Great article

Zaradis · December 2003

http://www.gamemethod.com/archive/214.php <==got me thinking it's a long read but worth it.

Qoute: "I neva *ucked anybody over in my life, who didn't have it comin' to 'im, you got that? All I have in this world is my balls, and my word, and I don't break 'em for no one, jou understand?" Tony Montana

Clever_Glove · December 2003

In the history of MMOrpgs there was one big mistake which pushed back the envelope of creative design for many years; its called Everquest.

Funny, if you look my posts I've said this many times. I think we have 2 or 3 more Gen's to go until we're out from the house that Brad McQuaid built.

-=-=-=-=-
"EQ was once a great game. I wont deny it, but so was Asteroids. And just like Pong, EQ is obsolete by newer game standards."

A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%

Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here

Zaradis · December 2003

"The game development business model:

1) Come up with an innovative design, if that fails used the tested and true models.
2) Make sure to try to be different, new races, new graphics, new concepts.

3) Attract as many players as possible, even players from a non-MMOG background.

4) Make entering the world easy and acceptable, a good interface and tutorial.

5) Retain those newbies, and turn them into a constant revenue stream.

6) Bend over backwards and ruin the game to keep your customers."

Why can't someone clone old school Ultima Online, MMORPG are definately slowly losing my appeal hopefully some bring of light will shine soon. i was thinking about trying Horizon but i'm not so sure.

Qoute: "I neva *ucked anybody over in my life, who didn't have it comin' to 'im, you got that? All I have in this world is my balls, and my word, and I don't break 'em for no one, jou understand?" Tony Montana

Clever_Glove · December 2003

Why do all pop groups sound alike? People hate change, and the unexpected. This is not abnormal, it's true in every other market.

Someone comes up with something that sells, everyone copies it. Sometime later someone will change it just enough to make it look new... everyone copies it.

It's more or less the way the free market works. You vote for products with your dollar, by supporting innovative project you can help it succeed. Don't keep accounts active for games you grown to hate. It's about all anyone should do.

Think about it for a moment though, let's say you get a great idea for a game and you and 10 of your friends get a loan quit your jobs and work on making a game for 3 years. The money is about up and you need to release. Your not going to eat and probably lose everything you own if it's not a success. Your publisher will not publish the game unless it thinks it can make 10X what it costs to publish. What do you do? Water the thing down and keep eating, or stick your standards and have the greatest game no one ever played made by a team of homeless guys?

I think there are allot of valid points in the article. As companies grow and the market matures more companies with successful cash cows will start to take risks. I hope in the future we'll have a MMORPG every type and sub-type of player.

-=-=-=-=-
"EQ was once a great game. I wont deny it, but so was Asteroids. And just like Pong, EQ is obsolete by newer game standards."

A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%

Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here

Clever_Glove · December 2003

Rather than edit my post, I'll post another this time taking on Azaroths idea's directly rather absact overviews.

Azaorth is a KEA type, these represent the smallest segment of the MMORPG market. Only about 8-10%. No surprise he's unhappy, as stated above when you make game you want to sell the widest market possible that going to be the ASE's and SAE's.

Shadow Bane too a whack to please the KEA market, if you didn't like it you can see how fickle the market is.

Azaorth has a few points I agree with:

PvP has widely sucked, people hate PvP not because of PvP but because of poor implementations of it.

I'd love to see a player justice system. I'm not hugely into PvP but I understand the need for it. And being to police yourself is quite entertaining. (and often the most fun I've ever had inside a game)

Not nearly enough quests and content. I would agree that most game relied heavily on the treadmill and quests are just something tossed in. I'd love to see more content for players.

"3) Developed PvP system that relies heavily and player skill and not items.

4) No levels. We've all had enough of that I think, and while it's great for a cashcow treadmill game, it's terrible for any game trying to include decent PvP."

While I simi-agree with this, Lewt focus, and treadmill has gone beyond levels of enjoyment in many MMORPG's

How you implement this exactly? It would make the game more like a FPS and little like a MMORPG.

What do you do with no tread mill, and no need for gear? Isn't that Counter Strike, Team Fortress. (insert hundreds of other FPS's)

Yes treadmill sucks, but it gives goals. I like to archive goals. I supose you make a skill based system, but how is that any different. PvE get's old, but so does PvP. There has to be something else to do.

