Just a fun game to play where the greed isn't too obvious and provides enough engaging content to get lost in...for days at a time...like SWG.
I'd like to see a game where people can be on different levels because of skill/effort/choices and not because of how much money they spend. Not hating but it puts me off when games are created around cash shops and it seems like more effort is put into them than the actual game.
Just a fun game to play where the greed isn't too obvious and provides enough engaging content to get lost in...for days at a time...like SWG.
I'd like to see a game where people can be on different levels because of skill/effort/choices and not because of how much money they spend. Not hating but it puts me off when games are created around cash shops and it seems like more effort is put into them than the actual game.
I don't think that is the problems core though, the MMO jumping had already started when DDO went F2P which started the real cash shop thing (or you could say that it started when EQ2 got a cashshop).
It certainly doesn't help when you get the feeling that the entire point is shopping but there are still games around where your power have nothing to do with spent money in the cashshop but even those games have problem with bungee players who jump in and out of different games without ever staying longer then a few weeks anywhere.
DMkano, you have always been a mouthpiece for the new, post sub, 'establishment'... But, sadly, that established 'new modern' way of thinking has killed this genre. You are the mouthpiece of the carpetbaggers that have trodden this genre into the ground for a quick profit and now wonder in mock surprise where it has all gone. I don't trust what you say, or put an ounce of credibility in any of your questions or statements.
+1 better still you cant take anything he says seriously.
People want to blame everything because they can not find a game to play.
WoW killed the genre
FTP killed the genre
Cash Shops killed the genre
Themepark killed the genre.
Those things kind of did kill the genre. WoW's success lead to themepark over saturation lead to cash shops and free to play which lead to a spiral of cash grabs, poor quality subsidized MMORPG and negative monetization gimmicks.
Yea I would say WoW and themeparks unintentionally killed the genre.
The acronym MMORPG use to mean Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game.
But the acronym MMMORPG now currently means Microscopic Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Kappa.
Simple, don't officially release a title half way in beta, don't have a 100% functional cash shop on a beta release, don't do the stupid thing of "Those that pre orders now will have OMGWTFBBQ advantages over others that don't pre order" because that always fails and is always a red flag. So what I'm writing here and trying to point out to the devs and pubs; stop being greedy bastards and create something good for once since WoW. But OP writes "2016 and beyond" when in fact it should be "2020 and beyond" since the trend we currently got going on will still be going on for another couple of years.
Several people in this thread have slapped the word "fun" down, dropped the mic and walked off stage. Sure, we all know that fun games will keep us around a lot longer than games that aren't fun. However, if anyone out there had the secret formula for "fun", then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. In fact, we probably wouldn't need forums like this to discuss various games and their pros and cons; we'd all be playing that one "fun" game.
But therein lies another problem which is that "fun" isn't universal. There are games that are fun for the majority for a while such as WoW, which was obviously the most fun of the MMO's for a decade. There are other games that are fun for the minority such as EVE which has had slight variations in population, but honestly the variations in population of EVE in the last ten years wouldn't even register as a bump in WoW, but here EVE is 13 years later still going strong and still in constant development.
So what I'm getting at, is that "fun" can't be holy grail that a developer chases. What they need to chase instead are the game mechanics, features and aesthetics which will have the most appeal for their intended audience.
Take Overwatch, for example, it's literally intended to appeal to everyone. It has non-stylized, polished graphics that aren't hyper-realistic and therefore will be able to run on most machines. It has two dozen characters which are all different archetypes of their home nations, and most major nations or continents are represented in the game. These characters have a range of play styles which cater simultaneously to people who have terrible aim such as Reinhardt, Mercy and Symmetra to people who can shoot a gnat off of a glass bottle without breaking the glass like Widowmaker, Hanzo and McCree. It has characters that are big and slow and characters that are small and fast. Lastly, it is really easy to learn to play, but rewarding to master.
Then look at Lawbreakers. Lawbreakers says "Ok Blizzard, you go ahead and appeal to the masses, but we're going to do our damnedest to own the UT and Quake crowd". They've made a game with very few characters, but those characters have several OW characters wrapped up into each of them with. None of them are lumbering and slow and none of them are rewarding to play if you can't aim. It's a lightening fast game for young people with very good twitch skills and good tactical awareness.
