LOL in your sarcasim, you hit the nail on the head.
There weren't 12 million people in the MMORPG genere....waiting for the bestest ever game to come around and WOW just happend to be it.
There were maybe 1-2 million people that identified themselves as MMORPG gamers before Blizzard introduced WOW. MMORPG gamers (at that time) were very different than your average casual console / FPS gamer. They played MMORPGs because it offered something very different than you couldn't get from Metal Gear Solid or Doom. It was a fledging virtual world, filled with opprotunity & hard knocks.
Enter Blizzard...
They see this amazing new pricing model that allows them to CHARGE MONTHLY FEES....holy crap. No more $30-$50 dollar box fees and done. The only problem was that the mechanics of traditional MMORPGs turned most CASUAL gamers off. Considering that Casual gamers make up the biggest piece of the Gamer playerbase.....Blizzard sought out a way to bring in these casual gamers into the MMO market to capitalize on this sweet pricing model.
So they made things a little more cartoony....they constantly changed & tweaked the difficulty of the game to be more forgiving and less punative. They effectively reduced the time required to realize substantial progress in the game....did ALL kinds of things to make MMO gaming more main stream for the casual folks.
And wha-la........12 million subs strong. THATS where they got all those subs from....and they had to sell out many of those traditional MMORPG themes that made it special to do so.
So YUP, the genre kept dying and dying and dying up to 12+ million subscribers
Except that it also brought in hardcore players from other genres like myself who, prior to WOW, considered early MMORPGs absolute trash games (full of unnecessary timesinks and dull gameplay) -- albeit trash games with potential.
Blizzard makes games which appeal to a more casual base, no doubt, but at the highest tiers of their games you find plenty of hardcore players because their games have enough depth to appeal even at that level. That's exactly why they're so successful (pre-WOW and post-). They create games which are pretty close to the minute-to-learn-lifetime-to-master ideal of game design.
If rampant success, which indirectly indicates more players having fun, is indicative of a genre dying, then I hope all genres "die" like this.
I can't find the stat now, but there are FAR less players of the 12 million subs of WOW that enjoy that high end raid type of experience in WOW. No, the majority of that 12 million subscriber base ARE the casual players.
It's why, with every expansion, they aim to bring more people to upper level content by offering cheaper and more time efficient ways to give them access to content & gear that only those few percent get to experience. It's why there is a dungeon finder to automagically put together RAID groups now....with handicap buffs given to the groups to make up for the lack of coordination, gear, and know-how. It's why they've given access to slightly older raid gear to people who run enough pick up 20 minute 5 man dungeon groups.
With every patch, Blizzard aims to make that "hardcore" experience more accessable to the casual playerbase.
And they aren't exactly looking out for the hardcore audience either. The throw out a new raid dungeon that takes serious raiding guilds a whole month before they have it down on farm status. Even the middle tier raiding groups are mowing through content after all the strat guides & YouTube videos are posted. Gear checks holds more guilds back than hard to complete strategy.
Don't get me wrong....I'm not saying WOW isn't a great game for the Mass Casual audience that is the current MMORPG playerbase. I'm just saying its a terrible trend for the traditional MMORPG genere.
Diablo III is considered a MMORPG by this site......need I say more?
Don't get me wrong....I'm not saying WOW isn't a great game for the Mass Casual audience that is the current MMORPG playerbase. I'm just saying its a terrible trend for the traditional MMORPG genere.
Diablo III is considered a MMORPG by this site......need I say more?
First of all, I am dealing with it. I don't give my money to the companies that changed the genre from MMORPG to MOBA. However, I assume what you mean by "deal with it" is more like "shut up and stop talking because I don't want to hear what you have to say." ... too bad. I enjoy discussing issues I'm interested in, whether you agree with me or not. So, Deal with it.
Second, the majority of players that you say had no interest in the mechanics that DEFINED mmorpgs weren't even MMORPG players themselves until the genre started changing/changed. So, I see that as an invalid point to try and insert.