I think my prefect game would be something like DAoC with well implemented PvP/GvG and a player justice system for making random PKers pay. But I'm not holding my breath.

-=-=-=-=-
"EQ was once a great game. I wont deny it, but so was Asteroids. And just like Pong, EQ is obsolete by newer game standards."

A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%

Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here

geld · December 2003

Originally posted by Clever_Glove

Azaorth is a KEA type, these represent the smallest segment of the MMORPG market. Only about 8-10%. No surprise he's unhappy, as stated above when you make game you want to sell the widest market possible that going to be the ASE's and SAE's.

It pains me to see people being subjected to completely biased and innaccurate statistics like this. The actual percentage of gamers who would play an mmog with full pvp is much higher than this. This figure is based on the current mmorpg market, which unfortunately excludes most "pro player interaction" gamers, since current mmorpgs have been designed to exclude them.

Zaradis · December 2003

Yeah, i don't think that statistic is accurate at all. There is infact ton of people who want PVP, not the type of PVP where you have to click on someone and basically ask them "Hey, can i kill you". If you look around on any forum there is always a topic on "is there PVP" and usually the responce is the same. There is TONS and TONS of games for the non-pvp and there is barely any for the pro- they just have to implament it right.

Qoute: "I neva *ucked anybody over in my life, who didn't have it comin' to 'im, you got that? All I have in this world is my balls, and my word, and I don't break 'em for no one, jou understand?" Tony Montana

Munki · December 2003

EQ WAS a good game..
not really any more, but it was.

when it first came out it waqs cutting edge, verant had great events... and it all went down hill

killerTwinkie · December 2003

It would take too long to sum up my feelings on how correctly detailed that article was. I could sit here and waste my breath telling all of you how it affected me, but in short. Just read the article and you'll realize how true it is.

TOO MANY CAREBEARS

Clever_Glove · December 2003

Originally posted by geld

It pains me to see people being subjected to completely biased and inaccurate statistics like this. The actual percentage of gamers who would play an mmog with full pvp is much higher than this. This figure is based on the current mmorpg market, which unfortunately excludes most "pro player interaction" gamers, since current mmorpgs have been designed to exclude them.

"PvP has widely sucked, people hate PvP not because of PvP but because of poor implementations of it." - me few paragraphs later.

That Static is fairly accurate. I stand by it. I agree with what you said, K's are left out of the MMORPG genre in general. I have allot of theories on that, I touch on them above, but if your a game maker your going to look at a game that is going to sell the best in the current market. The current US MMORPG market isn't one that enjoys PvP. (although I'll never play a game without)

As a game maker, you'd have to take a HUGE leap of faith. SB has tried, they have done fair. But Azaorth hates it because the 3 day leveling treadmill. And you can attack cities in the middle of night. (I'm not sure when he suggests they should be attacked? How many wars start when it's most convent for everyone?)

No game has implemented a player justice system (at least a good one), I love to see this done.

But It's going be a long time until the US market will accept unrestricted PvP. I personally feel this is just one more sign in the wuzzifing of America. I'm not happy about it.

-=-=-=-=-
"EQ was once a great game. I wont deny it, but so was Asteroids. And just like Pong, EQ is obsolete by newer game standards."

A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%

Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here

paradyme · December 2003

Originally posted by Clever_Glove

No game has implemented a player justice system (at least a good one), I love to see this done.

But It's going be a long time until the US market will accept unrestricted PvP. I personally feel this is just one more sign in the wuzzifing of America. I'm not happy about it.

I have to disagree, the U.S. Market was born with unrestriced PvP. Meridain 59 and UO were both unrestricted PvP when they were first released and Meridian still is(and it has a justice system). I believe the percentages of PvPer's to nonPvPer's would be drastically different if theses games would have graphically evolved with the MMORPG industy.

I think Everquest's graphics stunned players so much when it was released ppl didn't care about gameplay they just had to try Everquest and check out the graphics. And Everquest easily caught the attention of new players joining the MMORPG community over the outdated graphics of Meridian and UO. Now the industry thinks M59 and old school UO r failures so no one dares to copy them when they could just copy a cash cow like EQ.

