Sometimes I wonder if this genre will crash like video gaming did in the states back in 83. The situations are becoming similar in many ways. No one thought it would happen leading up to 83. I also wonder if the genre wouldn't be better off if it did crash. Would it come back better?
I always thought more MMO's would be a good thing but as time goes on we have more games yet fewer options. They are all so similar these days. I'm with you OP. The direction they are all going is not what I see as gaming euphoria thats for sure.
Great post by the OP, the genre just isn't the same genre anymore.
I am back playing MUDS; with 60 players online much more fun than the current MMOs. And NWN1 and 2 mods with friends.
I atill have a few active mainstream subs active but rarely play them anymore. Games like Citadel of Sorcery sound like we may get the genre back on track.
The sooner the remove Insta Travel/Mail/Auction Houses PvP and drop in a few us against the world MMOs that are challenging maybe we will be back on track until then. I have no need to play whack a mole ... I can spend my time more wisely.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
OP, this quote is why you are disillusioned with MMO's
"We really just needed to make the game a lot more accessible to a much broader player base," said Nancy MacIntyre, the game's senior director at LucasArts. "There was lots of reading, much too much, in the game. There was a lot of wandering around learning about different abilities. We really needed to give people the experience of being Han Solo or Luke Skywalker rather than being Uncle Owen, the moisture farmer. We wanted more instant gratification: kill, get treasure, repeat. We needed to give people more of an opportunity to be a part of what they have seen in the movies rather than something they had created themselves."
Sums it all up
Subscriptions have been 15 bucks a month for almost a decade and in virtually every p2p and all freemium games you still get access to the entire game without a cash shop. You just pay for expansions - the same as it has always been for almost all p2p games.
The living breathing worlds are still there, they are not even hidden. Literally everything you did in EQ you can do in modern MMO's and a great many more things too.
It's just your perception, you need to take a break for awhile. It happens to us all.
Venge
What a load of rubbish.... Its about the communities and gameplay it just doesn't exist anymore there is no challenge anymore and 98% of the player base are just dumb....
There is a difference between perception and gameplay and that is what the poster was reffering to.
The take a break comment is pathetic, but I guess lazy replies is what it's all about these days along with lazy development.
________________________________________________________ Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
What WoW did was take the worldiness of something like EQ, improve the graphics and polish (while making sure it still ran on a toaster), make it more solo-friendly and dumb it down.
The copies have kept the dumbed down and solo-friendly parts but either dropped the runs-on-a-toaster part or, being another step removed from the originals, dropped the worldiness part (because they don't see the point) or both.
I agree completely. The 1st generation clones left a lot to be desired, and in many ways missed main parts of the WoW appeal, not to mention as you said "runs on a toaster" *grin*. Additional generations aren't even close, with a few exceptions.
WoW is (or was*) a world game for free-roaming explorers, a territorial defense game for PVPers**, a solo (or coop) quester for casuals, a coop dungeon runner for mid-harcores, a raid game for hardcores, a faction based PVP game tucked away in instances so as to avoid disruption of the main world.
* recent changes include lobby based coop, solo questers with deep storyline arcs, and soon lobby based raiding.
** refering to overlands like attacking / defending Crossroads or trying to kill opposing side faction bosses.
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.
Subscriptions have been 15 bucks a month for almost a decade and in virtually every p2p and all freemium games you still get access to the entire game without a cash shop. You just pay for expansions - the same as it has always been for almost all p2p games.
The living breathing worlds are still there, they are not even hidden. Literally everything you did in EQ you can do in modern MMO's and a great many more things too.
It's just your perception, you need to take a break for awhile. It happens to us all.
Venge
What a load of rubbish.... Its about the communities and gameplay it just doesn't exist anymore there is no challenge anymore and 98% of the player base are just dumb....
There is a difference between perception and gameplay and that is what the poster was reffering to.
The take a break comment is pathetic, but I guess lazy replies is what it's all about these days along with lazy development.