One cannot reasonably argue that certain companies changed the genre to please a following that did not exist yet. Everyone in the community, new or veteran alike, know that the only incentive developers have at this point is to gain more subscriptions/RMT purchases/player numbers. If you think it is ok that those are the only incentives, perhaps you need to question whether or not you are an MMORPG player or just another videogame player. Just because someone enjoys WoW does not mean they have to agree with the state of things outside of WoW. If you simply are trying to say "I love WoW and all things like it, and I don't like what was required of me to play true MMORPGs" then just say so, but don't try and invalidate someone else's view on the matter just because they were satisfied with what once was.
"deal with it" "adapt" "stop QQing" "stop whining" "complainers!" "you're wrong because there's more of us that agree with me" -- statements such as these are so disrespectful and childish and, quite frankly, reflect exactly what us vets talk about. One of the results of these "fantastic" changes that the genre has gone through is it now attracts a playerbase made of people who don't even want to get along with eachother or play together or be friendly.
TBH, You can keep this crappy genre, and the crap community that now resides, and the craptastic attitude towards us "nerds" who started it all for you. I am just fine staying out of your vent channels and general chat channels. My money pays for enjoyment, not belittlement.
As I see it (I been playing MMOs since the first 15 years ago) is that the problem isn't any specific of the modern games, instead it is that almost every game is the same with a different skin.
In the old days there was games like Meridian 59, UO, EQ, AC, Lineage and many more, all using different mechanics and trying to make a fun game in it's own way. We players could pick the game that fitted us.
I think people who started with Wow or other late games miss that point, it wasn't any specific mechanics that was great with the old games, it was the varity of them.
But many of us oldtimers also miss the point. We tend to say that we miss the old days, but when we talk of which features we liked we often disagree.
We don't need remakes of old games, but we need to get back the spirit from when games were more than Wow and games that are exactly the same but have a different skin on top of it. We need varity.
That's utterly ridiculous. Why should the mmorpg community be thankful for a game that caused the death of all the mechanics and characteristics we loved about the genre in the first place? Why should the mmorpg community be thankful for all the mmo game options being reduced to MOBAs? (multiplayer online battle arenas aka lobby hack'n'slashes)
Here's the problem. You're not talking about the genre dying, you're talking about your enjoyment of the genre dying. The two are not the same. Your enjoyment of the genre is entirely irrelevant to the health of the genre itself. In fact, the success of the genre is more likely linked to the death of those mechanics that you love. That died and the genre flourished because the majority of players had no interest in it.
The MMORPG community is made up of more than just the hardcore, old-time players. The people who don't want what you want vastly outnumber you.
Deal with it.
No...the genere is dying. If this site consideres Diablo III a MMORPG, then how can you deny the fundamental change the MMORPG industry has gone through in the last 5-6 years? One could make an argument that many of these new "MMOGs" games are NOT MMORPGs.
I'm reminded of Ronald Regan's quote, I didn't leave the party, the party left me.
It's not as if the traditional MMORPG gamers grew tired of the traditional MMORPG game design or mechanics. THE DESIGN & MECHANICS CHANGED into something very different. And because one of those games has had massive success at bringing in players from other casual generes, in an effort to exploit one of the most lucrative pricing models to date, we no longer see those traditional MMORPGs made anymore.
There was once a time where games felt like living, breathing worlds rife with opportunity. There was an in-game path to everything - every weapon, item, and companion. Now games are starting to feel more and more like half-filled display cases, with plenty of slots and spaces just waiting to filled - if you've got the money to spare.
Yep. Nicely said.
One quote I found absurd at the time, but have learned to grow fond of. "It's like they built a cash shop, then tacked an MMORPG onto it."
Ken Fisher - Semi retired old fart Network Administrator, now working in Network Security. I don't Forum PVP. If you feel I've attacked you, it was probably by accident. When I don't understand, I ask. Such is not intended as criticism.
The world is dynamic and if you can't handle mmorpg changing what THEY THINK fits mmorpg, then you are a little too inflexible. Life is full of changes which you need to learn to adjust to.
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?"
archeage and world of darkness look interesting even from an old school players point of view.
WoDO od indeed have a really promising quality: Just like the first MMOs they have real pen and paper RPGers working on it. Since half the team is P&P:ers it should bring a fresh perspective to the game.
The most famous P&Per otherwise around here is Lord British, lead developer of UO and TR, and who also had a finger in Lineage 1 & 2 (yeah, he actually had) but most of the early MMO people really came from there.
