and very little like single player games. Today MMOs are big money and bean counters count how much development effort can be done for maximum profitability and creating an immersive, virtual world is hard and I would argue that it is still the niche market it was back then. Reason is that most gamers are well, gamers. They dont want virtual worlds, they want to be the hero.
So the industry has catered to the masses of gamers and instead of creating virtual worlds where not everyone can be the hero, they have instead created single player games in an MMO setting, where everyone is a hero. However it has the worst of both worlds. Having to stay online and also having gazillion of Gandolf or Luke DryWalker running around, interfering in the immersion of playing a single player game like Mass Effect.
So this is how the MMO industry is and it is not going to largely change. So what we old school virtual worlders can hope for is for a game that harkens back to the past but with new technologies such as up to date gfx and server technologies.
My gaming blog
BmBender
Well there you have it, so you are telling all of us that what we have now is the best we can expect. Until hardware improves enough to support the massive amount of programming it will take to change games from having dull and lifeless NPC's, to having them behave, at least with some semblance of rational thought.
I am not a programmer but that's kind of what I thought too.
As Kyleran said:
Pity
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
it's a question of time and resources
a PVP game - we can give you all you need
raider centric - we can put out a raid every other month
group centric - we can put out an instance cluster every 2-4 months
Quest centric - we can whip em out like no-ones business
all the above - F*** my life
IT is not a question of hardware/software it is a question of completely opposing desired results
the exact same encounter a one demographic will want a certain result returned, while another will want something completely different. player characters do not come with handy little flags to tell the AI witch demographic they belong too.
as I stated earlier there are games that do exactly what you say you want but since every current developer is chasing the "all demographics" market the ai has to be toned down to match.
THE LUST FOR WHAT ONCE WAS
There's a tendency, as written about here and across the MMO industry, for players to latch onto their favorite past games with a sense of erstwhile pride and more than a little bit of "rose-tinted" glory. We forget the reasons we left some old MMO flame, and isntead long fondly for the time in our MMO life when that game was the game. But the fact is, if we left a game and haven't been able to get back into it since those golden years, chances are its time in our gameplay life is over. That's not a bad thing, but we're only limiting our future enjoyment of new titles by clinging stubbornly to "the old days".
In my Baldurs Gate,theres no dumbing down patch tomorrow.
Theres no "rose-tinted" glory.
Good MMO today might be terrible shit tomorrow.
Problem is that theres no "rose-tinted" patcher which allows players to play the version of the game they want.
Its easy to do but its cheaper to say rose-tinted mumbo jumbo.
So, did ESO have a successful launch? Yes, yes it did.By Ryan Getchell on April 02, 2014.
**On the radar: http://www.cyberpunk.net/ **
that can actually be avoided. the reason mmo's get blasted for not have feature A or feature B is because they still actively market towards the demographics in witch that particular feature is important, partly because in many organizations marketing and development aren't on speaking terms. you have a choice you can go for "everybody" and deliver exactly what's already on the market or you can actively select a target audience and market accordingly. Worked well for EVE
I think what you are talking about is just simple aggro. The NPC spots you and runs after you. You run away and eventually his aggro diminishes and he runs back to former spot.
What if you attack a group of NPC's and they run or call for reinforcemnent? Perhaps they might offer you terms for surrender or something like that. Lots of things that haven't been done but it seems every game I play is simply, there is a mob, go kill it, collect loot, repeat.
I don't consider myself hardcore but that doesn't mean I don't like difficulty or surprises in my game. PvP is not what I want either however. What I want is challenging PvE gameplay that does not always follow the set pattern.
Is it possible?
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
EQ does that
TRAIN!!!!
I wish posters in this thread would state what they mean by player driven world. I'm thinking that would have different meanings for different people. Crafting is player driven isn't it? But not all like crafting. If it was done like it was in SWG, where players felt part of the overall creation, it would be good. There was a lot of trading.
What else could be player driven? Grouping? I think one poster here explained well why this doesn't work well anymore, overall. I have reached a point in FFXIV where I can't advance without doing a dungeon for which I can't find a group. So that became a game killer. Some people shout to find the needed group balance. I turned my shout off because of the gold seller spam.
Developers need to take into account there will be gold sellers, and what they will do about it, beforehand! and not just suspend players because they have too much money, so they must be buying gold, gold which is very hard to come by in this game, by the way.
Yea yea I get that. But you are basically saying that things cannot change and therefore will not.
I have to disagree about the can not part.
Well everyone seems to think sandbox player driven content is the way to go but I feel that is also going to fail.
Time will tell.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
they won't change as long as games try to fit everyone under the same tent. or have you been asleep over the last decade?
and I never once mentioned sandbox nor was I referring to it. that's just one demographic among many
I forgot to mention my other main point, which is that so many don't actually disappoint.
If you were to read forums like this, you would think pretty much every game in existence is a disappointment. If you were to go into the games and talk to those playing them you would find most people to be happy and enjoying their game.
It is the certain crowd who does want it all, who does have reasonable expectations, who does think a game should be made in their image who is really disappointed. Does that mean every game launched is a success and did it right? Of course not, but as a whole they are doing far better than you'd ever think by reading these forums.
These forums have said for years that WoW is the worst game ever (no I don't personally enjoy it either). This is in despite of its massive success and how many millions of people truly enjoy it every day. People say GW2 is a disappointment, yet plenty of people continue to play it day after day and by all accounts it appears to be doing well.
These forums simply tear down games. The majority who tends to enjoy the games don't waste time running around the internet posting about them, they tend to sit in there and enjoy them.