Both of these games are "fun" for their intended audience, but they couldn't be more different. Therefore chasing "fun" is a really ridiculous concept.
I think the biggest thing an MMORPG needs and has needed since WoW to be successful is innovation (i.e. not be a WoW clone). Not only is it actually difficult to make a tab-target themepark as good as WoW, it's unlikely to be successful even if you manage to do it.
WoW has millions of subs and has for 10 years. They're unlikely to switch to something different and any new players would probably already be playing WoW if they wanted to play a tab-target themepark.
At this point it's akin to developing a new soda called "Cukoo-Cola", that tastes a lot like Coke, and hoping everyone just starts drinking it instead of Coke.
I don't think the new game has to be a sandbox, or has to be anything really. It just has to be fun and different.
Problem is it's scary to make something really different. What if nobody likes it? As a Dev, you want to be wildly successful, but you also at least want to meet the bottom line and stay in business.
But I think the risk/reward equation is definitely there. Just need some ballsy creative Devs to step up.
4. Get rid of the "Leet Loot Rulz" mentality. Combat should be skills centric not loot or twitch based.
What? This is the problem right here imo. You want another type of game. In the RPG genre you are playing a character not yourself. If you need to show off your leet twitch skills you don't need an RPG.
Ex: My mage is casting a fireball not me.
Actually, you've just highlighted a different problem entirely: you're basically saying that certain mechanics that you like are by definition part of the genre. If anyone disagrees with your preferences, you want them out of your genre, thus narrowing it.
That said, you're really only wanting to label things differently. A significant fraction of the best games defy pre-existing genres. I care if a game is fun, not whether or not it technically meets someone's definition of an MMORPG.
I am going by what I learned about RPGs since 1974. If you think you are playing yourself as that mage you are an idiot. Period.
If you are playing a game which the DM has setup you are playing a character that is YOURSELF, then you are playing a special case exception. But the I need to be leet is about EGO.
When I play a game, I want success or failure to depend on what I do. It's more interesting that way, and the goal of playing games is to have fun. I don't want it to just play out on its own without any input from me. That's called a movie, or at best, a digital novel. There's a place for those in the world, but there's also a place for games.
The game needs to be fun. If the game isn't fun, nothing else matters. And if the game is fun, a lot of flaws can be overlooked.
True, but I think that wont be enough to keep new players long term. I think it also need to surprise the players now and then. When the game is so predictable that the only thing you need to learn are a few specific boss mechanics you loose something.
And you can't really try to be another game, Wow and Lineage might have done great for many years but the thinking that the world is ready for a new Wow have failed again and again. Those games are already doing what they do well enough and beating them at their own game have proven close to impossible.
We need something that is different but still fun. Something that don't feel like we already played it 10 or 15 years. And one way or another that game needs to surprise us now and then and force us to learn new things instead of just offering more of the exact same. That isn't easy to make or we already had a few new huge MMOs since after 2004 (a few games like GW2, ESO and FFXIV have done pretty well but I wouldn't call any of them "huge").
If the game is fun for a long time, that will keep players around for a long time. People quit games that they thought were initially fun when they decide the game isn't fun anymore.
How to make games that stay fun for a long time is, of course, a holy grail sort of problem, complicated by the fact that different people find different things fun.
Several people in this thread have slapped the word "fun" down, dropped the mic and walked off stage. Sure, we all know that fun games will keep us around a lot longer than games that aren't fun. However, if anyone out there had the secret formula for "fun", then we wouldn't even be having this discussion. In fact, we probably wouldn't need forums like this to discuss various games and their pros and cons; we'd all be playing that one "fun" game.
But therein lies another problem which is that "fun" isn't universal. There are games that are fun for the majority for a while such as WoW, which was obviously the most fun of the MMO's for a decade. There are other games that are fun for the minority such as EVE which has had slight variations in population, but honestly the variations in population of EVE in the last ten years wouldn't even register as a bump in WoW, but here EVE is 13 years later still going strong and still in constant development.
So what I'm getting at, is that "fun" can't be holy grail that a developer chases. What they need to chase instead are the game mechanics, features and aesthetics which will have the most appeal for their intended audience.
