OP has no idea what hes talking about. He thinks MMO's refuse to change, when the real problem is they changed too much. He has it all backwards. Damn MMORPG newbies.
The MMORPG market in 2000 to 2004... a big maximum of 1 million players, all games together.
The MMORPG market today... over 50 million players at least.
Who cares about sad, weary "veterans"?
I think you've pretty much echoed the line of reasoning of most devs out there. Except maybe for the few who may actually be part of that veteran group, or who sense an opportunity to make a modest profit from targeting that group.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
The MMORPG market in 2000 to 2004... a big maximum of 1 million players, all games together.
The MMORPG market today... over 50 million players at least.
Who cares about sad, weary "veterans"?
I think you've pretty much echoed the line of reasoning of most devs out there. Except maybe for the few who may actually be part of that veteran group, or who sense an opportunity to make a modest profit from targeting that group.
His figures are made up and way off. The numbers have appeared on this forum a multitude of times. Simply google it.
And I gotta say, even though "veteran" technically works, I feel like we shouldn't be using that word. Some people take too much pride in their little virtual world games. I love them too, but get over yourselves. You aren't a veteran, you are a gamer.
Is there a group for sensible veterans that aren't stuck in the past and are capable of enjoying themselves?
You don't see me pining for Max Payne 1 graphics or gameplay, I'm quite fine with new games.
If you have to ask you do not read these forums much. Either that or you are among the many who tend to over-generalize to make their point. I am not pointing all of this at you fyi.
These so called "vets" (I am one. AC since 1999 and played more mmos than I can remember since) continue to play mmos. There have been many great ones and my favs were: AC, DAoC, AO, Wow (earlier years), CoX and had fun in SWG (too flawed to call it great), CoX, Champions Online (more for arcade style fun but it was FAR from great and I do not ever touch Perfect World games now) and even WAR but was far too flawed to stay for long. The latest I have spent most of my time in is Swtor and ESO (although extremely casual in ESO).
There are many great things in most of those games but what is missing is the ENTIRE point of this and other threads about old school mmos: THAT style of game is rare today. It has nothing to do with their graphics (if you can't fathom the concept of playing a game in the era it was created then please do not troll us here ... todays games will look like SHIT in 10 years too and the ignorance of youth will insult you too for the games you played). It had nothing to do with the faults in game design. It as everything to do with the concept and style of game play. Some of those games simply do not exist. Hell, fucking Wow of old doesn't even exist and this is exactly what I and others are talking about.
Is there a huge variety of mmo today? Yes. Does this mean there is still room for others? Hellz yes!!!
If you lack the knowledge and first hand experience of playing these games WHEN THEY WERE LAUNCHED (because those graphics were decent back then) then at least have the courtesy of trying to understand what others are saying ... instead of simply dismissing the subject out of ignorance. You can still research and actually listen to what others have to say if lacking direct experience and having differing back grounds in gaming.
We are talking games that only had 50-300k players in them. This means niche. If you broke all mmo-style games today down into sub-genres you will find many still only have these player base. More open ended, old school styles of mmo can certainly exist. Why don't they? Because every fucking indie studio was bought up by big developers who weeded out variety to maximize income for share holders which is exactly what big business does. No artistic medium survives this process and never will. The new indie/crowd funding projects spawned as a direct result to this so if your argument is that old school games are dead and unwanted and the current market is sufficient for all ... you are flat out wrong and frankly devoid of rational thought because these indie projects (and there are MANY!) wouldn't have started without the massive demand that exists for the missing "old school" mmo style.
Have none of you noticed that many shut down games were in fact still making profits? So why were they shut down? The parent, venture capital corporations simply trimmed the bottom earners off so average share returns would rise. That is how they work. Your small company could make profits every single day for years and STILL be shut down. Same thing happened with Massively.
There is not 2 sides to this debate. You either recognize what has happened to this industry over the last 15 years or you lack the knowledge to understand it. To down play what others have played, want to play, what is missing and why the new indie craze started once again is to do nothing more than cry over others getting what they like when it has NOTHING to do with you. It is the argument of a child.
Those numbers hardly indicate what you'd like them to indicate.
A more indicative statistic is the fact that games that cost less than 5 million dollars managed to draw hundreds of thousands of long term players, while the modern mmo design is left with only a few hundred thousand 3 months after launch. A launch that costs upwards of 200 million.