AA is a game I am more unsure of, I seen plenty of small games claiming to be oldschool by studios we never heard from. I will be very careful with it until I tried it, because chances are that it is just another MO. Hopefully am I wrong but I wont bet money on it.
I think people who started with Wow or other late games miss that point, it wasn't any specific mechanics that was great with the old games, it was the varity of them.
But many of us oldtimers also miss the point. We tend to say that we miss the old days, but when we talk of which features we liked we often disagree.
We don't need remakes of old games, but we need to get back the spirit from when games were more than Wow and games that are exactly the same but have a different skin on top of it. We need varity.
I Couldn't agree more.
I understand what you're saying about how both sides of the 'war' are missing one point or another. And yes, vets need to realize that it's not going to help to just start remaking old games with old features. It is indeed the lack of variety that puts such a bad taste in my/our mouth.
Yes, there were some features in original MMORPGs that many people, even vets, do not like and are avoidant of, but to me, that does not mean the whole approach should be abandoned. Same goes for new games and their features. For instance, I personally dislike cross-server battle queues and dungeon finders and all of the new features in games that remove the necessity of players to talk to eachother and communicate and form bonds. I dislike the notion that people should only be friendly to their 'guildmates' and treat everyone else like crap on the bottom of their shoe whilst trying to hike the gear mountain. THAT BEING SAID: I still do not think they should abolish those features. It's good to have the option to play a game like that if one so wishes... I just think it would be better/fair/beneficial for all if every single other game that followed didn't try and recreate the same design simply because the game that came up with such a design is extremely successful in it's subscription numbers.
Companies seem to be ignoring this. "copy this feature and put a different skin on it because WoW has it and we want to make profit like they did and get 12 million players" .... well, most of the features wow has right now weren't even there when they pulled in their millions of players, so companies shouldn't expect small gimmics like those to boost their profits at the cost of being original and proving variety.
That's utterly ridiculous. Why should the mmorpg community be thankful for a game that caused the death of all the mechanics and characteristics we loved about the genre in the first place? Why should the mmorpg community be thankful for all the mmo game options being reduced to MOBAs? (multiplayer online battle arenas aka lobby hack'n'slashes)
Here's the problem. You're not talking about the genre dying, you're talking about your enjoyment of the genre dying. The two are not the same. Your enjoyment of the genre is entirely irrelevant to the health of the genre itself. In fact, the success of the genre is more likely linked to the death of those mechanics that you love. That died and the genre flourished because the majority of players had no interest in it.
The MMORPG community is made up of more than just the hardcore, old-time players. The people who don't want what you want vastly outnumber you.
Deal with it.
No...the genere is dying. If this site consideres Diablo III a MMORPG, then how can you deny the fundamental change the MMORPG industry has gone through in the last 5-6 years? One could make an argument that many of these new "MMOGs" games are NOT MMORPGs.
I'm reminded of Ronald Regan's quote, I didn't leave the party, the party left me.
It's not as if the traditional MMORPG gamers grew tired of the traditional MMORPG game design or mechanics. THE DESIGN & MECHANICS CHANGED into something very different. And because one of those games has had massive success at bringing in players from other casual generes, in an effort to exploit one of the most lucrative pricing models to date, we no longer see those traditional MMORPGs made anymore.
I disagree with pretty much everything you stated. The genre is not dying, there is more money, more players, more games and more games being made than ever before, the genre is growing and thriving exactly te opposite of dying.
This site doesn't consider D3 an MMO, this site has actively stated several times they are providing resources to games other than MMO's because their audience has shown they want this.
And many many many many traditional MMO gamers did grow tired of the traditional games. When other choices presented themselves they left those games, THEN the games changed to try and get them back.
We still see several traditional MMO's being made however many of the pointless non-fun grinds for many/most of those gamers are gone - for good reason. They may have been replaced by other pointless grinds but that is another argument.
And to someone else that said yes the genre is dying because others have said SWTOR may be the last big budget one, that isn't a sign of the genre dying. That is a sign of something that several, including myself, have stated for years. In todays games we expect everything - good graphics, houseing, flight, multiple avenues of advancement, great crafting, great animations.... all this takes millions and millions of dollars, unless their is enough of a target audience to support not only that type of game, but that specific game, the game has a huge chance of losing money. Therefore either the developers need to scale back the games, or the players need to scale back their expectations.
