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Should Indie MMORPGs Be Scored on a Different Scale than AAA Games? | One Good Roll | MMORPG.com
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Should Indie MMORPGs Be Scored on a Different Scale than AAA Games? | One Good Roll | MMORPG.com
In this week's One Good Roll, but this week, Steven contemplates whether Indie games and AAA games should be scored on the same scale.
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I would say if it is a themepark MMO with a lot of grinding, and questing, then since they put a lot of it in, even if their budget is small, it should be rated in the same vien as a AAA MMO. Since imo, if their budget is small they should focus mostly on combat, and not so much on filler content, but instead repeatable end game content such as pvp, pve raids, mini games, player created content, etc but with a smaller story since their budget is smaller.
So the only thing that gets rated differently imo should be the advantages of AAA MMO is the number of glitches, and the length of story. So if they have a small budget but a large story they should be called out on it, and rated as if they a AAA MMO. But, everything else should be rated equally.
Write bad things that are done to you in sand, but write the good things that happen to you on a piece of marble
Being a low-budget indie game is a valid excuse for being a short game. It could mean that a game has fewer features and fewer classes than AAA games, uses a lot of stock assets for graphics and sound, has far fewer quests and less content, and so forth. But what's there still needs to be good.
An indie MMO that only has three classes, a hundred quests, two fixed dungeons, exclusively uses purchased art and sound assets, and a level cap of 20 with no endgame could still be a good game if what is there is polished and fun to play.
If you've got a good base to your game, you can add more to it after launch. But if everything in the game is bad, then the game is going to be bad no matter how much or how little of it there is.
When a two man dev team with 50.000 dollar think they can revolutionize the genre, then they are most likely either geniusses or totally delusional.
As a customer I pay money for a great experience. If you cannot deliver a grand MMO, because you lack experience, team size, proper organisation, vision and- most of all- funding, then don't expect me to buy into that shit.
Just stick to creating smaller games & sell them, get experience doing so, learn, make yourself a name and then tackle the big boy genre when you are ready.
"Bob developed a shitty car. He made out of paper mache and some old tires he had lying around. He then used an airbrush to paint it crazy. Costs half the price of a Porsche- motor and electronics to be delivered soon. Fuck off, Bob!"
Only 1 yardstick is needed, Am I having fun playing it? If not I don't care how small or big the company that made it was.
SWG (pre-cu) - AoC (pre-f2p) - PotBS (pre-boarder) - DDO - LotRO (pre-f2p) - STO (pre-f2p) - GnH (beta tester) - SWTOR - Neverwinter
When you look at indie games like Vampire Survivors, they are highly rated on steam because they are fun. Pure fun. So a 1 person dev can compete with a 100 person team just by making the entire content they have, FUN.
If anything should tilt the scales, it just be FUN through all the content they claim to have. This is the most important thing. 10k hours of content vs 100hrs, state of the art graphics vs older, these are much more subjective and I believe should have less weight.
Even with deep gameplay features, which is one of my most important catagories. The fun factor is way more important than complex gameplay to me.
Fun factor IMO is top thing that should matter.
I constantly go on steam and look and which games are the highest rated. I have found the highest rated games have a good track record for me personally. There has been a couple that fell short, but overall some of the best games I ever played, many were highly rated and I only found out about them because they were highly rated.
If I seen this site rate an MMO with a high score, especially if I was unfamiliar with it, I would certainly dig deeper and consider buying it.
I personally dont have time to sort through all the trash that comes out. So its useful to get at least some of the sorting through other sources.
Once upon a time....
Which makes sense why someone might want indie games scaled different. Because half the time people just want to know the score without reading the whole review, so shit indie games might be fun but lack all the polish and features.
Ofc it wouldn't make sense to scale them separately. The smart way would be to remove scores from reviews entirely... But everyone literally only wants the review score.
Thankfully I am not one of them; if I want to do things like play a game I am curious about - I just go and play it. Or, if I don't feel like wasting a non-refundable money on that - I just watch the gameplay on Twitch/YouTube (without listening to worthless opinions of a person who is playing it), which is enough to quickly determine whether I should spend money on it or not.
Well in life some people have more going on then sitting in their moms basement thinking the entire world revolves around 1 game.
Time is a factor, and there are many things people have to do, and dont have time for a first hand account of every single thing.
The reality of your statement is you are probably not very well informed. How could you be, if you think you can first hand test every single thing you come across. You test every car that exists before you purchase? Anything you buy in a store you test over every single competing product first? There are trillions of things in this world, you need a filter of somekind, otherwise you are just randomly dabbling.
So if you ignore reviews, then what you are really doing is missing a piece of information that can be helpful to making a good decision. Having this information, doesnt prevent you from discounting the information at will, its just one piece of many pieces of data that can be used to make an informed opinion.
I believe you are actually benefiting from reviews but just dont even realize you are. Low reviewed products generally get yanked from shelves. Many products have reviews before they even reach the shelf to determine its viability.
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Things like combat mechanics, optimization, quest design, and game design don't need a massive team of people like the creation of assets does. It also doesn't tax resources on an engine when visuals aren't as high-end. What it DOES require is skilled programming and creativity. You can have that in an indie game.
I do think Mortal Online 2 has gotten the short end of the stick on reviews and it does offer more than its score would indicate. But for some other recent "releases", they've been just lacking overall. On top of the possibly expected dated visuals (sometimes TOO dated), there have been poor mechanics and ge design. In those cases, poor ratings are deserved and they should have spend more time creating an entertaining amd stable experience.
Logic, my dear, merely enables one to be wrong with great authority.