Those numbers hardly indicate what you'd like them to indicate.
A more indicative statistic is the fact that games that cost less than 5 million dollars managed to draw hundreds of thousands of long term players, while the modern mmo design is left with only a few hundred thousand 3 months after launch. A launch that costs upwards of 200 million.
Chew on that.
Yup thats closer to the mark. Now also consider that the $200 million is because these games are being designed on the basis that it will draw millions of subs, forcing devs to aim for multiple conflicting demographics and styles and sub genre, forcing the price up to these amounts. As soon as the greedy publishers realise the millions of subs per MMORPG is unrealistic for the mmorpg genre and that wow has skewed this expectation with its hybrid mmorpg/mini game/lobby game the better.
The market just does not have that demand, but I think Wildstar has signaled this loud and clear.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
This site has over 2,958,000 registered members... approximately 2,000 are logged in right now... you see posts made by 25 unique people tops on any given day. In the grand scheme of things, that is a really small sample of gamers opinions.
Those numbers hardly indicate what you'd like them to indicate.
A more indicative statistic is the fact that games that cost less than 5 million dollars managed to draw hundreds of thousands of long term players, while the modern mmo design is left with only a few hundred thousand 3 months after launch. A launch that costs upwards of 200 million.
Chew on that.
I like your wording there... Hundreds of thousand! (yay) vs, Meh a few hundred thousand....
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Those numbers hardly indicate what you'd like them to indicate.
A more indicative statistic is the fact that games that cost less than 5 million dollars managed to draw hundreds of thousands of long term players, while the modern mmo design is left with only a few hundred thousand 3 months after launch. A launch that costs upwards of 200 million.
Chew on that.
I like your wording there... Hundreds of thousand! (yay) vs, Meh a few hundred thousand....
Still his point stands. I.e. such DAoC - 200k players two years after launch with around 50k copies sold for launch itself. Modern MMORPG - often even more than 1 million at launch just to drop to 50k after two years. Ok, maybe not exactly 50k but numbers around 200k (for over 1 million at launch) sound a bit like game's fail by comparison to most old style MMORPG games (EQ, DAoC, Ultima, AC and so on).
Those numbers hardly indicate what you'd like them to indicate.
A more indicative statistic is the fact that games that cost less than 5 million dollars managed to draw hundreds of thousands of long term players, while the modern mmo design is left with only a few hundred thousand 3 months after launch. A launch that costs upwards of 200 million.
Chew on that.
I like your wording there... Hundreds of thousand! (yay) vs, Meh a few hundred thousand....
Still his point stands. I.e. such DAoC - 200k players two years after launch with around 50k copies sold for launch itself. Modern MMORPG - often even more than 1 million at launch just to drop to 50k after two years. Ok, maybe not exactly 50k but numbers around 200k (for over 1 million at launch) sound a bit like game's fail by comparison to most old style MMORPG games (EQ, DAoC, Ultima, AC and so on).
To me it sounds like they are both ending up at the same point but today's launches with 10-100 x the previous amount. So given the choice between starting with 50k and ending with 200k and starting with 1 million and ending with 200k why would you leave 950,000 subs with their money off the table?
Just because you don't like it doesn't mean it is bad.
Those numbers hardly indicate what you'd like them to indicate.
A more indicative statistic is the fact that games that cost less than 5 million dollars managed to draw hundreds of thousands of long term players, while the modern mmo design is left with only a few hundred thousand 3 months after launch. A launch that costs upwards of 200 million.
Chew on that.
I like your wording there... Hundreds of thousand! (yay) vs, Meh a few hundred thousand....
Still his point stands. I.e. such DAoC - 200k players two years after launch with around 50k copies sold for launch itself. Modern MMORPG - often even more than 1 million at launch just to drop to 50k after two years. Ok, maybe not exactly 50k but numbers around 200k (for over 1 million at launch) sound a bit like game's fail by comparison to most old style MMORPG games (EQ, DAoC, Ultima, AC and so on).
Being that most games do not release their actual sub numbers today (or active players), who knows where the real number lay..