Take Overwatch, for example, it's literally intended to appeal to everyone. It has non-stylized, polished graphics that aren't hyper-realistic and therefore will be able to run on most machines. It has two dozen characters which are all different archetypes of their home nations, and most major nations or continents are represented in the game. These characters have a range of play styles which cater simultaneously to people who have terrible aim such as Reinhardt, Mercy and Symmetra to people who can shoot a gnat off of a glass bottle without breaking the glass like Widowmaker, Hanzo and McCree. It has characters that are big and slow and characters that are small and fast. Lastly, it is really easy to learn to play, but rewarding to master.
Then look at Lawbreakers. Lawbreakers says "Ok Blizzard, you go ahead and appeal to the masses, but we're going to do our damnedest to own the UT and Quake crowd". They've made a game with very few characters, but those characters have several OW characters wrapped up into each of them with. None of them are lumbering and slow and none of them are rewarding to play if you can't aim. It's a lightening fast game for young people with very good twitch skills and good tactical awareness.
Both of these games are "fun" for their intended audience, but they couldn't be more different. Therefore chasing "fun" is a really ridiculous concept.
I agree to an extent but I don't agree we can just lay down a bunch of ideas that have been done before and say that if you put them all together, the game will be successful.
What I really want to see is something new and different. There's so much you can do with an MMORPG, and we're still seeing elves with bows doing quests.
SC has proven you don't even need a game anymore. Just have an idea of the best game ever, then change it depending on your audience, and then enjoy the good life when the millions roll in.
---------It's a moving target - the market and playerbase are constantly in flux - formulas that worked in 2004 don't work anymore today.---------
FF14 proves this statement to be false
FF14 has a declining playerbase just like every other game - are you saying they are growing their playerbase with that old formula?
So the statement is not false - as we are talking about retaining majority of the playerbase - they have not managed to do that
Aside from providing weasel stats like number of accounts created has Sqeenix ever published current sub or concurrent users online by day or moment figures? Any figures recently in particular, not from 3 monrhs post launch.
If not you can safely assume they are nothing to be proud of and most definitely are following the standard pattern.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
I agree to an extent but I don't agree we can just lay down a bunch of ideas that have been done before and say that if you put them all together, the game will be successful.
What I really want to see is something new and different. There's so much you can do with an MMORPG, and we're still seeing elves with bows doing quests.
Yes, but there also needs to be a mix of new and familiar. A game that tries out too many different things at the same time has a problem with alienating the majority of the player base. Look at EVE, it's so completely different from most MMO's on the market, even other sandbox MMO's, that it has only attracted a small niche audience that wants a completely divergent game.
While there's a still a lot that can be done with MMO's without tapping so hard into the Tolkien universe, at least some parts need to remain familiar.
My point is this: If you're going to branch out thematically, then your game play should be familiar (Overwatch) and if you're going to branch out in the game play department, then your backdrop should be familiar (CoE). Don't try to change too many variables at once.
This thread is misleading! What it should read is "What Does an MMO need to do in 2016 and Beyond to Retain Players....From the Playerbase perspective". (Not the company perspective)
Let's ask a few questions that I think beg to be asked here:
"Why does the company care about Players?" Its important to make a distinction between players as individuals, and players as numbers of sales. I think you have to understand that if 100 people quit a game but 100 new players start the game at the same time, the company doesn't really even notice this event in terms of the primary metrics for a company.
"Fun" MMO? vs Marketing an MMO as "Fun" Lets face it, marketing is something that drives sales, not "Fun". How many times have you been hyped up about an MMO, only to be disappointed 1-2 months into it? Marketing purely consists of encouraging people to make impulsive decisions that result in profit for your company. Marketing does not care if the product it pushes is bad, the marketing department makes money if they do a good job of encouraging sales.
"Does an enjoyable player experience matter?" No metric for "Fun" in a company world. No one puts "Fun" on an Earnings Report right? What's on there is sales, or income, or both. So what the company cares about is hitting its target income for the target lifespan of the game (anything over predicted, is great). What companies are interested in is making you crave the game, the idea of the game, not necessarily ensuring you game "fun" in the game. In most cases, its not just the game, but also the Cash Shop items.