I agree, what you stated was a load of rubbish. There is just as much community as before, in fact there are a great many communities. Dozens of communities will exist in one game now, some you will like, others you want. Go find the one you like. Further there are literally hundreds of games out there with thousands of communities.
MMO's were never hard, they were tedious and time consuming, I'm sorry you find that hard.
There is a difference between perception and gameplay. And in some games the gameplay is different however with most games there is not very many actual gameplay changes. So the issue now is perception not gameplay because gameplay mechanics are pretty much the same, haven't changed in a decade. Every single solitary thing you did in EQ you can do in wow.
Take a break comment is completely valid. Every hobby gets tiresome after a time and people need breaks. Doesn't matter whether its' games, carving, canoeing, exercising.... after a time you need a break and guess what it's healthy to do it.
Just old embittered ex-gamers still waving their signs.
Venge
edit - this wasn't directed at the OP. That was fairly well thought out and reasonable, I don't agree with a lot of reasons but I can't argue his feelings about them.
No this was directed at all the old fogies that came after him.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Subscriptions have been 15 bucks a month for almost a decade and in virtually every p2p and all freemium games you still get access to the entire game without a cash shop. You just pay for expansions - the same as it has always been for almost all p2p games.
The living breathing worlds are still there, they are not even hidden. Literally everything you did in EQ you can do in modern MMO's and a great many more things too.
It's just your perception, you need to take a break for awhile. It happens to us all.
Venge
What a load of rubbish.... Its about the communities and gameplay it just doesn't exist anymore there is no challenge anymore and 98% of the player base are just dumb....
There is a difference between perception and gameplay and that is what the poster was reffering to.
The take a break comment is pathetic, but I guess lazy replies is what it's all about these days along with lazy development.
Posted this in another thread this morning but it is actually more relevant here.
Themeparks have already reached their pinnacle and are beggining their decline. SWTOR will be the last big budget wow-formula type. Especially when sub numbers begin the tumble as in Wow/Rift model. I know this is still to be seen but I feel the same sub problems will plauge SWTOR when the shiny wears off and the grind becomes apparent.
Sandboxers rejoice our era is just starting. Creating high quality tools for players to create never ending fresh content as opposed to developers creating increasingly more expensive content in quantities to appeal to the masses is the way development is beggining to shift. Being a project and operations manager at several levels for years I know profitability rules the development and publishing houses. This FTP craze is companies trying to salvage profit margins off of inferior software and human greed mentality to "grease the wheels" not because it is hip.
Face it many gamers are just lazy or do not have the required time due to real world obligations. Games reflect this in the dumbing down of game mechanics. Creative thinkers and problem solvers will flourish in the new sandbox environment and gamers that lack creativity and basic problem solving skills will migrate to console gaming.
It never ceases to amaze me just how little people that pretend to be educated actually know about the history of this industry, I grew up with it and with the people that founded it.
Brad McQuaid still rants and raves and has posted tons of manifesto's about how the evil corporations have stolen the dream and perverted the purity of what they were trying to create. Right now he is trying for the third time to create his dream world, without it being stolen by the greedy corporations that put profit before the game as he says.
Granted Brad stole his concept from Cathryn Mataga ( the programmer and driving force behind AOL's NWN ), I mean to give credit where its due, she yup, that's right a WOMAN is the mother of this entire industry. Anyway I was at Wizard's of the Coast in 1997 when we aquired TSR and had to listen to the constant hell raising over how Brad was a snake in the grass just like Bill Gates. Everyone knew Brad's wife was actually the only game designer in that house with any talent , and to give more credit where it is due, she ( yup that right another WOMAN ) was the talent and driving force behind the development of EQ 2.
On the other side of the coin was Lord British, the Dungeon Master turned game designer. On numerous occasions he was quoted as saying the " suits " would destroy the industry before it ever got a chance to spread its wings.
Now I am not going to deny both of these icons of the industry did not profit from their creations, but BOTH of them had their games stolen out from under them, and in Brad's case actually tried to fight a lawsuit to keep creative control of his game but lost to SOE's team of corporate lawyers.
