Why can't we get good Asian games to the West like B&S? Why must we be stuck with crap like Cabal 2 and EoS?
GW2 will be just fine. I expect a huge spike again with next expansion. I honestly was expecting more regular expansions from Anet.
I think WS is just too little, too late. It's like bringing the firehose after the building already burned down. Should have launched B2P and not focused so much on raiding and generic questing. Anyone that wants that is already playing WoW or SWTOR. It's a shame, so much potential. Hell, I still play it casually as part of my rotation of MMOs I go through but it doesn't look good.
Originally posted by mithoss B&S is one of the only postive trends in those earnings and its still not coming to the west. People drool over tera's so-so combat but B&S is a gem no one even thinks of picking up.
As far as I know, B&S really IS still in development at NCsoft West. I'd bet we hear about it before the year is out.
Been playing Blade and Soul on the Russian server for quite a while. Theyve come a long ways in translating it to English, its a pretty decent game. if you really want to check it out, its not like you have to jump through hoops to install and play it. http://playbns.com/
Originally posted by donger56 RIP Wildstar. That game died faster than Tabula Rasa which I didn't think was even possible. Wildstar was the wrong game at the wrong time with the wrong business model and everyone knew it.
100% not the wrong business model. FFXIV is doing just fine with the same business model.
Wrong time I would agree with. But I think its big problem was the combat. Its just too spazzy. Way too much movement, and all the telegraphing is ugly. It has all the negatives of action combat without actually being action combat so everyone loses.
Originally posted by donger56 RIP Wildstar. That game died faster than Tabula Rasa which I didn't think was even possible. Wildstar was the wrong game at the wrong time with the wrong business model and everyone knew it.
100% not the wrong business model. FFXIV is doing just fine with the same business model.
Wrong time I would agree with. But I think its big problem was the combat. Its just too spazzy. Way too much movement, and all the telegraphing is ugly. It has all the negatives of action combat without actually being action combat so everyone loses.
Or that it was linear quest hub themepark #2673 over the past 10 years.
Originally posted by Mardukk Originally posted by syriinxOriginally posted by donger56RIP Wildstar. That game died faster than Tabula Rasa which I didn't think was even possible. Wildstar was the wrong game at the wrong time with the wrong business model and everyone knew it.
100% not the wrong business model. FFXIV is doing just fine with the same business model.Wrong time I would agree with. But I think its big problem was the combat. Its just too spazzy. Way too much movement, and all the telegraphing is ugly. It has all the negatives of action combat without actually being action combat so everyone loses.Or that it was linear quest hub themepark #2673 over the past 10 years. Yeah, theres that.
Or perhaps it was because of the mountain of bugs, quality of life issues and performance problems.
Oh, but it was definitely the themepark thing. Yeah, definitely.
One of the big reason's Blade & Soul has become such a time-hurdle development-wise is the shear amount of Voice-over localization that the NA team is up against.
For anyone who has played the other localizations of B&S should know what I'm talking about in regards to the insane amount of voice dialogue in this game. Virtually almost ALL of the unique NPC's (even unimportant NPC's) how their own individual voice files.
World of Warcraft doesn't even have that many voice-files; as in World of Warcraft, a large percentage of voice-files are re-used among the "filler-NPC's" -while Blade & Soul filler-NPC's actual have their own voice-files and pieces of dialogue that differ from each other.
This is the main reason it's taking so long to release the English version
Now think about the process of voice-over work for just a moment; You have to first:
Translate the games story and context so that it conveys everything properly to an English audience. *this isn't even including the optional task of writers throwing in a the occasional trope or colloquialism for flavor.
-A English script is created using the above story and context and drafted. Drafts can go through multiple phases.
- Voice actors and actresses need to be hired; sound engineers needs to be hired so the background sounds and music can be re-engineered to accompany the new voice-overs.
-Much more that i cannot think of off the top of my head as it is past 12am and i need sleep.
