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If an indy created an MMO, what would it take to get you to try it?
l2avism2
Member UncommonPosts: 38
If a small time independent developer created an MMO on anemic budget, what would it take to make you interested in playing it?
Being small time, there would be the usual limitations that you'd expect like mediorcre graphics and royalty free third party artwork and audio and no tech support and limited documentation.
Being small time, there would be the usual limitations that you'd expect like mediorcre graphics and royalty free third party artwork and audio and no tech support and limited documentation.
Answers
Well , as #2 said , making normal game is safer compare to making MMO .
First of all , if you are small , try to be cute , not being cool . Play colorful and don't try to dark . Being simple and not go complex .
But after all , it depend on the fund anyway .
A smooth game and bug free is most important .
Coincidentally, I still use my first hero's name (Mahaf) as a username when MadFrenchie won't do. I was just a kid then, but it was a lot of fun.
It is possible but devs seem to have no clue how to do it right and on a low budget.By low you still need a decent budget so using the term "anemic" means a budget that is NOT good enough so the game won't be good enough.
On a decent budget you aim for a smaller world but you still need to add in all the bells and whistles and DEEP systems.
The game should feel well designed where everything fits together and doesn't look like a bunch of systems and content just tossed in there to say "we have content".
That means if your a MMO,PLAY like a MMO,if you have an economy keep it in the game and NOT in a cash shop.
Never forget 3 mile Island and never trust a government official or company spokesman.
And it has been done before, Eve online started out as a low budget indie game with 25K subs. And while Guildwars wasn't indie since NC Soft funded it the game was made on a really small budget but offered a unique gameplay that made it immensly popular (yeah, it wasn't exactly a MMO but a CORPG).
Anyways, give us an experience we can't get in another game, that is a good start. If you can manage that and make it fun as well then I will play.
Most low budget MMOs fail miserably though, usually because they aren't fun enough to play.
And stay away from copying older MMOs, be that UO, EQ or Wow. It have been tried more then a few times before and always end in failure.
This isn't a signature, you just think it is.
If the original game was successful I would take a portion of my profits and use it to build more systems into the game that could also be used in an MMO. Crafting systems etc.
Once my system for arenas, dungeons, and crafting were inside the game I would add cities were you could buy property, trade goods, meet other players etc. I would expand a ton upon the game world's lore at this point as well.
Finally, I would create a world around those cities, where players could freely roam and interact with the environment, turning my multiplayer game, into an MMO.
http://www.mmoblogg.wordpress.com
As long as it isn't ffa pvp garbage, I'll try most anything.
Look for freeform/classless skill development and heavy emphasis on character progression, and strong tradeskill/crafting system. There's some real gems out there done by 1-man teams that have deep and insightful systems that break the mold - like Mage online for example (nobody's heard of this, but it has all sorts going on). Project Gorgon is another example of a small team making something amazing. I would love to see what these folks could do with serious funding.
Gaming? That's not gaming!
That's just people sat 'round in costumes drinking...
Descriptions of interesting, innovative mechanics would get me to play the free trial.
Enjoyable gameplay would get me to buy.
Good luck with that search.
Saying you want an MMO to be buy-to-play or sub-only without a cash shop may not be directly saying "I want my game to be free", but unless the sub you have in mind is substantially more than 15/mo you might as well just say that. Even just adjusted for inflation 15$ in 2004 now is worth a bit over 20$ and our expectations for an MMO these days are far higher.
Not to mention with so many free-to-play options on the market when you decide whatever sub fee you need to keep a game running these days (30$ a month or whatever) most people won't be willing to pay it.
The days of sub-fee only MMOs are well and truly dead, and I don't think there is any hope they will ever return.
By "buy" I meant "spend money", whatever the game's model is. I've said several times on this forum that I would be quite glad to pay $30/month+ for a game that went that route, and I quite strongly believe that as long as there's a free trial, there are enough people unhappy with what the genre has become in the post-sub era to pay it along with me.
Whether that amount of money is actually necessary for the game to keep running or just make it competitive with the profits brought in by F2P games of similar size, however, is another question entirely.
However, those are only problems before a game launches. Once the game is launched, you like it or you don't, and it no longer matters how it was funded.
EQ1, EQ2, SWG, SWTOR, GW, GW2 CoH, CoV, FFXI, WoW, CO, War,TSW and a slew of free trials and beta tests
A finished game. Don't ask me to fund your concept of an ideal game. I've got my own idea of a perfect game that I can't afford to fund. I really have no interest in financing your dreams when my own are neglected.
At least one new idea. Don't just clone something entirely. Add something new or tweak an existing idea in a different way. Originality is a key for me, even if it falls flat on its face.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.
Aloha Mr Hand !