So let's not say for a second this industry was created for the money, because the industry was created by dreamers, psychotics, and nutjobs, it was just stolen by the people that made it all about the money.
It never ceases to amaze me just how little people that pretend to be educated actually know about the history of this industry, I grew up with it and with the people that founded it.
Brad McQuaid still rants and raves and has posted tons of manifesto's about how the evil corporations have stolen the dream and perverted the purity of what they were trying to create. Right now he is trying for the third time to create his dream world, without it being stolen by the greedy corporations that put profit before the game as he says.
Granted Brad stole his concept from Cathryn Mataga ( the programmer and driving force behind AOL's NWN ), I mean to give credit where its due, she yup, that's right a WOMAN is the mother of this entire industry. Anyway I was at Wizard's of the Coast in 1997 when we aquired TSR and had to listen to the constant hell raising over how Brad was a snake in the grass just like Bill Gates. Everyone knew Brad's wife was actually the only game designer in that house with any talent , and to give more credit where it is due, she ( yup that right another WOMAN ) was the talent and driving force behind the development of EQ 2.
On the other side of the coin was Lord British, the Dungeon Master turned game designer. On numerous occasions he was quoted as saying the " suits " would destroy the industry before it ever got a chance to spread its wings.
Now I am not going to deny both of these icons of the industry did not profit from their creations, but BOTH of them had their games stolen out from under them, and in Brad's case actually tried to fight a lawsuit to keep creative control of his game but lost to SOE's team of corporate lawyers.
So let's not say for a second this industry was created for the money, because the industry was created by dreamers, psychotics, and nutjobs, it was just stolen by the people that made it all about the money.
Can't comment on UO. But who stole Brad's games?
EQ was always owned by SOE. VG he sold to SOE. Nothing stolen there.
Venge
edit - and face it, if AOL didn't think they stood a reasonable chance of making money they would not have paid for the development.
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
My biggest regret is that once WoW hit, innovation seemed to stop. There was a time where games were different games. UO was different to EQ just as EQ was different to AC and AC wasn't the same as Shadowbane, even SWG originally had it's own feel.
Early on it was exciting to imagine, my god, the possibilities! All of the places these games could go, it could only get better and better....then, we get saddled with 5 or so years of WoW clones. The me in 1999 didn't see that coming.
Some people defend this by saying absurdities like 'If it's not broken, don't fix it', well, if it's not broken, why shove out more and more pale immitations that ARE broken in comparison to what you're trying to mimic?
Sometimes I wonder if this genre will crash like video gaming did in the states back in 83. The situations are becoming similar in many ways. No one thought it would happen leading up to 83. I also wonder if the genre wouldn't be better off if it did crash. Would it come back better?
I always thought more MMO's would be a good thing but as time goes on we have more games yet fewer options. They are all so similar these days. I'm with you OP. The direction they are all going is not what I see as gaming euphoria thats for sure.
Great post by the OP, the genre just isn't the same genre anymore.
I am back playing MUDS; with 60 players online much more fun than the current MMOs. And NWN1 and 2 mods with friends.
I atill have a few active mainstream subs active but rarely play them anymore. Games like Citadel of Sorcery sound like we may get the genre back on track.
The sooner the remove Insta Travel/Mail/Auction Houses PvP and drop in a few us against the world MMOs that are challenging maybe we will be back on track until then. I have no need to play whack a mole ... I can spend my time more wisely.
Video Gaming has evolved and continues to do so. Gerne come and go, I guess for some of you your time is up.
I personally love gaming regardless of some bad experiances, it will never change how I feel.
Nothing wrong with liking the Classics. It's the same concept as like the Oldies, Classic Rock, or Retro music, but even new artist and bands bring those same elements to their sound.
Sometimes I wonder if this genre will crash like video gaming did in the states back in 83. The situations are becoming similar in many ways. No one thought it would happen leading up to 83. I also wonder if the genre wouldn't be better off if it did crash. Would it come back better?