Venge
edit: there is also more variety of games than ever before. When the genre is new it is easy to be different, there is nothing to compare it too. As genres become more accepted and more common, truely different ideas become more rare because there is a hell of a lot more to compare to.
Now we have many sandbox, many themepark, space, many many many fantasy, FFA, post-apoc and it goes on and on and on. There are way more games, and way more types of games than 10 years ago.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
The world is dynamic and if you can't handle mmorpg changing what THEY THINK fits mmorpg, then you are a little too inflexible. Life is full of changes which you need to learn to adjust to.
Dynamic? MMOs have changed nothing at all in 8 years and almost all of them feels like the same friggin game. How is that dynamic?
The problem is the lack of innovation and flexibility, not the opposite.
This site doesn't consider D3 an MMO, this site has actively stated several times they are providing resources to games other than MMO's because their audience has shown they want this.
And yet when they asked the question most posters were against the idea.
The world is dynamic and if you can't handle mmorpg changing what THEY THINK fits mmorpg, then you are a little too inflexible. Life is full of changes which you need to learn to adjust to.
Dynbamic? MMOs have changed nothing at all in 8 years and almost all of them feels like the same friggin game. How is that dynamic?
The problem is the lack of innovation and flexibility, not the opposite.
Lets compare these quotes. Yes two different people but it shows the huge disparity between the opinions even among people that consider themselves old-scale traditional gamers.
Originally posted by gimmesome
Originally posted by Cephus404
Originally posted by gimmesome
Second, the majority of players that you say had no interest in the mechanics that DEFINED mmorpgs weren't even MMORPG players themselves until the genre started changing/changed. So, I see that as an invalid point to try and insert.
One cannot reasonably argue that certain companies changed the genre to please a following that did not exist yet.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
This site doesn't consider D3 an MMO, this site has actively stated several times they are providing resources to games other than MMO's because their audience has shown they want this.
And yet when they asked the question most posters were against the idea.
Have a link? Because the information that I have seen has shown people asking for new games MMO and non MMO's to be added all the time.
Heck they even have a general gaming section, this tells me that the site caters to games other than MMO's.
edit - hmm the quote thing is weird
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
I disagree with pretty much everything you stated. The genre is not dying, there is more money, more players, more games and more games being made than ever before, the genre is growing and thriving exactly te opposite of dying.
This site doesn't consider D3 an MMO, this site has actively stated several times they are providing resources to games other than MMO's because their audience has shown they want this.
And many many many many traditional MMO gamers did grow tired of the traditional games. When other choices presented themselves they left those games, THEN the games changed to try and get them back.
We still see several traditional MMO's being made however many of the pointless non-fun grinds for many/most of those gamers are gone - for good reason. They may have been replaced by other pointless grinds but that is another argument.
And to someone else that said yes the genre is dying because others have said SWTOR may be the last big budget one, that isn't a sign of the genre dying. That is a sign of something that several, including myself, have stated for years. In todays games we expect everything - good graphics, houseing, flight, multiple avenues of advancement, great crafting, great animations.... all this takes millions and millions of dollars, unless their is enough of a target audience to support not only that type of game, but that specific game, the game has a huge chance of losing money. Therefore either the developers need to scale back the games, or the players need to scale back their expectations.
Venge
I wouldn't say that it is dying, but there are fewer high budget games in the making now. Low and mid budget games, particularly from Korea and China are taking over for good and bad.
If it is because how badly the last few years economical crisis have hitted US and EU or if it is because the fact that no later game ever been in the same league as Wow when we are talking revenue can be discussed.
But if TOR and GW2 would both flop it will hurt the western genre really badly, chances are that large developing housing will avoid MMOs then.
If on the other hand those games sell well the genre will get revitalized again. While Rift did fine it isn't enough to really attract investors.
So the genre could start dying soon, but it all depends on what will happen the next year, worse case we will have to play Chinese MMOs in 5 years because we have no other choices. Hopefully wont it come to that.
archeage and world of darkness look interesting even from an old school players point of view.