My point was if projected numbers of both are roughly the same, a couple hundred thousand (which was the norm back in the day).. that says the market has drastically expanded. As there are far more options today.. Yet individual games still perform the same in overall concurrent numbers..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
To me it speaks volumes as to the potential of an older style game in the current market. There simply hasn't been one, so the arguments against it have no merit, beyond "they won't appeal to as many people." I agree a hardcore title won't have the initial success of the studios that spend mega bucks on a casual game with mass appeal and with massive marketing, but in a matter of months, if not weeks, those games get devoured and are left with a population on par with the tiny budget games from 15 years ago when there was 10% of the people currently on the internet.
Originally posted by Dullahan To me it speaks volumes as to the potential of an older style game in the current market. There simply hasn't been one, so the arguments against it have no merit, beyond "they won't appeal to as many people." I agree a hardcore title won't have the initial success of the studios that spend mega bucks on a casual game with mass appeal and with massive marketing, but in a matter of months, if not weeks, those games get devoured and are left with a population on par with the tiny budget games from 15 years ago when there was 10% of the people currently on the internet.
What speaks volumes? Your argument here is based on a lack of evidence and you're saying "we just don't know", so you can't possibly claim anything is speaking volumes here.
Meanwhile, we do know. People and developers who have paid attention to the ways players have enjoyed games for the past ~40 years understand that a tiny niche market probably exists for those sorts of games, and few companies are interested in pursuing that niche with an expensive game (which targets the ficklest niche of gamers who might abandon your game for any little mistake that slips through to release, and it's not like the niche has a reliable consistent set of game expectations to begin with.) Those decades of videogames are the evidence of players' preferences.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
Originally posted by Dullahan To me it speaks volumes as to the potential of an older style game in the current market. There simply hasn't been one, so the arguments against it have no merit, beyond "they won't appeal to as many people." I agree a hardcore title won't have the initial success of the studios that spend mega bucks on a casual game with mass appeal and with massive marketing, but in a matter of months, if not weeks, those games get devoured and are left with a population on par with the tiny budget games from 15 years ago when there was 10% of the people currently on the internet.
What speaks volumes? Your argument here is based on a lack of evidence and you're saying "we just don't know", so you can't possibly claim anything is speaking volumes here.
Meanwhile, we do know. People and developers who have paid attention to the ways players have enjoyed games for the past ~40 years understand that a tiny niche market probably exists for those sorts of games, and few companies are interested in pursuing that niche with an expensive game (which targets the ficklest niche of gamers who might abandon your game for any little mistake that slips through to release, and it's not like the niche has a reliable consistent set of game expectations to begin with.) Those decades of videogames are the evidence of players' preferences.
You do realize there are numerous genre of computer gaming, and within each one of them you have success and failure stories / examples? Farmville is NOTHING like Call of Duty, and Call of Duty is NOTHING like World of Warcraft, but yet each one is successful in what they do.. There are millions of gamers playing each one of these games and seldom do they overlap.. I seriously doubt the person that spends hundreds $$$ playing Candy Crush, also plays Call of Duty..
Everything you argue about is based upon your likes / dislikes and opinions.. Gaming isn't any different then clothing, music, TV, markets.. Reality TV has taken off like wildfire for some lame dumbass reason.. IMO I think reality TV is lazy programming, cheap to make and is just a poor value.. But using YOUR logic you want to take the stance that reality TV is the new black and everything else on TV is inferior.. According to you Hallmark TV or History Channel is inferior because only the 4 major Networks (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) matter.. Pheww.. I'm glad you are not the emperor of TV, because if you were, none of us would be able to watch and enjoy Rizzoli and Isle, Duck Dynasty, and countless reruns on retro channels like TVLand..
Are you catching on yet why your position is one sided and flawed?
Originally posted by Dullahan To me it speaks volumes as to the potential of an older style game in the current market. There simply hasn't been one, so the arguments against it have no merit, beyond "they won't appeal to as many people." I agree a hardcore title won't have the initial success of the studios that spend mega bucks on a casual game with mass appeal and with massive marketing, but in a matter of months, if not weeks, those games get devoured and are left with a population on par with the tiny budget games from 15 years ago when there was 10% of the people currently on the internet.
What speaks volumes? Your argument here is based on a lack of evidence and you're saying "we just don't know", so you can't possibly claim anything is speaking volumes here.