"Well if you're saying companies don't care about players, then how do they make money?" Just like Verizon! Market prediction plays a big role when you're looking to drop millions on just developing a product, those millions aren't yours, they are someone else's and what they are looking to do is make even more millions than they gave you. Lets break this down into some metrics, a game has a life span and a game has a desired profit (preferably more than what you put in). There are more factors but that's enough to built a simple graph with profit over time right? This would look somewhat like a logarithmic curve, where at release, the rate (derivative, for those familiar with Calc) of making money is high, but as you progress in time, the rate of making money gets slower (as hype tapers, initial wave of people leave etc). See what the company ultimately cares about is that that logarithmic curve hits a certain point on the graph first, if there's just one or two players paying them millions to do this. Numbers, not individuals is their primary concern although its more realistic to shoot for the biggest market you can and make it as appealing to "everyone" as possible. Notice appealing doesn't mean "omg so fun", it means that you'll want to pay for it even if just once. This is the same concept for food companies making customers "crave" food over "enjoy" food in the US.
Ultimately, Players feelings and experience takes a back seat to the money those players can be "encouraged" to spend. So personally, I think the big MMO titles are doing it right, and increased MMO hopping is just a symptom of that.
4. Get rid of the "Leet Loot Rulz" mentality. Combat should be skills centric not loot or twitch based.
What? This is the problem right here imo. You want another type of game. In the RPG genre you are playing a character not yourself. If you need to show off your leet twitch skills you don't need an RPG.
Ex: My mage is casting a fireball not me.
I think you misunderstand what I mean by "skill centric". If you re-read what you quoted from me, it says "NOT loot or twitch based."
For me, skill based is my character's skill level (i.e. your lvl 100 skill swordsman should kick my lvl 10 skill swordsman's butt 90% of the time). This skill is gained by time spent pursuing whatever activity is required.
I don't believe smashing a button or clicking a mouse faster with better ping should be considered "skill".
Have a great gaming day.
(My son speaking to his Japanese Grandmother) " Sorry Obaba, I don't speak Japanese, I only speak human."
---------It's a moving target - the market and playerbase are constantly in flux - formulas that worked in 2004 don't work anymore today.---------
FF14 proves this statement to be false
FF14 has a declining playerbase just like every other game - are you saying they are growing their playerbase with that old formula?
So the statement is not false - as we are talking about retaining majority of the playerbase - they have not managed to do that
FF14 is entirely wrong example.
1) The game has strong basis in Japan - different market. 2) The game is multi-platform - different market.
If we actually had the data for western PC audience, I doubt anyone would be even mention the game...
Regardless, it rather proves the opposite...
I call BS , by that standard . Every single game has a declining player base .. FF14 has done a pretty good job , ANd the point is you said , The formula wouldnt work .. FF14 proves that a tradtional MMorpg formula works .. And borders were not part of the conversation, Matter a fact they are a very strong part of the Data ... So are we discounting Asian markets now .. .. Cant start adding your own fuggin parameters .. you discredit yourslef doing so ...
My comment was directed only to this ..."----It's a moving target - the market and playerbase are constantly in
flux - formulas that worked in 2004 don't work anymore today.---------"
FF14 proves this statement to be false, so Again FF14 proves this to be false , After it lauched Reborn they player base grew steadily for 2 years and has reatined well
"Fun" MMO? vs Marketing an MMO as "Fun" Lets face it, marketing is something that drives sales, not "Fun". How many times have you been hyped up about an MMO, only to be disappointed 1-2 months into it? Marketing purely consists of encouraging people to make impulsive decisions that result in profit for your company. Marketing does not care if the product it pushes is bad, the marketing department makes money if they do a good job of encouraging sales.
If you buy a game purely because of marketing and then are disappointed by it, that's 100% your own fault for buying a game purely because of marketing. Marketing may alert you to a game's existence, but there are plenty of non-marketing sources of information on games that give you a lot more information about whether you're likely to enjoy a game. If you don't take advantage of that, that's your own fault.
Furthermore, even to the extent that marketing can drive sales, it can't drive player retention. If a game looks good and you buy it, and then discover that the game is awful, you quit. You don't hang around and keep playing a game that you know you hate just because of a marketing campaign. Or at least I hope you don't; I sure wouldn't.