So basically, most of them truly don't disappoint.
these forums also represent an untapped market share. Once of the reasons you keep seeing mmos launch; contract; f2p hail mary is because that market share is divided among divergent demographics not something that can be fit under one roof.
And all this is why i stop playing mmos, as i did before, i come here to check news and stuff and maybe try something from time to time, but my last hype mmo was gw2 and ended being dissapointing after months of playing (i started since closed beta), now they try us to keep us playing every 15 days with "or lose the content forever" menace, enagenate and punish if u are not there every 15 days playing.
So it became stressing, to the point of: wanna travel? sorry u will miss content forever, have hard job times? sorry u will miss content forever and so on.
Plus announcing no expansions because they dont want playerbase to "disperse" is another dissapointing point of it, as you said here i come and go with expectation of the game going better but at the end you stop playing completily and forget it for sure.
Problem is it infects and becomes a subconcient disease ,because then you aproach other mmos with a resilent feeling of pre-conception about future failure, that extends to every online game afterwards, gladly we haves still not online required games to enyoy gaming time, but at same time the feeling of missing the online world, because of elitist content and pressure or lackust half made games.
Hope the cure comes soon
DARK AND LIGHT I GOVERN BOTH
Good write Bill. One thing that I think the Industry has gotten wrong is catering to the casuals. Yes I know they are the majority and companies want to get as many into a game right out of the gate. But what is wrong with this is you are going to loose subs, everyone of them have, everyone. If someone would build a game for the hardcore then the casuals will follow and bitch and moan but they will play, why? because epic things happen. I see these games come out and they hype on the fact that they sold 1 million copies of their game only to see their subs go from 1 million to 200K after the free month. And why would they stay? they've already level capped, end game isn't much at that point and PVP is of course broken, they all are.
The key is to build a game for Hardcore players, at a level cap of 50 it should take at least a couple of months to reach that, minimum. Dungeons and Raids should take weeks if not months to accomplish not hours or days. In todays games if a guild or group downs the final boss in the biggest raid in the game nobody really cares, why? because the game had just came out three weeks before and everyone raced to the ending, with the dev's holding their hand all along the way, "come on, hurry up people and see how easy we made this for you to do" At this point I have nothing else to do but complain about how stupid the game is, why because I finished it after 3 weeks and have nothing else to do.
Peace
Lascer
Sure!!
Hardcores are never disappointed in their games!
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!
Weird comment but I'll address it. Didn't say Hardcore players were never disappointed in game, mostly likely they are not most disappointed in the new games
The reason you see them contract is because you will never hold all of the players that try your game, ever. In this day and age everyone is aware of a game before it launches so there isn't some hidden group you can market it to later to expand further. Instead you get everyone to try it at first and then a group of them stick.
I doubt any company releases an MMO expecting it to grow. Instead they launch it and have an expected level out amount.
I still play to SWG, you see what i mean ? on emu alas. It could have been the big one if they havent destroyed it. Now i'm waiting for the next big one. I hope it will be Therepopulation but in the meantime i don't see anything that approach the interest and the pleasure i had to play SWG.
Perhaps Star Citizen too ?
But for sure we need something big, something intriguing ,something beautiful, something immersive and with a big craft systemand housing and a sandbox obviously.
Again I reference EVE last I checked it's still increasing not contracting
When we say a MMO is dying, generally we don't mean that we dislike the game or even that the population is declining -- though, admittedly, many people rationalize their sense that the game is dying by pointing to these. What is really meant is that the game is going out of style (or in the case of far too many modern MMOs, that the game was never in style from the start). It is hard to argue using objective measures, yet nevertheless intuitively we sense when this is happening, when a game no longer feels cutting-edge or innovative, when it no longer reflects well on your image of yourself as a gamer to admit that you are playing that particular game.
The reason most every MMO feels this way is that the entire genre seems to be "dying" -- i.e., going out of style, and each individual MMO participates in the fate of the larger genre. There was a time when playing MMOs put you in a class of elite gamers -- which was due to the combined impact of how hardcore old school MMOs were (demanding a great deal of time and skill from gamers) and their innovative use of the internet as a form of social interaction which was cutting edge at the time (this was before social networking). Today, on the other hand, MMOs are a bit more of a joke genre. Online social gaming no longer seems like a particularly innovative technology, and most MMOs are extremely dumbed down to be essentially the opposite of what they used to be (i.e., now they require very little time and very little skill). Modern MMOs compare to old-school MMOs the way late-80s glam rock bands like Poison compared to old-school rock bands like AC/DC.
When each new MMO is released, they essentially steal the majority of their essence from existing models in the genre, and then tack on some innovative concepts at the end. But because the genre itself is going out of style, everything they steal from that genre is also going out of style. And since all that stuff represents the meat and bones of the new game, it is already going out of style from day one . . . even if initially the population rapidly rises or if many people claim to like it.
This was not always the situation. Some people argue that all games are dying from the moment they are released, albeit slowly, like an aging human being. I disagree. Just like a young person is growing and developing until their early 20s, a game goes through this same process. In the case of a very successful game, like WoW, this actually continues well after their release. WoW didn't actually reach its pinnacle -- after which point it began its slow decline -- until years after its initial release. WoW was considered extremely "cool" at release, but this "cool" factor only increased with time, and eventually it became so popular even mainstream culture had heard of the game. Then it slowly started to become less cool, and now you are almost looked down upon if you admit to playing WoW."
This is the answer to this thread. It was Originally posted by Jjix /End Thread Now
Weird comment , not really sure how to address it.
I beg to differ but it is exactly the opposite. Hardies are most disappointed and casuals the least.
There fixed it for you.
FFA Nonconsentual Full Loot PvP ...You know you want it!!