Meanwhile, we do know. People and developers who have paid attention to the ways players have enjoyed games for the past ~40 years understand that a tiny niche market probably exists for those sorts of games, and few companies are interested in pursuing that niche with an expensive game (which targets the ficklest niche of gamers who might abandon your game for any little mistake that slips through to release, and it's not like the niche has a reliable consistent set of game expectations to begin with.) Those decades of videogames are the evidence of players' preferences.
You do realize there are numerous genre of computer gaming, and within each one of them you have success and failure stories / examples? Farmville is NOTHING like Call of Duty, and Call of Duty is NOTHING like World of Warcraft, but yet each one is successful in what they do.. There are millions of gamers playing each one of these games and seldom do they overlap.. I seriously doubt the person that spends hundreds $$$ playing Candy Crush, also plays Call of Duty..
Everything you argue about is based upon your likes / dislikes and opinions.. Gaming isn't any different then clothing, music, TV, markets.. Reality TV has taken off like wildfire for some lame dumbass reason.. IMO I think reality TV is lazy programming, cheap to make and is just a poor value.. But using YOUR logic you want to take the stance that reality TV is the new black and everything else on TV is inferior.. According to you Hallmark TV or History Channel is inferior because only the 4 major Networks (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) matter.. Pheww.. I'm glad you are not the emperor of TV, because if you were, none of us would be able to watch and enjoy Rizzoli and Isle, Duck Dynasty, and countless reruns on retro channels like TVLand..
Are you catching on yet why your position is one sided and flawed?
You're exactly right, even if I'd have liked it better not having to read his copy pasted overbearing non-facts paraded as gospel truth.
I will leave exact estimates and guesswork aside, because theres simply too many variables to account for like the number of current MMOs and games in general. However, arguing there is no chance for them to succeed simply because one doesn't like them even though they were successful on a fraction of the money with a fraction of the potential playbase just makes one look more than slightly biased. The overwhelmingly large and still growing number of outspoken oldschool players that have gathered on these forums alone as of late says plenty, and is no doubt the cause for the chip on the shoulder attitude certain people on this forum seem to have.
I am an older Veteran player. I do not enjoy games that do not keep my interest with longer than 3 months. Which is most of them. What the difference might be between the older players and the newer is patience. During the week I log on in the evening after work and the gym around 8pmish. I have 2.5 hours to enjoy a game. Crafting, quest, join a guild group, whatever floats my boat. On weekends I play more and this is where I have time to raid or engage in an XP grind group or whatever. I do not need to max out my toon in 3 weeks just playing this much. I enjoy games where the content actually allows a player to enjoy the ride. Content and story at 2nd level, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th, 35th, 40th etc. I do NOT enjoy games that blow right through like a blur. Do you remember what you did at 7th level? In these new games I do not because it was a blur. Did anyone group at 10th level? Occupy a camp to get an item or xp? Nope. In some older games each level takes time and thus I am hooked for years. Not only that you have time to learn who your guild mates are and their playstyles. A game where you actually 'needed' one another and appreciated one another as well.
With new tech I would like a newer, prettier game with a 'similar' feel as older games but not a repeat of what was.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
Those numbers hardly indicate what you'd like them to indicate.
A more indicative statistic is the fact that games that cost less than 5 million dollars managed to draw hundreds of thousands of long term players, while the modern mmo design is left with only a few hundred thousand 3 months after launch. A launch that costs upwards of 200 million.
Chew on that.
Yup thats closer to the mark. Now also consider that the $200 million is because these games are being designed on the basis that it will draw millions of subs, forcing devs to aim for multiple conflicting demographics and styles and sub genre, forcing the price up to these amounts. As soon as the greedy publishers realise the millions of subs per MMORPG is unrealistic for the mmorpg genre and that wow has skewed this expectation with its hybrid mmorpg/mini game/lobby game the better.
The market just does not have that demand, but I think Wildstar has signaled this loud and clear.
The problem with Carbine was that they made a crappy mmo. Making harder raids means crap if the rest of your Virtual World is a piece of flaming dung. The game was crap in a box with a good fun presentation to fool you into believing that its crap doesn't stink. Putting syrup on shit don't make it pancakes.