And ArcheAge (for all its qualities & amazing graphics & polish) can't find a publisher in the West to save its life.
Gee...I wonder why?
because the west likes linear theme park mmo's made by big companies.
ummm... no we dont
so why is there so many theme park mmo's then??????
you mean all the ones that are failing ? oh yeah we like em a lot LOL
well people must like them because they keep producing them, rift, wow, swtor, guild wars 2
now name me a non linear sandbox mmo that is competiting with those titles?
Just because game dev's for some crazy reason still think they can cash in on WoW's fluke success by cloning the same mmorpg formula doesnt mean thats what the players want .
because the west likes linear theme park mmo's made by big companies.
ummm... no we dont
so why is there so many theme park mmo's then??????
Because the investors to these game development companies are stuck on tunnel visioning Blizzard's success and trying to recreate that success in every way possible short of funding a fully innovative title that is not trying to copy WoW/Blizzard's feature list. It has nothing to do with what people like. Millions of people play WoW. Some of them actually like it. That doesn't have anything to do with what people want out of other games. people play WoW because it's WoW. We don't need 10 WoWs to choose from, but the investors seem to think we do so that's what we get. not hard to see this.
Gawd damnit, the sheep just follow and follow and don't question ANYTHING huh? How long before these people realize that the guys on top are not working for you, but instead, are enabling you to work for them? and worse, you're paying them to do it. You're paying them to set the standards.
I swear, it's like listening to a Nazi say "well, if 'Jews' are so innocent, why are so many of them dead?" for frakk's sake the level of dense stupidity is staggering.
because the west likes linear theme park mmo's made by big companies.
ummm... no we dont
so why is there so many theme park mmo's then??????
Actually, what most people want is well made game with a good budget, most players really don't care exactly what type of game it is. Oblivion sold great even if it is a sandbox and so did linear games like Dragon age.
The reason most companies make themeparks is not so much that they will sell better but because they are easier to make and balance. In a themepark all player move past a few fixed stories made up by quests, as a dev there is few nasty surprises there.
With a sandbox anything can happen, the game must have loose enough mechanics so the players can create the content but not loose enough so one or 2 guild will own the entire server. While it at first thought might sounds easier to have the players making the content, it isn't.
Most large publishers want easy to make games, and they want profit so they often just do the same as someone who is already succesful.
Some people here might really care if a game is a sandbox or a themepark but the average player just want a fun and well polished games. The average gamers don't really care about genres at all, they buy FPS games, RTS games and anything else they think is fun. People here are very interested in MMOs so we ain't the standard gamers, and we all got out favorites in the specific genre.
A really solid and well made game sells great no matter if it is a sandbox or themepark. Buggy indie messes gets few players.
Comments
I can't find the stat now, but there are FAR less players of the 12 million subs of WOW that enjoy that high end raid type of experience in WOW. No, the majority of that 12 million subscriber base ARE the casual players.
It's why, with every expansion, they aim to bring more people to upper level content by offering cheaper and more time efficient ways to give them access to content & gear that only those few percent get to experience. It's why there is a dungeon finder to automagically put together RAID groups now....with handicap buffs given to the groups to make up for the lack of coordination, gear, and know-how. It's why they've given access to slightly older raid gear to people who run enough pick up 20 minute 5 man dungeon groups.
With every patch, Blizzard aims to make that "hardcore" experience more accessable to the casual playerbase.
And they aren't exactly looking out for the hardcore audience either. The throw out a new raid dungeon that takes serious raiding guilds a whole month before they have it down on farm status. Even the middle tier raiding groups are mowing through content after all the strat guides & YouTube videos are posted. Gear checks holds more guilds back than hard to complete strategy.
Don't get me wrong....I'm not saying WOW isn't a great game for the Mass Casual audience that is the current MMORPG playerbase. I'm just saying its a terrible trend for the traditional MMORPG genere.
Diablo III is considered a MMORPG by this site......need I say more?
+1
As I see it (I been playing MMOs since the first 15 years ago) is that the problem isn't any specific of the modern games, instead it is that almost every game is the same with a different skin.
In the old days there was games like Meridian 59, UO, EQ, AC, Lineage and many more, all using different mechanics and trying to make a fun game in it's own way. We players could pick the game that fitted us.