*It's quite possible the NA branch of NCsoft may not even bother with English voice-overs and simply work on a English text translation; because frankly, i cannot see NCsoft America having the budget to support a large English voice-over crew right now.
Time will tell i guess.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013 Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005 Fishing in RL since 1992 Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
Time to start porting those coveted "Asian Market ONLY" games to the western world like they should have been doing for several years now. That, and reboot 'City of Heroes' while superheroes are still > in <. It's way too late to bring the original back online as everyone's moved on by now, but it's not too late to start over and rebuild a successful property while showing you've learned from past mistakes and are willing to adapt for the future.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
How I wish I could print that first graph, wrap it around the stone and throw at the Wildstar devs. Repeatedly. Then I'd remind them of their arrogance in alpha tests and their know-it-all and demeaning attitudes when people tried to tell them which stuff won't work out. Oh wait, it was easier to listen to fanboys claiming how the product is super ultra superb. Arrogance, the downfall of many, neatly summarized in a little downward teal line.
After all of the hype and what the GW2 forums might lead you to believe, GW2 is performing about as well as any other game it seems in terms of Sales...but at the top of that lot. Either way, its no slam dunk anymore. Very sad and I wonder why that is...Living Story??? Ive been clamoring for an expansion since Living Story first hit, but now 1+ year of living story, I don't know if Ill ever play GW2 again. I think that boat sailed for me. They should have realized the error of their arrogance, *cough* Chris Whiteside *cough* and done away with LS early on.
Wildstar...probably a bigger flop than SWTOR and possibly the biggest in history in terms of rise(hype) and fall. I personally freakin loved my time in the game leveling up. Absolutely loved the combat, environments, lore, humor, etc. But in the end, its a carbon copy MMO of 10 years ago and they refused to change whilst people like me warned them of this many months before launch. I told them that 40 man raids were nostalgia speaking and it wont work. Their devs, literally, laughed me off on wildstar-central.com forums. No who is laughing? If the game heads in a free to play direction with a focus on short session gameplay / solo progression, I'll be all in to spend a boat load of money. Until then, it stays off of my computer.
My biggest question is how is Lineage doing so well? Asian markets? They still play that game as much as these charts suggest? Surprising. I never played it, but maybe I should.
Originally posted by Beowulfsam How I wish I could print that first graph, wrap it around the stone and throw at the Wildstar devs. Repeatedly. Then I'd remind them of their arrogance in alpha tests and their know-it-all and demeaning attitudes when people tried to tell them which stuff won't work out. Oh wait, it was easier to listen to fanboys claiming how the product is super ultra superb. Arrogance, the downfall of many, neatly summarized in a little downward teal line.
Pretty much this. The game had immense potential, but pandered to the 20 year olds of 2005. Now, those 20 year olds are 30+ with careers and kids. We can't devote the time to raid anymore. Today's 30 year olds that pushed for these 40 man raids are looking back with rose tinted nostalgic glasses. And if you are not 30+ and still pushed for these raids, my guess is that you have never experienced them before. You were probably 10-15 years old and most likely not raiding.
I too tried to tell them this and they belittled me.
No one has the time to devote to attunment, 40 man raids, or even 20 man raids. People are all about the quick thrill of short session gameplay, flex grouping, etc.
I still can't forgive NCSoft for canceling City of Heroes. It was still making a bit of profit and that's better than no profit while also destroying a bunch of good will with customers. If the game was so bad, why didn't they sell it?
You know with all the hoopla that was GW2, I was expecting it to do a hell of a lot better than it did. It had one big spike at the beginning (probably when all the boxes were being sold) but it's been on a pretty steady decline ever since.
Sadly NCsoft lost me when they dropped CoH, they had a really unique setting that wasn't high fantasy (GW franchise/Aion and it's ilk) or High sci-fi (Wildstar). I don't wish NCsoft ill will and it appears the Linieage series is holding them up and picking up the others slack so thats good, but I really wish they would either let CoH go or revive it, won't happen but one can wish.