I'm an old school guy who has always given two damns about raiding and I smelled Wildstar's stink from the beginning.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
You do realize there are numerous genre of computer gaming, and within each one of them you have success and failure stories / examples? Farmville is NOTHING like Call of Duty, and Call of Duty is NOTHING like World of Warcraft, but yet each one is successful in what they do.. There are millions of gamers playing each one of these games and seldom do they overlap.. I seriously doubt the person that spends hundreds $$$ playing Candy Crush, also plays Call of Duty..
Everything you argue about is based upon your likes / dislikes and opinions.. Gaming isn't any different then clothing, music, TV, markets.. Reality TV has taken off like wildfire for some lame dumbass reason.. IMO I think reality TV is lazy programming, cheap to make and is just a poor value.. But using YOUR logic you want to take the stance that reality TV is the new black and everything else on TV is inferior.. According to you Hallmark TV or History Channel is inferior because only the 4 major Networks (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) matter.. Pheww.. I'm glad you are not the emperor of TV, because if you were, none of us would be able to watch and enjoy Rizzoli and Isle, Duck Dynasty, and countless reruns on retro channels like TVLand..
Are you catching on yet why your position is one sided and flawed?
Er, but all of those games involve the exact same form of fun: pattern mastery. (Koster, 2003) Only Farmville is somewhat different, as the game is largely a zen / relaxation activity with its gameplay being less of a focus.
But more importantly (related to early MMORPGs,) none of those very different games involves significant mandatory non-gameplay portions. A crop may take 24 hours to complete in farmville, but the actual time the player is required to engage with it is only a couple seconds; you make the decision and move on, and you're not required to sit there doing nothing for the crop to finish. Your session can be filled with gameplay decisions, then it ends and you do something else while those crops finish.
So yes, even with your extremely divergent game examples, all of those games represent the industry understanding what players want.
That's also why this isn't about my personal likes or dislikes at all. I'm not a huge fan of Candy Crush. There are far better puzzle games (Puzzle Quest, etc) But obviously we can point to it and see that it's built on those 40+ years of industry experience. We can see that it lacks the empty timesinks of early MMORPGs. We can see that it's gameplay focused and doesn't waste players' time. Observant players, and game developers, know this stuff.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
You get tones of new mmorpg people who whine all day too.
People's expectation are too high. They expect every game to get better. If they really like those game so much back in the days, they'd still be playing it.
Originally posted by SavageHorizon Think you have got it wrong, many of us veteran's would like to go back to old but in a modern day mmo. Hopefully Pantheon will allow us to do that.
Yeah I didn't really agree with his "veterans wanting new and next gen".
I think we just wanted our games upgraded but with more old school mechanics.
Yes
Yes
Give me Everquest with updated graphics + the housing system in EQ2 and the tradeskill system from Vanguard.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do. Benjamin Franklin
Originally posted by SavageHorizon Think you have got it wrong, many of us veteran's would like to go back to old but in a modern day mmo. Hopefully Pantheon will allow us to do that.
Yeah I didn't really agree with his "veterans wanting new and next gen".
I think we just wanted our games upgraded but with more old school mechanics.
Yes
Yes
Give me Everquest with updated graphics + the housing system in EQ2 and the tradeskill system from Vanguard.
Agreed, the original DAOC (with old frontiers) with updated graphics and a few tweaks here and there and you've got a game I'm looking for.
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
People would be spamming how great Wow is if it's dead too. The problem is WoW is still alive.
I think what those old games failed is because they failed to deliver interesting updates. People always act like they'll play those old game forever. I highly doubt there will be that many play vanilla game with no update at all.
funny how new mmo-players consistently claim that in the golden days of mmorpgs gameplay was shitty. you probably also call planetside an mmorpg. you just want nonstop action with everyone balanced out, practically a shooter that pretends to be an mmorpg. they whine about every second downtime, if they have to rest to gain HP or if they have to grind mobs to level up or lose xp if they die its all just a timesink and boring. they never heard of risk vs reward, and a second without alot of explosions is just wasted time.
well back in the days, mmorpgs weren't about delivering distraction for adhs patients, it was more about an immersive world, community and drama, risk vs reward and epic battles, not mindless fight die respawn fight die respawn with no risk and no meaningful rewards, because everyone just gets everything in the same order.
Comments
I think you've pretty much echoed the line of reasoning of most devs out there. Except maybe for the few who may actually be part of that veteran group, or who sense an opportunity to make a modest profit from targeting that group.