I always thought more MMO's would be a good thing but as time goes on we have more games yet fewer options. They are all so similar these days. I'm with you OP. The direction they are all going is not what I see as gaming euphoria thats for sure.
Great post by the OP, the genre just isn't the same genre anymore.
I am back playing MUDS; with 60 players online much more fun than the current MMOs. And NWN1 and 2 mods with friends.
I atill have a few active mainstream subs active but rarely play them anymore. Games like Citadel of Sorcery sound like we may get the genre back on track.
The sooner the remove Insta Travel/Mail/Auction Houses PvP and drop in a few us against the world MMOs that are challenging maybe we will be back on track until then. I have no need to play whack a mole ... I can spend my time more wisely.
Video Gaming has evolved and continues to do so. Gerne come and go, I guess for some of you your time is up.
I personally love gaming regardless of some bad experiances, it will never change how I feel.
Nothing wrong with liking the Classics. It's the same concept as like the Oldies, Classic Rock, or Retro music, but even new artist and bands bring those same elements to their sound.
the point is mmoprg's are not evolving. they are tirning into wii products///// kiddies...
OP, you list several of the reasons why I don't play any MMORPGs anymore. The genre maybe raking in serious cash with more players than ever imagined in the late 90s and early 2000s, but it's gone downhill.
There are really only 2 things MMORPG devs have pushed the boundaries on over the years: Graphics and different ways to squeeze money out of you. That is all.
The MMORPG genre is like a nice looking fruit, but the inside? Rotten in the core.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Sometimes I wonder if this genre will crash like video gaming did in the states back in 83. The situations are becoming similar in many ways. No one thought it would happen leading up to 83. I also wonder if the genre wouldn't be better off if it did crash. Would it come back better?
I always thought more MMO's would be a good thing but as time goes on we have more games yet fewer options. They are all so similar these days. I'm with you OP. The direction they are all going is not what I see as gaming euphoria thats for sure.
Great post by the OP, the genre just isn't the same genre anymore.
I am back playing MUDS; with 60 players online much more fun than the current MMOs. And NWN1 and 2 mods with friends.
I atill have a few active mainstream subs active but rarely play them anymore. Games like Citadel of Sorcery sound like we may get the genre back on track.
The sooner the remove Insta Travel/Mail/Auction Houses PvP and drop in a few us against the world MMOs that are challenging maybe we will be back on track until then. I have no need to play whack a mole ... I can spend my time more wisely.
Video Gaming has evolved and continues to do so. Gerne come and go, I guess for some of you your time is up.
I personally love gaming regardless of some bad experiances, it will never change how I feel.
Nothing wrong with liking the Classics. It's the same concept as like the Oldies, Classic Rock, or Retro music, but even new artist and bands bring those same elements to their sound.
the point is mmoprg's are not evolving. they are tirning into wii products///// kiddies...
Funny how only a minority of your player base is saying that. Maybe it's good thing you guys stop playing, we can stop listening to same old broken record Thread after Thread same old shit.
It never ceases to amaze me just how little people that pretend to be educated actually know about the history of this industry, I grew up with it and with the people that founded it.
Brad McQuaid still rants and raves and has posted tons of manifesto's about how the evil corporations have stolen the dream and perverted the purity of what they were trying to create. Right now he is trying for the third time to create his dream world, without it being stolen by the greedy corporations that put profit before the game as he says.
Granted Brad stole his concept from Cathryn Mataga ( the programmer and driving force behind AOL's NWN ), I mean to give credit where its due, she yup, that's right a WOMAN is the mother of this entire industry. Anyway I was at Wizard's of the Coast in 1997 when we aquired TSR and had to listen to the constant hell raising over how Brad was a snake in the grass just like Bill Gates. Everyone knew Brad's wife was actually the only game designer in that house with any talent , and to give more credit where it is due, she ( yup that right another WOMAN ) was the talent and driving force behind the development of EQ 2.