GW2 is doing well if you count that by the number of people playing it, the server I play on is almost always full. The problem is that those players are not buying from the cash shop. Watch the sales of the expac when it gets released however, which will be through the roof imo.
The amount of people on the server is kind of not what i was talking about. I meant funds wise (sorry if this wasn't obvious, i figured it was as this was talking about NCsofts earnings reports not server loads and amount of concurrent customers). It had a huge spike and then fell off really quickly, you can see this by the big spike and then the line going down. I'm not saying it's doing terribly just the whole: It's going to change the way things work, everyone is going to question subs (hi FF14 and your subs still going), everyone is going to follow suit. You (thats the GW2 community) kind of made it off like this is going to change everything. It didn't, it found a nice following and is doing well, this doing well was not what we expected from all the talk we got about how this was basically going to change how we view things, how it was built up was that it was going to blow everything away, that it was going to be miles ahead of everyone else, so in practice that line for GW2 should have been at the top and stayed up there, not hit one giant spike (which any game will do) and then go down to where all the other games (minus lineage) are at.
As for the upcoming expansion, I hope it does well for those playing, but I don't deal in futures so I don't really put any weight on the expansion release making sales go through the roof. It very easily could bomb and people don't buy it. I will wait and see what happens with it.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
My guess is that this chart mirrors just about every MMO companies chart. With so many games out there people just jump on it, play it for awhile, and move on. They should have added a baseline of how MMO have done in general.
The hype machine builds up the game. Players imaginations go crazy thinking this may be the perfect game. The dream meets the reality, some stay, some leave.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
What a bunch of Idiots. Been waiting 3 Years for Blade and Soul to come to the west, but instead they delay it for the joke of a game "Wildstar" and look at it now. Failing hard just as anticipated. And Blade and Soul? Flourishing. When will these people pull their heads out of their asses and listen to what the community wants for once. No one asked for Wildstar. No one. It was a fail attempt at competing with World of Warcraft, and like all MMOs who try to compete with WoW, it fell flat on it's face.
Eh, barely could wait release of Wildstar ... game was/is fun, original with its cartooni look, funny questing, a lot of hidden jewels, rich ... But incredibly buggy, laggy, besides poor decision (at least for my taste) to implement limited toolbar for active skills which in addiion has slots available only leveling. This spells button masher and I do not play button mashers. Decided to resub (been playing only first month) ... but fact is lag is still there (if I can play Wow, Swtor and Gw2 all maxed out or slightly less, then I have right to expect game with great cartoony graphics, but without any details). Second problem, it takes eons to kill simple mobs. And by the time second is near end of life, first is already back. Also there is nobody around. Meaning impossible to do a lot of quests that required grouping. They should adapt and make also once group quest soloable. I'm not sure if after this month is over (and have already cancelled) I will resub again at any time. And making game free would only bring in cheapsters, ruining further game. Ah, I'm actually so sad, I have been counting a lot to have 4th great game available to play for me. :-(
You know with all the hoopla that was GW2, I was expecting it to do a hell of a lot better than it did. It had one big spike at the beginning (probably when all the boxes were being sold) but it's been on a pretty steady decline ever since.
Sadly NCsoft lost me when they dropped CoH, they had a really unique setting that wasn't high fantasy (GW franchise/Aion and it's ilk) or High sci-fi (Wildstar). I don't wish NCsoft ill will and it appears the Linieage series is holding them up and picking up the others slack so thats good, but I really wish they would either let CoH go or revive it, won't happen but one can wish.
GW2 is doing well if you count that by the number of people playing it, the server I play on is almost always full. The problem is that those players are not buying from the cash shop. Watch the sales of the expac when it gets released however, which will be through the roof imo.
They use megaservers now. What server you play on doesn't really reflect the population.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
Originally posted by Blaze_Rocker Time to start porting those coveted "Asian Market ONLY" games to the western world like they should have been doing for several years now. That, and reboot 'City of Heroes' while superheroes are still > in <. It's way too late to bring the original back online as everyone's moved on by now, but it's not too late to start over and rebuild a successful property while showing you've learned from past mistakes and are willing to adapt for the future.