My SWTOR referral link for those wanting to give the game a try. (Newbies get a welcome package while returning players get a few account upgrades to help with their preferred status.)
https://www.ashesofcreation.com/ref/Callaron/
His figures are made up and way off. The numbers have appeared on this forum a multitude of times. Simply google it.
And I gotta say, even though "veteran" technically works, I feel like we shouldn't be using that word. Some people take too much pride in their little virtual world games. I love them too, but get over yourselves. You aren't a veteran, you are a gamer.
If you have to ask you do not read these forums much. Either that or you are among the many who tend to over-generalize to make their point. I am not pointing all of this at you fyi.
These so called "vets" (I am one. AC since 1999 and played more mmos than I can remember since) continue to play mmos. There have been many great ones and my favs were: AC, DAoC, AO, Wow (earlier years), CoX and had fun in SWG (too flawed to call it great), CoX, Champions Online (more for arcade style fun but it was FAR from great and I do not ever touch Perfect World games now) and even WAR but was far too flawed to stay for long. The latest I have spent most of my time in is Swtor and ESO (although extremely casual in ESO).
There are many great things in most of those games but what is missing is the ENTIRE point of this and other threads about old school mmos: THAT style of game is rare today. It has nothing to do with their graphics (if you can't fathom the concept of playing a game in the era it was created then please do not troll us here ... todays games will look like SHIT in 10 years too and the ignorance of youth will insult you too for the games you played). It had nothing to do with the faults in game design. It as everything to do with the concept and style of game play. Some of those games simply do not exist. Hell, fucking Wow of old doesn't even exist and this is exactly what I and others are talking about.
Is there a huge variety of mmo today? Yes. Does this mean there is still room for others? Hellz yes!!!
If you lack the knowledge and first hand experience of playing these games WHEN THEY WERE LAUNCHED (because those graphics were decent back then) then at least have the courtesy of trying to understand what others are saying ... instead of simply dismissing the subject out of ignorance. You can still research and actually listen to what others have to say if lacking direct experience and having differing back grounds in gaming.
We are talking games that only had 50-300k players in them. This means niche. If you broke all mmo-style games today down into sub-genres you will find many still only have these player base. More open ended, old school styles of mmo can certainly exist. Why don't they? Because every fucking indie studio was bought up by big developers who weeded out variety to maximize income for share holders which is exactly what big business does. No artistic medium survives this process and never will. The new indie/crowd funding projects spawned as a direct result to this so if your argument is that old school games are dead and unwanted and the current market is sufficient for all ... you are flat out wrong and frankly devoid of rational thought because these indie projects (and there are MANY!) wouldn't have started without the massive demand that exists for the missing "old school" mmo style.
Have none of you noticed that many shut down games were in fact still making profits? So why were they shut down? The parent, venture capital corporations simply trimmed the bottom earners off so average share returns would rise. That is how they work. Your small company could make profits every single day for years and STILL be shut down. Same thing happened with Massively.
There is not 2 sides to this debate. You either recognize what has happened to this industry over the last 15 years or you lack the knowledge to understand it. To down play what others have played, want to play, what is missing and why the new indie craze started once again is to do nothing more than cry over others getting what they like when it has NOTHING to do with you. It is the argument of a child.
You stay sassy!
And now the truth of the matter.
Number of people on the internet in 2000: 400 million.
Number of people on the internet in 2015: 3 billion.
Those numbers hardly indicate what you'd like them to indicate.
A more indicative statistic is the fact that games that cost less than 5 million dollars managed to draw hundreds of thousands of long term players, while the modern mmo design is left with only a few hundred thousand 3 months after launch. A launch that costs upwards of 200 million.
Chew on that.
Yup thats closer to the mark. Now also consider that the $200 million is because these games are being designed on the basis that it will draw millions of subs, forcing devs to aim for multiple conflicting demographics and styles and sub genre, forcing the price up to these amounts. As soon as the greedy publishers realise the millions of subs per MMORPG is unrealistic for the mmorpg genre and that wow has skewed this expectation with its hybrid mmorpg/mini game/lobby game the better.