On the other side of the coin was Lord British, the Dungeon Master turned game designer. On numerous occasions he was quoted as saying the " suits " would destroy the industry before it ever got a chance to spread its wings.
Now I am not going to deny both of these icons of the industry did not profit from their creations, but BOTH of them had their games stolen out from under them, and in Brad's case actually tried to fight a lawsuit to keep creative control of his game but lost to SOE's team of corporate lawyers.
So let's not say for a second this industry was created for the money, because the industry was created by dreamers, psychotics, and nutjobs, it was just stolen by the people that made it all about the money.
Can't comment on UO. But who stole Brad's games?
EQ was always owned by SOE. VG he sold to SOE. Nothing stolen there.
Venge
edit - and face it, if AOL didn't think they stood a reasonable chance of making money they would not have paid for the development.
SOE bought Verant with the understanding that Brad would maintain creative control of everquest, it was actually in the contract, that was what the whole lawsuit was over when they took creative control away from him, he flipped out when he saw the direction they were taking the game. He came back with Vigil thinking he was going to one up SOE, and they shafted him again, now he is completely done with SOE and off on his own to try and make his original dream a reality.
This is what you get when things get to large. Not just MMO's but gameing in general. Playing video games is no longer only for thoes of us who flew our nerdism flag proudly. Video games are now mainstream. From the most dedicated FPS player to the most dedicated MMO player to the random house wife playing ummm the sims? on the WII. Add into that humans basic addictive nature and you have the perfect storm for gaming companies.
I will never understand statements like this one.
Maybe this is why some of you are so unhappy over a Video Game. You guys probably think it was only exclusive to one group and felt so special. Is there a Census out there on this?
Pac-Man was pretty mainstream, don't think you were even born yet.
Why solo-friendly, quest-based games will inevitably evolve to be prettier and prettier and suckier and suckier over time until they stop.
Someone mentioned games like chess and innovation. Chess doesn't need to change because every game is different. It has built in variety in the same way as PvP has built in variety because it involves other people. Group-based PvE is always different for the same reason - other people - even if the differences are often very annoying. Solo questing is designed to be always the same for everyone, every time.
Also if combat is the main, or indeed the only, dynamic in the game then over time the classes will all gradually morph into a composite class with different skins and names so that each class can complete the same content. You see this increasingly with dual-class, changeable class, changeable class specs etc. WoW again, because it was 2nd generation, still had lots of class differences originally which have only gradually been polished away, whereas a lot of the post-WoW games dispense with it from the start.
So if you boil WoW down to its core mechanics (leaving out the seemingly unneccessary bits like worldiness) and then design a copy you get games with one or two starting zones (depending on if the endgame is PvP or not) and a bunch of classes (that mostly play the same under the surface) following a linear path that is the same every time you run through it killing one solo mob after another.
If you design a game no-one wants to replay because it's always identical after the first time through all you have to keep people subscribing is the endgame. WoW itself doesn't have this problem so much because it was originally copying the worldy games but the later games do. A solo-based, quest-grind game has to have the variety built into it that you get for free when other players are involved - for better or worse. That way the average player might spend half their total time subbed trying out alts.
(It would be interesting to see WoW or EQ's data on this but i'd bet if they took all players who were subbed for a total of at least a year the return on investment in terms of hours played was by far the highest for the newbie and lowbie zones .)
So basically i think worldiness, the main goal of the 1st generation games, has a major financial side-effect in terms of replayability. The more worldy a game is coincidentally means the more variety it has and the more variety the game has the more replayable it is which translates into more time subbed. WoW kept the worldiness of the 1st generation games while the games copying WoW have increasingly dropped it.
There is still the problem of all the classes gradually becoming the same if they all follow the same quests fighting the same mobs. To only way out of that for a solo-based game is to make the quest path different for different classes or at least have different solutions in the same way some solo RPGs have multiple paths.
Sony's game division was originally Sony Interactive (SISA) - Smedley was in charge of developing online computer role playing games. He hired McQuaid.