4. Get rid of the "Leet Loot Rulz" mentality. Combat should be skills centric not loot or twitch based.
What? This is the problem right here imo. You want another type of game. In the RPG genre you are playing a character not yourself. If you need to show off your leet twitch skills you don't need an RPG.
Ex: My mage is casting a fireball not me.
Actually, you've just highlighted a different problem entirely: you're basically saying that certain mechanics that you like are by definition part of the genre. If anyone disagrees with your preferences, you want them out of your genre, thus narrowing it.
That said, you're really only wanting to label things differently. A significant fraction of the best games defy pre-existing genres. I care if a game is fun, not whether or not it technically meets someone's definition of an MMORPG.
I am going by what I learned about RPGs since 1974. If you think you are playing yourself as that mage you are an idiot. Period.
If you are playing a game which the DM has setup you are playing a character that is YOURSELF, then you are playing a special case exception. But the I need to be leet is about EGO.
When I play a game, I want success or failure to depend on what I do. It's more interesting that way, and the goal of playing games is to have fun. I don't want it to just play out on its own without any input from me. That's called a movie, or at best, a digital novel. There's a place for those in the world, but there's also a place for games.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
1) Don't aim to be wow. Keep the budget low enough that something more niche will be affordable to create.
2) Make the game world worth being a part of. Group finders, fast travel, quest helpers and other convenience items are nice but they detract from the immersion.
3) No cash shops, and as little rmt / poweleveling spam.
4) A vast open world with a small fast travel system (like griffins or portals) that still might require a lengthy (15 mins - 2 hours) trek through either pve, pvp, or both dangers.
5) A harsher death penalty for both pve and pvp, dont need full loot but ac's short term stat loss and loss of a couple items made death a concern but not shattering, the items were recoverable in pve and lootable in pvp.
6) A small themepark story to set the tone for different regions, randomly appearing quest objectives (in the wild and in towns, based on the quest), quests need to have depth, challenge, and sometimes skill elements (forging a great sword might require you collect items then have master smiths work on it, then your sword expertise be checked).
7) At a minimum, updates every 2 months that add content for all level ranges (not neessarily all levels every time though).
8) As little instancing as possible.
10) A guild system with intrinsic value such as experience passup.
9) A pve only version of this with optional pvp. A pvp only version of this with pvp objectives. A hardcore pvp version of this with a lineage system.
10) Full character customization. Raise your skills you use and you choose as you want. No classes. Skills for athletic abilities, crafting, different combat styles, different magics, etc.
11) Level should only be a relative indicator of strength. No max level, only skill caps, set a "total max" and "usable max" to limit doing everything. No limit on useable skills, only their effectiveness based on skill level. Sats should be similar.
13) Slow leveling down. Getting an archetype solid for the hardest stuff should take 6+ months. Mastering everything should take years.
12) A vast loot and crafting system that has irreplaceable item decay. Quest items are attainable and 95% of what a crafted/looted item can acheive. The best items should be very rare and difficult to craft. Crafting more in depth like wow.
13) No loot gating of content like wow or ffxiv. New content should provide mostly quality of life items that make the content worth doing but not gating. Add higher loot drop rates for rare gear, crafting, and quest items to encourage people to re run them.
14) A scaling system for content areas that still allows skills to be used but skews stats to provide a challenge, this should be optional for grouping purposes.
15) Frequent world events, not like guild wars but like town invasions or world boss spawns. Also, GM controlled live story events.
16) Combat should be dynamic and always have the threat of death when fighting appropriate content. No steamrolling but not insanely hard either.
I think it's a combination of factors, but the most important being metaphysics. If the developers create their game with an attitude of fear, then the game won't last long. Packing a game with a high amount of time sinks because the attitude is that players will race through the game and leave, suggest a belief that the game isn't worth sticking around for a long time. Most of our fears become a self fulfilling prophesy. We may subconsciously want a game to fail because deep down we feel we aren't worthy of success, so we do crazy things to our games which cause huge population drops in the player base and find something other then our actions to blame it on.