You'd be surprised at how many of us would love to return.
OmaliMMO Business CorrespondentMemberUncommonPosts: 1,177
Originally posted by Octagon7711
My guess is that this chart mirrors just about every MMO companies chart. With so many games out there people just jump on it, play it for awhile, and move on. They should have added a baseline of how MMO have done in general.
Trust me, if I could I would, but the data just isn't out there. There aren't many companies willing to give a game by game figure of sales like NCSoft does.
Originally posted by Blaze_Rocker Time to start porting those coveted "Asian Market ONLY" games to the western world like they should have been doing for several years now. That, and reboot 'City of Heroes' while superheroes are still > in <. It's way too late to bring the original back online as everyone's moved on by now, but it's not too late to start over and rebuild a successful property while showing you've learned from past mistakes and are willing to adapt for the future.
You'd be surprised at how many of us would love to return.
Sorry, I should have reworded and clarified that. What I meant was that it's "probably" too late to bring it back and still profit from it.
I'm sure there are many that would play it if it came back today. Heck, even I would love to see it back online, but I've finally moved on after a year and a half of hoping NC would come to their senses and save a little face with their customers. They had their chance to keep it online with just a skeleton crew running the servers, bug fixing and moderating the game. It would have saved them a ton of money to all but shut down Paragon Studios and keep the game going while still charging for subs and the cash shop, but instead they killed it and screwed everyone that loved the game.
CoH was doing just fine, it was the overhead and their mismanagement Paragon Studios that caused the decline of the game. I still believe it was all on purpose and that there's part of the story that hasn't come to light yet. We may never know.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
I enjoyed Wildstar at launch. The game certainly had some merit but I wouldn't pay for it. There has been a lot of research done in the MMO space previously. Essentially if one of us is willing to pay a monthly sub; we will pay 1 monthly sub. With that said in more recent years, many don't feel like they want to pay a sub at all. This isn't really a topic worth debating, as people are going to vote with their wallets and will exercise their preference. If I were developing a game today, I would offer a hybrid model; buy once then offer micro-transactions for convenience items and/or a sub for additional benefits; faster experience, easier travel, etc. etc. (No pay to win thank you...) I think Tera gets this right as does Rift.
Launching a title with a monthly sub-only model today is like charging armor on horseback; brave but ultimately leading to failure..
Like some posters here, I too continue to try and wrap my head around why some want games to fail. I'd love to see everything be successful; the more the merrier. Every game that fails diminishes creativity as fewer developers are willing to take a chance on something new and instead stick with the "tried and true" model.
While I look forward to new titles (I backed Crowfall) I recently returned to Wow and am having a blast raiding and working the latest content. I recognize, there are some things Blizzard just does really well and rather than make endless criticisms about how someone could do it better or how it's getting antiquated, etc. we might remember many of the mechanics of the game are just brilliant and incorporating some of those features into a newer title might make a whole lot of sense.
I would posit much of this was more deliberate than perhaps we credit. For example, I recall playing EQ II at launch and thinking the graphics were better than Wow but you needed more machine to see that. At the same time, Wow was more accessible to the masses because the hardware requirements were less stringent.
Here's my last thought on the genre. Try to be all things to everyone? You'll fail. Know your demographic. Again, I think that is something Blizzard does well. The company caters to the casual gaming crowd. Nothing wrong with that and frankly that's where the dollars are. Wildstar was going to be "hardcore." That's fine too but I hope they understood the nuance of that demographic and the size of that demographic (Much smaller) Fail to meet the expectations of your chosen market and you won't hold their attention very long. A trip to the Wildstar forums solves the mystery pretty quickly.
What a bunch of Idiots. Been waiting 3 Years for Blade and Soul to come to the west, but instead they delay it for the joke of a game "Wildstar" and look at it now. Failing hard just as anticipated. And Blade and Soul? Flourishing. When will these people pull their heads out of their asses and listen to what the community wants for once. No one asked for Wildstar. No one. It was a fail attempt at competing with World of Warcraft, and like all MMOs who try to compete with WoW, it fell flat on it's face.