Sony online ventures and sony pictures merged and became SOE and Sony Interactive was called 989 studios. 989 started to working on consoles however their pc spun off called RedEye, then changing to Verant. EQ was developed initially by SISA an, development continued bye Verant. SOE re-acquired Verant when EQ finally went live.
Venge
and he didn't come back thinking he was going to one up SOE. SOE saved his project after MS dumped him for mutiple delays.
edit: McQuaid actually did have creative control for several expansion in EQ. Also I can't find anything at all mentioning anything about a lawsuit between him and sony.
Comments
Great post by the OP, the genre just isn't the same genre anymore.
I am back playing MUDS; with 60 players online much more fun than the current MMOs. And NWN1 and 2 mods with friends.
I atill have a few active mainstream subs active but rarely play them anymore. Games like Citadel of Sorcery sound like we may get the genre back on track.
The sooner the remove Insta Travel/Mail/Auction Houses PvP and drop in a few us against the world MMOs that are challenging maybe we will be back on track until then. I have no need to play whack a mole ... I can spend my time more wisely.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
What a load of rubbish.... Its about the communities and gameplay it just doesn't exist anymore there is no challenge anymore and 98% of the player base are just dumb....
There is a difference between perception and gameplay and that is what the poster was reffering to.
The take a break comment is pathetic, but I guess lazy replies is what it's all about these days along with lazy development.
________________________________________________________
Sorcery must persist, the future is the Citadel
I agree completely. The 1st generation clones left a lot to be desired, and in many ways missed main parts of the WoW appeal, not to mention as you said "runs on a toaster" *grin*. Additional generations aren't even close, with a few exceptions.
WoW is (or was*) a world game for free-roaming explorers, a territorial defense game for PVPers**, a solo (or coop) quester for casuals, a coop dungeon runner for mid-harcores, a raid game for hardcores, a faction based PVP game tucked away in instances so as to avoid disruption of the main world.
* recent changes include lobby based coop, solo questers with deep storyline arcs, and soon lobby based raiding.
** refering to overlands like attacking / defending Crossroads or trying to kill opposing side faction bosses.
I agree, what you stated was a load of rubbish. There is just as much community as before, in fact there are a great many communities. Dozens of communities will exist in one game now, some you will like, others you want. Go find the one you like. Further there are literally hundreds of games out there with thousands of communities.
MMO's were never hard, they were tedious and time consuming, I'm sorry you find that hard.
There is a difference between perception and gameplay. And in some games the gameplay is different however with most games there is not very many actual gameplay changes. So the issue now is perception not gameplay because gameplay mechanics are pretty much the same, haven't changed in a decade. Every single solitary thing you did in EQ you can do in wow.
Take a break comment is completely valid. Every hobby gets tiresome after a time and people need breaks. Doesn't matter whether its' games, carving, canoeing, exercising.... after a time you need a break and guess what it's healthy to do it.
Just old embittered ex-gamers still waving their signs.
Venge
edit - this wasn't directed at the OP. That was fairly well thought out and reasonable, I don't agree with a lot of reasons but I can't argue his feelings about them.
No this was directed at all the old fogies that came after him.
yyyyyyup.
+1
@ OP
Totally Agree!
My favorites were AO, EQ, DAoC and SWG.
Welcome to the age of cash shops, solo playing and lobby ques for dungeon running in our mmorpg's today.
Posted this in another thread this morning but it is actually more relevant here.
Themeparks have already reached their pinnacle and are beggining their decline. SWTOR will be the last big budget wow-formula type. Especially when sub numbers begin the tumble as in Wow/Rift model. I know this is still to be seen but I feel the same sub problems will plauge SWTOR when the shiny wears off and the grind becomes apparent.
Sandboxers rejoice our era is just starting. Creating high quality tools for players to create never ending fresh content as opposed to developers creating increasingly more expensive content in quantities to appeal to the masses is the way development is beggining to shift. Being a project and operations manager at several levels for years I know profitability rules the development and publishing houses. This FTP craze is companies trying to salvage profit margins off of inferior software and human greed mentality to "grease the wheels" not because it is hip.