The market just does not have that demand, but I think Wildstar has signaled this loud and clear.
rpg/mmorg history: Dun Darach>Bloodwych>Bards Tale 1-3>Eye of the beholder > Might and Magic 2,3,5 > FFVII> Baldur's Gate 1, 2 > Planescape Torment >Morrowind > WOW > oblivion > LOTR > Guild Wars (1900hrs elementalist) Vanguard. > GW2(1000 elementalist), Wildstar
Now playing GW2, AOW 3, ESO, LOTR, Elite D
This site has over 2,958,000 registered members... approximately 2,000 are logged in right now... you see posts made by 25 unique people tops on any given day. In the grand scheme of things, that is a really small sample of gamers opinions.
I like your wording there... Hundreds of thousand! (yay) vs, Meh a few hundred thousand....
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
Still his point stands. I.e. such DAoC - 200k players two years after launch with around 50k copies sold for launch itself. Modern MMORPG - often even more than 1 million at launch just to drop to 50k after two years. Ok, maybe not exactly 50k but numbers around 200k (for over 1 million at launch) sound a bit like game's fail by comparison to most old style MMORPG games (EQ, DAoC, Ultima, AC and so on).
To me it sounds like they are both ending up at the same point but today's launches with 10-100 x the previous amount. So given the choice between starting with 50k and ending with 200k and starting with 1 million and ending with 200k why would you leave 950,000 subs with their money off the table?
Being that most games do not release their actual sub numbers today (or active players), who knows where the real number lay..
My point was if projected numbers of both are roughly the same, a couple hundred thousand (which was the norm back in the day).. that says the market has drastically expanded. As there are far more options today.. Yet individual games still perform the same in overall concurrent numbers..
For every minute you are angry , you lose 60 seconds of happiness."-Emerson
What speaks volumes? Your argument here is based on a lack of evidence and you're saying "we just don't know", so you can't possibly claim anything is speaking volumes here.
Meanwhile, we do know. People and developers who have paid attention to the ways players have enjoyed games for the past ~40 years understand that a tiny niche market probably exists for those sorts of games, and few companies are interested in pursuing that niche with an expensive game (which targets the ficklest niche of gamers who might abandon your game for any little mistake that slips through to release, and it's not like the niche has a reliable consistent set of game expectations to begin with.) Those decades of videogames are the evidence of players' preferences.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
+1
You do realize there are numerous genre of computer gaming, and within each one of them you have success and failure stories / examples? Farmville is NOTHING like Call of Duty, and Call of Duty is NOTHING like World of Warcraft, but yet each one is successful in what they do.. There are millions of gamers playing each one of these games and seldom do they overlap.. I seriously doubt the person that spends hundreds $$$ playing Candy Crush, also plays Call of Duty..
Everything you argue about is based upon your likes / dislikes and opinions.. Gaming isn't any different then clothing, music, TV, markets.. Reality TV has taken off like wildfire for some lame dumbass reason.. IMO I think reality TV is lazy programming, cheap to make and is just a poor value.. But using YOUR logic you want to take the stance that reality TV is the new black and everything else on TV is inferior.. According to you Hallmark TV or History Channel is inferior because only the 4 major Networks (ABC, NBC, CBS and Fox) matter.. Pheww.. I'm glad you are not the emperor of TV, because if you were, none of us would be able to watch and enjoy Rizzoli and Isle, Duck Dynasty, and countless reruns on retro channels like TVLand..
Are you catching on yet why your position is one sided and flawed?
You're exactly right, even if I'd have liked it better not having to read his copy pasted overbearing non-facts paraded as gospel truth.
I will leave exact estimates and guesswork aside, because theres simply too many variables to account for like the number of current MMOs and games in general. However, arguing there is no chance for them to succeed simply because one doesn't like them even though they were successful on a fraction of the money with a fraction of the potential playbase just makes one look more than slightly biased. The overwhelmingly large and still growing number of outspoken oldschool players that have gathered on these forums alone as of late says plenty, and is no doubt the cause for the chip on the shoulder attitude certain people on this forum seem to have.