NCSoft, if you are reading this.
RELEASE BLADE AND SOUL IN THE WEST
AND I WILL DUMP THOUSANDS
I asked for Wildstar. It's a great game!
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I play Wildstar and like it. but I also play other MMOs. Not particularly fond of Free To Play MMOs. I don't care for the community it brings into a game. I'm hoping that Carbine doesn't fall prey to folks like the author of this article and go F2P. I wish the game developers would stop trying to woo console gamers that don't tend to hang around a PC MMO for long and just develop good games that will keep folks like me playing and paying for 10+ Years ( Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, Dark Age of Camelot)
NCsoft also works with Nexon. Despite Nexons blatant monetization there are bright prospects.
Splash Damage (Maker of Wolfenstein: Enemy territory) has recently released Dirty Bomb which is turning out to be a competitive shooter. I like it a lot.
Then there's maplestory 2... and Combat Arms/Vindictus is still really popular.
Comments
Why can't we get good Asian games to the West like B&S? Why must we be stuck with crap like Cabal 2 and EoS?
GW2 will be just fine. I expect a huge spike again with next expansion. I honestly was expecting more regular expansions from Anet.
I think WS is just too little, too late. It's like bringing the firehose after the building already burned down. Should have launched B2P and not focused so much on raiding and generic questing. Anyone that wants that is already playing WoW or SWTOR. It's a shame, so much potential. Hell, I still play it casually as part of my rotation of MMOs I go through but it doesn't look good.
soooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooon (TM)
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100% not the wrong business model. FFXIV is doing just fine with the same business model.
Wrong time I would agree with. But I think its big problem was the combat. Its just too spazzy. Way too much movement, and all the telegraphing is ugly. It has all the negatives of action combat without actually being action combat so everyone loses.
Or that it was linear quest hub themepark #2673 over the past 10 years.
Or that it was linear quest hub themepark #2673 over the past 10 years.
Yeah, theres that.
Or perhaps it was because of the mountain of bugs, quality of life issues and performance problems.
Oh, but it was definitely the themepark thing. Yeah, definitely.
For anyone who has played the other localizations of B&S should know what I'm talking about in regards to the insane amount of voice dialogue in this game. Virtually almost ALL of the unique NPC's (even unimportant NPC's) how their own individual voice files.
World of Warcraft doesn't even have that many voice-files; as in World of Warcraft, a large percentage of voice-files are re-used among the "filler-NPC's" -while Blade & Soul filler-NPC's actual have their own voice-files and pieces of dialogue that differ from each other.
This is the main reason it's taking so long to release the English version
Now think about the process of voice-over work for just a moment; You have to first:
Translate the games story and context so that it conveys everything properly to an English audience. *this isn't even including the optional task of writers throwing in a the occasional trope or colloquialism for flavor.
-A English script is created using the above story and context and drafted. Drafts can go through multiple phases.
- Voice actors and actresses need to be hired; sound engineers needs to be hired so the background sounds and music can be re-engineered to accompany the new voice-overs.
-Much more that i cannot think of off the top of my head as it is past 12am and i need sleep.
*It's quite possible the NA branch of NCsoft may not even bother with English voice-overs and simply work on a English text translation; because frankly, i cannot see NCsoft America having the budget to support a large English voice-over crew right now.
Time will tell i guess.
Fishing on Gilgamesh since 2013
Fishing on Bronzebeard since 2005
Fishing in RL since 1992
Born with a fishing rod in my hand in 1979
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
Nice article. Keep these coming.
After all of the hype and what the GW2 forums might lead you to believe, GW2 is performing about as well as any other game it seems in terms of Sales...but at the top of that lot. Either way, its no slam dunk anymore. Very sad and I wonder why that is...Living Story??? Ive been clamoring for an expansion since Living Story first hit, but now 1+ year of living story, I don't know if Ill ever play GW2 again. I think that boat sailed for me. They should have realized the error of their arrogance, *cough* Chris Whiteside *cough* and done away with LS early on.