Face it many gamers are just lazy or do not have the required time due to real world obligations. Games reflect this in the dumbing down of game mechanics. Creative thinkers and problem solvers will flourish in the new sandbox environment and gamers that lack creativity and basic problem solving skills will migrate to console gaming.
Life IS Feudal
It never ceases to amaze me just how little people that pretend to be educated actually know about the history of this industry, I grew up with it and with the people that founded it.
Brad McQuaid still rants and raves and has posted tons of manifesto's about how the evil corporations have stolen the dream and perverted the purity of what they were trying to create. Right now he is trying for the third time to create his dream world, without it being stolen by the greedy corporations that put profit before the game as he says.
Granted Brad stole his concept from Cathryn Mataga ( the programmer and driving force behind AOL's NWN ), I mean to give credit where its due, she yup, that's right a WOMAN is the mother of this entire industry. Anyway I was at Wizard's of the Coast in 1997 when we aquired TSR and had to listen to the constant hell raising over how Brad was a snake in the grass just like Bill Gates. Everyone knew Brad's wife was actually the only game designer in that house with any talent , and to give more credit where it is due, she ( yup that right another WOMAN ) was the talent and driving force behind the development of EQ 2.
On the other side of the coin was Lord British, the Dungeon Master turned game designer. On numerous occasions he was quoted as saying the " suits " would destroy the industry before it ever got a chance to spread its wings.
Now I am not going to deny both of these icons of the industry did not profit from their creations, but BOTH of them had their games stolen out from under them, and in Brad's case actually tried to fight a lawsuit to keep creative control of his game but lost to SOE's team of corporate lawyers.
So let's not say for a second this industry was created for the money, because the industry was created by dreamers, psychotics, and nutjobs, it was just stolen by the people that made it all about the money.
Can't comment on UO. But who stole Brad's games?
EQ was always owned by SOE. VG he sold to SOE. Nothing stolen there.
Venge
edit - and face it, if AOL didn't think they stood a reasonable chance of making money they would not have paid for the development.
that this was the thread killer????
Everquest was launched and created by Brad's company "Verant Interactive"
Life IS Feudal
And Verant was always owned by Sony.
Verant interactive was a brand of Sony.
My biggest regret is that once WoW hit, innovation seemed to stop. There was a time where games were different games. UO was different to EQ just as EQ was different to AC and AC wasn't the same as Shadowbane, even SWG originally had it's own feel.
Early on it was exciting to imagine, my god, the possibilities! All of the places these games could go, it could only get better and better....then, we get saddled with 5 or so years of WoW clones. The me in 1999 didn't see that coming.
Some people defend this by saying absurdities like 'If it's not broken, don't fix it', well, if it's not broken, why shove out more and more pale immitations that ARE broken in comparison to what you're trying to mimic?
Video Gaming has evolved and continues to do so. Gerne come and go, I guess for some of you your time is up.
I personally love gaming regardless of some bad experiances, it will never change how I feel.
Nothing wrong with liking the Classics. It's the same concept as like the Oldies, Classic Rock, or Retro music, but even new artist and bands bring those same elements to their sound.
the point is mmoprg's are not evolving. they are tirning into wii products///// kiddies...
OP, you list several of the reasons why I don't play any MMORPGs anymore. The genre maybe raking in serious cash with more players than ever imagined in the late 90s and early 2000s, but it's gone downhill.
There are really only 2 things MMORPG devs have pushed the boundaries on over the years: Graphics and different ways to squeeze money out of you. That is all.
The MMORPG genre is like a nice looking fruit, but the inside? Rotten in the core.
"I have only two out of my company and 20 out of some other company. We need support, but it is almost suicide to try to get it here as we are swept by machine gun fire and a constant barrage is on us. I have no one on my left and only a few on my right. I will hold." (First Lieutenant Clifton B. Cates, US Marine Corps, Soissons, 19 July 1918)
Excellent post OP, simply excellent. Nice to know I'm not alone, i hate watching this genre go downhill year after year.