Most visionaries succeed because they stay focused on the positive and don't let fear or greed alter their plans, they have a dream and stick to it.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
---------It's a moving target - the market and playerbase are constantly in flux - formulas that worked in 2004 don't work anymore today.---------
FF14 proves this statement to be false
FF14 has a declining playerbase just like every other game - are you saying they are growing their playerbase with that old formula?
So the statement is not false - as we are talking about retaining majority of the playerbase - they have not managed to do that
FF14 is entirely wrong example.
1) The game has strong basis in Japan - different market. 2) The game is multi-platform - different market.
If we actually had the data for western PC audience, I doubt anyone would be even mention the game...
Regardless, it rather proves the opposite...
I call BS , by that standard . Every single game has a declining player base .. FF14 has done a pretty good job , ANd the point is you said , The formula wouldnt work .. FF14 proves that a tradtional MMorpg formula works .. And borders were not part of the conversation, Matter a fact they are a very strong part of the Data ... So are we discounting Asian markets now .. .. Cant start adding your own fuggin parameters .. you discredit yourslef doing so ...
My comment was directed only to this ..."----It's a moving target - the market and playerbase are constantly in
flux - formulas that worked in 2004 don't work anymore today.---------"
FF14 proves this statement to be false, so Again FF14 proves this to be false , After it lauched Reborn they player base grew steadily for 2 years and has reatined well
Six months after launch they were down to 500k subscribers with over 2M boxes sold. The whole talk of ff14 growing is because news site can't tell the difference between copies sold and subscribers.
The active playerbase of FF14 hasn't seen a steady growth for 2 years.
Iselin: And the next person who says "but it's a business, they need to make money" can just go fuck yourself.
---------It's a moving target - the market and playerbase are constantly in flux - formulas that worked in 2004 don't work anymore today.---------
FF14 proves this statement to be false
FF14 has a declining playerbase just like every other game - are you saying they are growing their playerbase with that old formula?
So the statement is not false - as we are talking about retaining majority of the playerbase - they have not managed to do that
FF14 is entirely wrong example.
1) The game has strong basis in Japan - different market. 2) The game is multi-platform - different market.
If we actually had the data for western PC audience, I doubt anyone would be even mention the game...
Regardless, it rather proves the opposite...
I call BS , by that standard . Every single game has a declining player base .. FF14 has done a pretty good job , ANd the point is you said , The formula wouldnt work .. FF14 proves that a tradtional MMorpg formula works .. And borders were not part of the conversation, Matter a fact they are a very strong part of the Data ... So are we discounting Asian markets now .. .. Cant start adding your own fuggin parameters .. you discredit yourslef doing so ...
My comment was directed only to this ..."----It's a moving target - the market and playerbase are constantly in
flux - formulas that worked in 2004 don't work anymore today.---------"
FF14 proves this statement to be false, so Again FF14 proves this to be false , After it lauched Reborn they player base grew steadily for 2 years and has reatined well
Six months after launch they were down to 500k subscribers with over 2M boxes sold. The whole talk of ff14 growing is because news site can't tell the difference between copies sold and subscribers.
The active playerbase of FF14 hasn't seen a steady growth for 2 years.
Again you are missing the point , Unless ytou are saying thar FF14 is not succesfull , It proves that the traditional MMORPG formula does still work .. FF14 is a success and the statement is false And to add by your numbers they retained 25%(thats strong) altho i am pretty sure they are well over 500k right now ...
Comments
I'd like to see a game where people can be on different levels because of skill/effort/choices and not because of how much money they spend. Not hating but it puts me off when games are created around cash shops and it seems like more effort is put into them than the actual game.
It certainly doesn't help when you get the feeling that the entire point is shopping but there are still games around where your power have nothing to do with spent money in the cashshop but even those games have problem with bungee players who jump in and out of different games without ever staying longer then a few weeks anywhere.
But the acronym MMMORPG now currently means Microscopic Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. Kappa.
But therein lies another problem which is that "fun" isn't universal. There are games that are fun for the majority for a while such as WoW, which was obviously the most fun of the MMO's for a decade. There are other games that are fun for the minority such as EVE which has had slight variations in population, but honestly the variations in population of EVE in the last ten years wouldn't even register as a bump in WoW, but here EVE is 13 years later still going strong and still in constant development.