Wildstar...probably a bigger flop than SWTOR and possibly the biggest in history in terms of rise(hype) and fall. I personally freakin loved my time in the game leveling up. Absolutely loved the combat, environments, lore, humor, etc. But in the end, its a carbon copy MMO of 10 years ago and they refused to change whilst people like me warned them of this many months before launch. I told them that 40 man raids were nostalgia speaking and it wont work. Their devs, literally, laughed me off on wildstar-central.com forums. No who is laughing? If the game heads in a free to play direction with a focus on short session gameplay / solo progression, I'll be all in to spend a boat load of money. Until then, it stays off of my computer.
My biggest question is how is Lineage doing so well? Asian markets? They still play that game as much as these charts suggest? Surprising. I never played it, but maybe I should.
Pretty much this. The game had immense potential, but pandered to the 20 year olds of 2005. Now, those 20 year olds are 30+ with careers and kids. We can't devote the time to raid anymore. Today's 30 year olds that pushed for these 40 man raids are looking back with rose tinted nostalgic glasses. And if you are not 30+ and still pushed for these raids, my guess is that you have never experienced them before. You were probably 10-15 years old and most likely not raiding.
I too tried to tell them this and they belittled me.
No one has the time to devote to attunment, 40 man raids, or even 20 man raids. People are all about the quick thrill of short session gameplay, flex grouping, etc.
The amount of people on the server is kind of not what i was talking about. I meant funds wise (sorry if this wasn't obvious, i figured it was as this was talking about NCsofts earnings reports not server loads and amount of concurrent customers). It had a huge spike and then fell off really quickly, you can see this by the big spike and then the line going down. I'm not saying it's doing terribly just the whole: It's going to change the way things work, everyone is going to question subs (hi FF14 and your subs still going), everyone is going to follow suit. You (thats the GW2 community) kind of made it off like this is going to change everything. It didn't, it found a nice following and is doing well, this doing well was not what we expected from all the talk we got about how this was basically going to change how we view things, how it was built up was that it was going to blow everything away, that it was going to be miles ahead of everyone else, so in practice that line for GW2 should have been at the top and stayed up there, not hit one giant spike (which any game will do) and then go down to where all the other games (minus lineage) are at.
As for the upcoming expansion, I hope it does well for those playing, but I don't deal in futures so I don't really put any weight on the expansion release making sales go through the roof. It very easily could bomb and people don't buy it. I will wait and see what happens with it.
Help me Bioware, you're my only hope.
Is ToR going to be good? Dude it's Bioware making a freaking star wars game, all signs point to awesome. -G4tv MMo report.
My guess is that this chart mirrors just about every MMO companies chart. With so many games out there people just jump on it, play it for awhile, and move on. They should have added a baseline of how MMO have done in general.
The hype machine builds up the game. Players imaginations go crazy thinking this may be the perfect game. The dream meets the reality, some stay, some leave.
"We all do the best we can based on life experience, point of view, and our ability to believe in ourselves." - Naropa "We don't see things as they are, we see them as we are." SR Covey
What a bunch of Idiots. Been waiting 3 Years for Blade and Soul to come to the west, but instead they delay it for the joke of a game "Wildstar" and look at it now. Failing hard just as anticipated. And Blade and Soul? Flourishing. When will these people pull their heads out of their asses and listen to what the community wants for once. No one asked for Wildstar. No one. It was a fail attempt at competing with World of Warcraft, and like all MMOs who try to compete with WoW, it fell flat on it's face.
NCSoft, if you are reading this.
RELEASE BLADE AND SOUL IN THE WEST
AND I WILL DUMP THOUSANDS
They use megaservers now. What server you play on doesn't really reflect the population.
James T. Kirk: All she's got isn't good enough! What else ya got?
You'd be surprised at how many of us would love to return.
Trust me, if I could I would, but the data just isn't out there. There aren't many companies willing to give a game by game figure of sales like NCSoft does.