The only innovations they make are ways to squeeze more money out of you.
Funny how only a minority of your player base is saying that. Maybe it's good thing you guys stop playing, we can stop listening to same old broken record Thread after Thread same old shit.
Again with the Innovation!
Innovation to create a better effective product either by inventing or renovating it. A lot of current and up coming MMORPGS are doing that.
SOE bought Verant with the understanding that Brad would maintain creative control of everquest, it was actually in the contract, that was what the whole lawsuit was over when they took creative control away from him, he flipped out when he saw the direction they were taking the game. He came back with Vigil thinking he was going to one up SOE, and they shafted him again, now he is completely done with SOE and off on his own to try and make his original dream a reality.
I will never understand statements like this one.
Maybe this is why some of you are so unhappy over a Video Game. You guys probably think it was only exclusive to one group and felt so special. Is there a Census out there on this?
Pac-Man was pretty mainstream, don't think you were even born yet.
Why solo-friendly, quest-based games will inevitably evolve to be prettier and prettier and suckier and suckier over time until they stop.
Someone mentioned games like chess and innovation. Chess doesn't need to change because every game is different. It has built in variety in the same way as PvP has built in variety because it involves other people. Group-based PvE is always different for the same reason - other people - even if the differences are often very annoying. Solo questing is designed to be always the same for everyone, every time.
Also if combat is the main, or indeed the only, dynamic in the game then over time the classes will all gradually morph into a composite class with different skins and names so that each class can complete the same content. You see this increasingly with dual-class, changeable class, changeable class specs etc. WoW again, because it was 2nd generation, still had lots of class differences originally which have only gradually been polished away, whereas a lot of the post-WoW games dispense with it from the start.
So if you boil WoW down to its core mechanics (leaving out the seemingly unneccessary bits like worldiness) and then design a copy you get games with one or two starting zones (depending on if the endgame is PvP or not) and a bunch of classes (that mostly play the same under the surface) following a linear path that is the same every time you run through it killing one solo mob after another.
If you design a game no-one wants to replay because it's always identical after the first time through all you have to keep people subscribing is the endgame. WoW itself doesn't have this problem so much because it was originally copying the worldy games but the later games do. A solo-based, quest-grind game has to have the variety built into it that you get for free when other players are involved - for better or worse. That way the average player might spend half their total time subbed trying out alts.
(It would be interesting to see WoW or EQ's data on this but i'd bet if they took all players who were subbed for a total of at least a year the return on investment in terms of hours played was by far the highest for the newbie and lowbie zones .)
So basically i think worldiness, the main goal of the 1st generation games, has a major financial side-effect in terms of replayability. The more worldy a game is coincidentally means the more variety it has and the more variety the game has the more replayable it is which translates into more time subbed. WoW kept the worldiness of the 1st generation games while the games copying WoW have increasingly dropped it.
There is still the problem of all the classes gradually becoming the same if they all follow the same quests fighting the same mobs. To only way out of that for a solo-based game is to make the quest path different for different classes or at least have different solutions in the same way some solo RPGs have multiple paths.
Sony's game division was originally Sony Interactive (SISA) - Smedley was in charge of developing online computer role playing games. He hired McQuaid.
Sony online ventures and sony pictures merged and became SOE and Sony Interactive was called 989 studios. 989 started to working on consoles however their pc spun off called RedEye, then changing to Verant. EQ was developed initially by SISA an, development continued bye Verant. SOE re-acquired Verant when EQ finally went live.
Venge
and he didn't come back thinking he was going to one up SOE. SOE saved his project after MS dumped him for mutiple delays.
edit: McQuaid actually did have creative control for several expansion in EQ. Also I can't find anything at all mentioning anything about a lawsuit between him and sony.
And his new company is focused on the generation of more sophisticated casual and social games. This is from his own bio website. http://bradmcquaid.com/Brad_McQuaid/Welcome.html
Well said, sir.