I think people who started with Wow or other late games miss that point, it wasn't any specific mechanics that was great with the old games, it was the varity of them.
But many of us oldtimers also miss the point. We tend to say that we miss the old days, but when we talk of which features we liked we often disagree.
We don't need remakes of old games, but we need to get back the spirit from when games were more than Wow and games that are exactly the same but have a different skin on top of it. We need varity.
archeage and world of darkness look interesting even from an old school players point of view.
No...the genere is dying. If this site consideres Diablo III a MMORPG, then how can you deny the fundamental change the MMORPG industry has gone through in the last 5-6 years? One could make an argument that many of these new "MMOGs" games are NOT MMORPGs.
I'm reminded of Ronald Regan's quote, I didn't leave the party, the party left me.
It's not as if the traditional MMORPG gamers grew tired of the traditional MMORPG game design or mechanics. THE DESIGN & MECHANICS CHANGED into something very different. And because one of those games has had massive success at bringing in players from other casual generes, in an effort to exploit one of the most lucrative pricing models to date, we no longer see those traditional MMORPGs made anymore.
And ArcheAge (for all its qualities & amazing graphics & polish) can't find a publisher in the West to save its life.
Gee...I wonder why?
Yep. Nicely said.
One quote I found absurd at the time, but have learned to grow fond of. "It's like they built a cash shop, then tacked an MMORPG onto it."
because the west likes linear theme park mmo's made by big companies.
The world is dynamic and if you can't handle mmorpg changing what THEY THINK fits mmorpg, then you are a little too inflexible. Life is full of changes which you need to learn to adjust to.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
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?"
WoDO od indeed have a really promising quality: Just like the first MMOs they have real pen and paper RPGers working on it. Since half the team is P&P:ers it should bring a fresh perspective to the game.
The most famous P&Per otherwise around here is Lord British, lead developer of UO and TR, and who also had a finger in Lineage 1 & 2 (yeah, he actually had) but most of the early MMO people really came from there.
AA is a game I am more unsure of, I seen plenty of small games claiming to be oldschool by studios we never heard from. I will be very careful with it until I tried it, because chances are that it is just another MO. Hopefully am I wrong but I wont bet money on it.
I Couldn't agree more.
I understand what you're saying about how both sides of the 'war' are missing one point or another. And yes, vets need to realize that it's not going to help to just start remaking old games with old features. It is indeed the lack of variety that puts such a bad taste in my/our mouth.
Yes, there were some features in original MMORPGs that many people, even vets, do not like and are avoidant of, but to me, that does not mean the whole approach should be abandoned. Same goes for new games and their features. For instance, I personally dislike cross-server battle queues and dungeon finders and all of the new features in games that remove the necessity of players to talk to eachother and communicate and form bonds. I dislike the notion that people should only be friendly to their 'guildmates' and treat everyone else like crap on the bottom of their shoe whilst trying to hike the gear mountain. THAT BEING SAID: I still do not think they should abolish those features. It's good to have the option to play a game like that if one so wishes... I just think it would be better/fair/beneficial for all if every single other game that followed didn't try and recreate the same design simply because the game that came up with such a design is extremely successful in it's subscription numbers.
Companies seem to be ignoring this. "copy this feature and put a different skin on it because WoW has it and we want to make profit like they did and get 12 million players" .... well, most of the features wow has right now weren't even there when they pulled in their millions of players, so companies shouldn't expect small gimmics like those to boost their profits at the cost of being original and proving variety.
I disagree with pretty much everything you stated. The genre is not dying, there is more money, more players, more games and more games being made than ever before, the genre is growing and thriving exactly te opposite of dying.
This site doesn't consider D3 an MMO, this site has actively stated several times they are providing resources to games other than MMO's because their audience has shown they want this.
And many many many many traditional MMO gamers did grow tired of the traditional games. When other choices presented themselves they left those games, THEN the games changed to try and get them back.
We still see several traditional MMO's being made however many of the pointless non-fun grinds for many/most of those gamers are gone - for good reason. They may have been replaced by other pointless grinds but that is another argument.