I think if the tables were turned it would be a completely different story, ppl like to kill other ppl in computer games there's no hiding it e.g. Counterstike, Socom, Unreal. They just also need justice and not chaos and they want something to fight for not just a slaughter fest.

I still play Meridian 59, the graphics r dog's ass ugly(soon getting a new rendering engine so they'll only be dog ugly ;-) ) but it does have the BEST PvP system out of any game I can gaurentee. It has open PvP, PK's vs. Hunters, a justice system, a guild system with guild halls which u can lay siege too and a faction vs. faction system.

Clever_Glove · December 2003

I've writen many posts about what made people play EQ. It wasn't it's graphics. In 1999 EQ had the graphics of a game from 1994. I won't rehash why people played/play EQ. Use the search, I've said so much on that I'm sick of hearing myself say it.

You are correct that Americans do like PvP (somewhat) CS, TF, HL, Quake, SC, WC3 all hugly secussessfull. But they are NOT a MMORPG. Historically MMORPG's are least favorible by K types. More than 50% of UO players claim PvP isn't very important.

FPS's have always been the leader on graphic and gameplay advances. They have also done a excellent job of capturing the K-type market share. If the SB tredmill was to long for you (3 days from 1-r6) why would you want to play a MMORPG at all? Why go back a half-decade on graphic/gameplay advances?

FPS's (and RTS's) have done a excellent job of catoring to the K-market. MMROPG have done a great job of catering to the S, A and E types. As such there seems to be limited cross-over in the market.

SB has catupred a large percent of the K-type RPG market, yet it constantly beat on the head. I'm sure allot of companies have exaimed SB when making game design considerations.

I've love to see more PvP in MMORPG's, but it's something going to take a long time, bad impression are hard to get over, RPG's are going to have catch-up graphically to FPS's, and someone is going to have break away from the norm and take a huge risk.

sources:

http://www.nickyee.com/codeblue/misc.html

http://www.andreasen.org/bartle/stats.cgi

http://www.brandeis.edu/pubs/jove/HTML/v1/bartle.html

-=-=-=-=-
"EQ was once a great game. I wont deny it, but so was Asteroids. And just like Pong, EQ is obsolete by newer game standards."

A: 93% E: 55% S:3% K: 50%

Games and players have a type. What type are you? click here

geld · December 2003

I'm an AES, although my ratings for S and K were the same. Yet there are no mmorpgs available that really suit me. Although I'm Strongly pro pvp I don't like going around killing other players. I would only kill if I had a good reason to, like revenge, or if I was hired to. IMO pvp is essential for immersion in the game. There are probably many Achievers, Explorers and Socializers who share this view, as well as many who do not. This is why I feel your classification system doesn't accurately show how popular PVP actually is. As well as a lot of the pro player interaction players have been driven away from all mmorpgs because of the exclusion of pvp, and many of them (I for one) will be drawn back if a good pvp system is included in a good mmorpg. What I'm trying to say is, IMO a full pvp mmorpg can and will be very successful if done right.

Boognish · December 2003

PvP I agree is not in and of itself a bad thing. Implementation is key. I realize I'm repeating what's already been said here about twenty times but it's true. DAoC is a great game not just because of the PvP. The PvP in DAoC isn't that great. There are just some classes who will always have an edge and if you wander around alone, you're going to get assassinated. The great thing about DAoC pvp is the agenda behind the PvP. You're fighting a land war for your nation. Then again, Planetside does this same thing even better. That game is just tons of fun for about a few weeks. Then the content just dries up and you realize there's nothing more to it. I didn't stick around for core combat, but until they insert wild carnivorous animals out in the countryside, I won't be back. There has to be an environment other than landscape. I've heard too many bad things about WWII Online so I won't be trying that. It doesn't exactly look like it out-does Planetside on the environment issue anyways. I always wanted to try Neocron, but graphics look so crappy I think I'll pass... A great game would be a combination of all these factors. No one factor makes it all happen.

"The sun comes up and I'm all washed out. Is this what Deaner was talkin about? I don't think I will ever return again my friend." ---Gene Ween

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