So what I'm getting at, is that "fun" can't be holy grail that a developer chases. What they need to chase instead are the game mechanics, features and aesthetics which will have the most appeal for their intended audience.
Take Overwatch, for example, it's literally intended to appeal to everyone. It has non-stylized, polished graphics that aren't hyper-realistic and therefore will be able to run on most machines. It has two dozen characters which are all different archetypes of their home nations, and most major nations or continents are represented in the game. These characters have a range of play styles which cater simultaneously to people who have terrible aim such as Reinhardt, Mercy and Symmetra to people who can shoot a gnat off of a glass bottle without breaking the glass like Widowmaker, Hanzo and McCree. It has characters that are big and slow and characters that are small and fast. Lastly, it is really easy to learn to play, but rewarding to master.
Then look at Lawbreakers. Lawbreakers says "Ok Blizzard, you go ahead and appeal to the masses, but we're going to do our damnedest to own the UT and Quake crowd". They've made a game with very few characters, but those characters have several OW characters wrapped up into each of them with. None of them are lumbering and slow and none of them are rewarding to play if you can't aim. It's a lightening fast game for young people with very good twitch skills and good tactical awareness.
Both of these games are "fun" for their intended audience, but they couldn't be more different. Therefore chasing "fun" is a really ridiculous concept.
WoW has millions of subs and has for 10 years. They're unlikely to switch to something different and any new players would probably already be playing WoW if they wanted to play a tab-target themepark.
At this point it's akin to developing a new soda called "Cukoo-Cola", that tastes a lot like Coke, and hoping everyone just starts drinking it instead of Coke.
I don't think the new game has to be a sandbox, or has to be anything really. It just has to be fun and different.
Problem is it's scary to make something really different. What if nobody likes it? As a Dev, you want to be wildly successful, but you also at least want to meet the bottom line and stay in business.
But I think the risk/reward equation is definitely there. Just need some ballsy creative Devs to step up.
How to make games that stay fun for a long time is, of course, a holy grail sort of problem, complicated by the fact that different people find different things fun.
What I really want to see is something new and different. There's so much you can do with an MMORPG, and we're still seeing elves with bows doing quests.
If not you can safely assume they are nothing to be proud of and most definitely are following the standard pattern.
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While there's a still a lot that can be done with MMO's without tapping so hard into the Tolkien universe, at least some parts need to remain familiar.
My point is this: If you're going to branch out thematically, then your game play should be familiar (Overwatch) and if you're going to branch out in the game play department, then your backdrop should be familiar (CoE). Don't try to change too many variables at once.
Let's ask a few questions that I think beg to be asked here:
"Why does the company care about Players?"
Its important to make a distinction between players as individuals, and players as numbers of sales. I think you have to understand that if 100 people quit a game but 100 new players start the game at the same time, the company doesn't really even notice this event in terms of the primary metrics for a company.
"Fun" MMO? vs Marketing an MMO as "Fun"
Lets face it, marketing is something that drives sales, not "Fun". How many times have you been hyped up about an MMO, only to be disappointed 1-2 months into it? Marketing purely consists of encouraging people to make impulsive decisions that result in profit for your company. Marketing does not care if the product it pushes is bad, the marketing department makes money if they do a good job of encouraging sales.
"Does an enjoyable player experience matter?"
No metric for "Fun" in a company world. No one puts "Fun" on an Earnings Report right? What's on there is sales, or income, or both. So what the company cares about is hitting its target income for the target lifespan of the game (anything over predicted, is great). What companies are interested in is making you crave the game, the idea of the game, not necessarily ensuring you game "fun" in the game. In most cases, its not just the game, but also the Cash Shop items.
"Well if you're saying companies don't care about players, then how do they make money?"