And to someone else that said yes the genre is dying because others have said SWTOR may be the last big budget one, that isn't a sign of the genre dying. That is a sign of something that several, including myself, have stated for years. In todays games we expect everything - good graphics, houseing, flight, multiple avenues of advancement, great crafting, great animations.... all this takes millions and millions of dollars, unless their is enough of a target audience to support not only that type of game, but that specific game, the game has a huge chance of losing money. Therefore either the developers need to scale back the games, or the players need to scale back their expectations.
Venge
edit: there is also more variety of games than ever before. When the genre is new it is easy to be different, there is nothing to compare it too. As genres become more accepted and more common, truely different ideas become more rare because there is a hell of a lot more to compare to.
Now we have many sandbox, many themepark, space, many many many fantasy, FFA, post-apoc and it goes on and on and on. There are way more games, and way more types of games than 10 years ago.
And ArcheAge (for all its qualities & amazing graphics & polish) can't find a publisher in the West to save its life.
Gee...I wonder why?
What evidence do you have for this statement?Dynamic? MMOs have changed nothing at all in 8 years and almost all of them feels like the same friggin game. How is that dynamic?
The problem is the lack of innovation and flexibility, not the opposite.
ummm... no we dont
so why is there so many theme park mmo's then??????
And yet when they asked the question most posters were against the idea.you mean all the ones that are failing ? oh yeah we like em a lot LOL
Lets compare these quotes. Yes two different people but it shows the huge disparity between the opinions even among people that consider themselves old-scale traditional gamers.
well people must like them because they keep producing them, rift, wow, swtor, guild wars 2
now name me a non linear sandbox mmo that is competiting with those titles?
I wouldn't say that it is dying, but there are fewer high budget games in the making now. Low and mid budget games, particularly from Korea and China are taking over for good and bad.
If it is because how badly the last few years economical crisis have hitted US and EU or if it is because the fact that no later game ever been in the same league as Wow when we are talking revenue can be discussed.
But if TOR and GW2 would both flop it will hurt the western genre really badly, chances are that large developing housing will avoid MMOs then.
If on the other hand those games sell well the genre will get revitalized again. While Rift did fine it isn't enough to really attract investors.
So the genre could start dying soon, but it all depends on what will happen the next year, worse case we will have to play Chinese MMOs in 5 years because we have no other choices. Hopefully wont it come to that.
Just because game dev's for some crazy reason still think they can cash in on WoW's fluke success by cloning the same mmorpg formula doesnt mean thats what the players want .
Because the investors to these game development companies are stuck on tunnel visioning Blizzard's success and trying to recreate that success in every way possible short of funding a fully innovative title that is not trying to copy WoW/Blizzard's feature list. It has nothing to do with what people like. Millions of people play WoW. Some of them actually like it. That doesn't have anything to do with what people want out of other games. people play WoW because it's WoW. We don't need 10 WoWs to choose from, but the investors seem to think we do so that's what we get. not hard to see this.
Gawd damnit, the sheep just follow and follow and don't question ANYTHING huh? How long before these people realize that the guys on top are not working for you, but instead, are enabling you to work for them? and worse, you're paying them to do it. You're paying them to set the standards.
I swear, it's like listening to a Nazi say "well, if 'Jews' are so innocent, why are so many of them dead?" for frakk's sake the level of dense stupidity is staggering.
Actually, what most people want is well made game with a good budget, most players really don't care exactly what type of game it is. Oblivion sold great even if it is a sandbox and so did linear games like Dragon age.
The reason most companies make themeparks is not so much that they will sell better but because they are easier to make and balance. In a themepark all player move past a few fixed stories made up by quests, as a dev there is few nasty surprises there.
With a sandbox anything can happen, the game must have loose enough mechanics so the players can create the content but not loose enough so one or 2 guild will own the entire server. While it at first thought might sounds easier to have the players making the content, it isn't.
Most large publishers want easy to make games, and they want profit so they often just do the same as someone who is already succesful.
Some people here might really care if a game is a sandbox or a themepark but the average player just want a fun and well polished games. The average gamers don't really care about genres at all, they buy FPS games, RTS games and anything else they think is fun. People here are very interested in MMOs so we ain't the standard gamers, and we all got out favorites in the specific genre.
A really solid and well made game sells great no matter if it is a sandbox or themepark. Buggy indie messes gets few players.