Sorry, I should have reworded and clarified that. What I meant was that it's "probably" too late to bring it back and still profit from it.
I'm sure there are many that would play it if it came back today. Heck, even I would love to see it back online, but I've finally moved on after a year and a half of hoping NC would come to their senses and save a little face with their customers. They had their chance to keep it online with just a skeleton crew running the servers, bug fixing and moderating the game. It would have saved them a ton of money to all but shut down Paragon Studios and keep the game going while still charging for subs and the cash shop, but instead they killed it and screwed everyone that loved the game.
CoH was doing just fine, it was the overhead and their mismanagement Paragon Studios that caused the decline of the game. I still believe it was all on purpose and that there's part of the story that hasn't come to light yet. We may never know.
I've got a feevah, and the only prescription... is more cowbell.
I enjoyed Wildstar at launch. The game certainly had some merit but I wouldn't pay for it. There has been a lot of research done in the MMO space previously. Essentially if one of us is willing to pay a monthly sub; we will pay 1 monthly sub. With that said in more recent years, many don't feel like they want to pay a sub at all. This isn't really a topic worth debating, as people are going to vote with their wallets and will exercise their preference. If I were developing a game today, I would offer a hybrid model; buy once then offer micro-transactions for convenience items and/or a sub for additional benefits; faster experience, easier travel, etc. etc. (No pay to win thank you...) I think Tera gets this right as does Rift.
Launching a title with a monthly sub-only model today is like charging armor on horseback; brave but ultimately leading to failure..
Like some posters here, I too continue to try and wrap my head around why some want games to fail. I'd love to see everything be successful; the more the merrier. Every game that fails diminishes creativity as fewer developers are willing to take a chance on something new and instead stick with the "tried and true" model.
While I look forward to new titles (I backed Crowfall) I recently returned to Wow and am having a blast raiding and working the latest content. I recognize, there are some things Blizzard just does really well and rather than make endless criticisms about how someone could do it better or how it's getting antiquated, etc. we might remember many of the mechanics of the game are just brilliant and incorporating some of those features into a newer title might make a whole lot of sense.
I would posit much of this was more deliberate than perhaps we credit. For example, I recall playing EQ II at launch and thinking the graphics were better than Wow but you needed more machine to see that. At the same time, Wow was more accessible to the masses because the hardware requirements were less stringent.
Here's my last thought on the genre. Try to be all things to everyone? You'll fail. Know your demographic. Again, I think that is something Blizzard does well. The company caters to the casual gaming crowd. Nothing wrong with that and frankly that's where the dollars are. Wildstar was going to be "hardcore." That's fine too but I hope they understood the nuance of that demographic and the size of that demographic (Much smaller) Fail to meet the expectations of your chosen market and you won't hold their attention very long. A trip to the Wildstar forums solves the mystery pretty quickly.
Seaspite
Playing ESO on my X-Box
I asked for Wildstar. It's a great game!
Death is nothing to us, since when we are, Death has not come, and when death has come, we are not.
I play Wildstar and like it. but I also play other MMOs. Not particularly fond of Free To Play MMOs. I don't care for the community it brings into a game. I'm hoping that Carbine doesn't fall prey to folks like the author of this article and go F2P. I wish the game developers would stop trying to woo console gamers that don't tend to hang around a PC MMO for long and just develop good games that will keep folks like me playing and paying for 10+ Years ( Everquest, Star Wars Galaxies, Dark Age of Camelot)
Mor
NCsoft also works with Nexon. Despite Nexons blatant monetization there are bright prospects.
Splash Damage (Maker of Wolfenstein: Enemy territory) has recently released Dirty Bomb which is turning out to be a competitive shooter. I like it a lot.
Then there's maplestory 2... and Combat Arms/Vindictus is still really popular.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AzyiBgLxHfU
Bluestreak by BossKey coming out on UE4... Sci Fi shooter
I don't think money will be an issue with such dedicated developers xD
Sway all day, butterfly flaps all the way!