I am an older Veteran player. I do not enjoy games that do not keep my interest with longer than 3 months. Which is most of them. What the difference might be between the older players and the newer is patience. During the week I log on in the evening after work and the gym around 8pmish. I have 2.5 hours to enjoy a game. Crafting, quest, join a guild group, whatever floats my boat. On weekends I play more and this is where I have time to raid or engage in an XP grind group or whatever. I do not need to max out my toon in 3 weeks just playing this much. I enjoy games where the content actually allows a player to enjoy the ride. Content and story at 2nd level, 5th, 10th, 15th, 20th, 25th, 30th, 35th, 40th etc. I do NOT enjoy games that blow right through like a blur. Do you remember what you did at 7th level? In these new games I do not because it was a blur. Did anyone group at 10th level? Occupy a camp to get an item or xp? Nope. In some older games each level takes time and thus I am hooked for years. Not only that you have time to learn who your guild mates are and their playstyles. A game where you actually 'needed' one another and appreciated one another as well.
With new tech I would like a newer, prettier game with a 'similar' feel as older games but not a repeat of what was.
First PC Game: Pool of Radiance July 10th, 1990. First MMO: Everquest April 23, 1999
The problem with Carbine was that they made a crappy mmo. Making harder raids means crap if the rest of your Virtual World is a piece of flaming dung. The game was crap in a box with a good fun presentation to fool you into believing that its crap doesn't stink. Putting syrup on shit don't make it pancakes.
I'm an old school guy who has always given two damns about raiding and I smelled Wildstar's stink from the beginning.
Any mmo worth its salt should be like a good prostitute when it comes to its game world- One hell of a faker, and a damn good shaker!
Er, but all of those games involve the exact same form of fun: pattern mastery. (Koster, 2003) Only Farmville is somewhat different, as the game is largely a zen / relaxation activity with its gameplay being less of a focus.
But more importantly (related to early MMORPGs,) none of those very different games involves significant mandatory non-gameplay portions. A crop may take 24 hours to complete in farmville, but the actual time the player is required to engage with it is only a couple seconds; you make the decision and move on, and you're not required to sit there doing nothing for the crop to finish. Your session can be filled with gameplay decisions, then it ends and you do something else while those crops finish.
So yes, even with your extremely divergent game examples, all of those games represent the industry understanding what players want.
That's also why this isn't about my personal likes or dislikes at all. I'm not a huge fan of Candy Crush. There are far better puzzle games (Puzzle Quest, etc) But obviously we can point to it and see that it's built on those 40+ years of industry experience. We can see that it lacks the empty timesinks of early MMORPGs. We can see that it's gameplay focused and doesn't waste players' time. Observant players, and game developers, know this stuff.
"What is truly revealing is his implication that believing something to be true is the same as it being true. [continue]" -John Oliver
It's more like whiny people.
You get tones of new mmorpg people who whine all day too.
People's expectation are too high. They expect every game to get better. If they really like those game so much back in the days, they'd still be playing it.
Any fool can criticize, condemn and complain and most fools do.
Benjamin Franklin
Agreed, the original DAOC (with old frontiers) with updated graphics and a few tweaks here and there and you've got a game I'm looking for.
"True friends stab you in the front." | Oscar Wilde
"I need to finish" - Christian Wolff: The Accountant
Just trying to live long enough to play a new, released MMORPG, playing New Worlds atm
Fools find no pleasure in understanding but delight in airing their own opinions. Pvbs 18:2, NIV
Don't just play games, inhabit virtual worlds™
"This is the most intelligent, well qualified and articulate response to a post I have ever seen on these forums. It's a shame most people here won't have the attention span to read past the second line." - Anon
People would be spamming how great Wow is if it's dead too. The problem is WoW is still alive.
I think what those old games failed is because they failed to deliver interesting updates. People always act like they'll play those old game forever. I highly doubt there will be that many play vanilla game with no update at all.
funny how new mmo-players consistently claim that in the golden days of mmorpgs gameplay was shitty. you probably also call planetside an mmorpg. you just want nonstop action with everyone balanced out, practically a shooter that pretends to be an mmorpg. they whine about every second downtime, if they have to rest to gain HP or if they have to grind mobs to level up or lose xp if they die its all just a timesink and boring. they never heard of risk vs reward, and a second without alot of explosions is just wasted time.
well back in the days, mmorpgs weren't about delivering distraction for adhs patients, it was more about an immersive world, community and drama, risk vs reward and epic battles, not mindless fight die respawn fight die respawn with no risk and no meaningful rewards, because everyone just gets everything in the same order.
This is ****. Do you know how whiny players are this days.
They whine on game forums all day on games "they actually play".
So you can't imagine how people who can't find a game to play whine more.