Just like Verizon! Market prediction plays a big role when you're looking to drop millions on just developing a product, those millions aren't yours, they are someone else's and what they are looking to do is make even more millions than they gave you. Lets break this down into some metrics, a game has a life span and a game has a desired profit (preferably more than what you put in). There are more factors but that's enough to built a simple graph with profit over time right? This would look somewhat like a logarithmic curve, where at release, the rate (derivative, for those familiar with Calc) of making money is high, but as you progress in time, the rate of making money gets slower (as hype tapers, initial wave of people leave etc). See what the company ultimately cares about is that that logarithmic curve hits a certain point on the graph first, if there's just one or two players paying them millions to do this. Numbers, not individuals is their primary concern although its more realistic to shoot for the biggest market you can and make it as appealing to "everyone" as possible. Notice appealing doesn't mean "omg so fun", it means that you'll want to pay for it even if just once. This is the same concept for food companies making customers "crave" food over "enjoy" food in the US.
Ultimately, Players feelings and experience takes a back seat to the money those players can be "encouraged" to spend. So personally, I think the big MMO titles are doing it right, and increased MMO hopping is just a symptom of that.
I think you misunderstand what I mean by "skill centric". If you re-read what you quoted from me, it says "NOT loot or twitch based."
For me, skill based is my character's skill level (i.e. your lvl 100 skill swordsman should kick my lvl 10 skill swordsman's butt 90% of the time). This skill is gained by time spent pursuing whatever activity is required.
I don't believe smashing a button or clicking a mouse faster with better ping should be considered "skill".
Have a great gaming day.
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1) The game has strong basis in Japan - different market.
2) The game is multi-platform - different market.
If we actually had the data for western PC audience, I doubt anyone would be even mention the game...
Regardless, it rather proves the opposite...
Furthermore, even to the extent that marketing can drive sales, it can't drive player retention. If a game looks good and you buy it, and then discover that the game is awful, you quit. You don't hang around and keep playing a game that you know you hate just because of a marketing campaign. Or at least I hope you don't; I sure wouldn't.
That is a tangent.
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2) Make the game world worth being a part of. Group finders, fast travel, quest helpers and other convenience items are nice but they detract from the immersion.
3) No cash shops, and as little rmt / poweleveling spam.
4) A vast open world with a small fast travel system (like griffins or portals) that still might require a lengthy (15 mins - 2 hours) trek through either pve, pvp, or both dangers.
5) A harsher death penalty for both pve and pvp, dont need full loot but ac's short term stat loss and loss of a couple items made death a concern but not shattering, the items were recoverable in pve and lootable in pvp.
6) A small themepark story to set the tone for different regions, randomly appearing quest objectives (in the wild and in towns, based on the quest), quests need to have depth, challenge, and sometimes skill elements (forging a great sword might require you collect items then have master smiths work on it, then your sword expertise be checked).
7) At a minimum, updates every 2 months that add content for all level ranges (not neessarily all levels every time though).
8) As little instancing as possible.
10) A guild system with intrinsic value such as experience passup.
9) A pve only version of this with optional pvp. A pvp only version of this with pvp objectives. A hardcore pvp version of this with a lineage system.
10) Full character customization. Raise your skills you use and you choose as you want. No classes. Skills for athletic abilities, crafting, different combat styles, different magics, etc.
11) Level should only be a relative indicator of strength. No max level, only skill caps, set a "total max" and "usable max" to limit doing everything. No limit on useable skills, only their effectiveness based on skill level. Sats should be similar.
13) Slow leveling down. Getting an archetype solid for the hardest stuff should take 6+ months. Mastering everything should take years.
12) A vast loot and crafting system that has irreplaceable item decay. Quest items are attainable and 95% of what a crafted/looted item can acheive. The best items should be very rare and difficult to craft. Crafting more in depth like wow.
13) No loot gating of content like wow or ffxiv. New content should provide mostly quality of life items that make the content worth doing but not gating. Add higher loot drop rates for rare gear, crafting, and quest items to encourage people to re run them.
14) A scaling system for content areas that still allows skills to be used but skews stats to provide a challenge, this should be optional for grouping purposes.
15) Frequent world events, not like guild wars but like town invasions or world boss spawns. Also, GM controlled live story events.
16) Combat should be dynamic and always have the threat of death when fighting appropriate content. No steamrolling but not insanely hard either.
17) A gated pvp arena
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The active playerbase of FF14 hasn't seen a steady growth for 2 years.
And to add by your numbers they retained 25%(thats strong) altho i am pretty sure they are well over 500k right now ...