Indie MMO scene

borghive49

Is it just me or are these games over hyped and just plain awful at the moment? I mean I have bought and backed most of the indie MMOs except Star Citizen, and they just seem so generic, and buggy as hell.  I realize that a lot of these games are pre-alpha,  but a lot of them just seem to lack the basic formula  for modern games. Like smooth combat, smooth frame rates, and modern graphics. I mean I can get past some of the dated graphics if the combat in most of these games wasn't so awful. My main complaint though is that a lot of the MMO gaming sites praise these games like they are the next best thing, when we have yet to have not one single game get released. The only game in my opinion that does deserve any kind of praise or press would be ARK. That game has a lot of polish and some pretty fun mechanics so far, but I wouldn't call it an old school MMO. 

Sparx-1

Vardahoth said:

Welcome to indie development. One day, the world will realize why you should not buy software products made from indie developers. I worked with them for 5 years, I know better.

Just because it's independently developed doesn't mean it automatically has to be bad. The unfortunate fact is that a lot of indie developers have a lot of good ideas, but lack the resources to pull them off as well as they would have hoped. Either way, the fact that independent developers CAN make their own games is part of what makes the internet great, and the day the world decides to abandon indies altogether and instead decide to only suck from the teats of big, greedy corporations will be the day I completely lose faith in all humanity.

snoocky

Indie mmos are mostly better then AAA imo

Maquiame

borghive49 said:

Is it just me or are these games over hyped and just plain awful at the moment? I mean I have bought and backed most of the indie MMOs except Star Citizen, and they just seem so generic, and buggy as hell.  I realize that a lot of these games are pre-alpha,  but a lot of them just seem to lack the basic formula  for modern games. Like smooth combat, smooth frame rates, and modern graphics. I mean I can get past some of the dated graphics if the combat in most of these games wasn't so awful. My main complaint though is that a lot of the MMO gaming sites praise these games like they are the next best thing, when we have yet to have not one single game get released. The only game in my opinion that does deserve any kind of praise or press would be ARK. That game has a lot of polish and some pretty fun mechanics so far, but I wouldn't call it an old school MMO. 

There are plenty of indy mmos that have been released that have nice little populations. Want to play a good one? Look into Ryzom. Horizons was also a good mmo back in its day and Darkfall has a decent population.

You should clarify between Indy mmo and Indy mmo that I like.

Alzuule

borghive49 said:

Is it just me or are these games over hyped and just plain awful at the moment? I mean I have bought and backed most of the indie MMOs except Star Citizen, and they just seem so generic, and buggy as hell.  I realize that a lot of these games are pre-alpha,  but a lot of them just seem to lack the basic formula  for modern games. Like smooth combat, smooth frame rates, and modern graphics. I mean I can get past some of the dated graphics if the combat in most of these games wasn't so awful. My main complaint though is that a lot of the MMO gaming sites praise these games like they are the next best thing, when we have yet to have not one single game get released. The only game in my opinion that does deserve any kind of praise or press would be ARK. That game has a lot of polish and some pretty fun mechanics so far, but I wouldn't call it an old school MMO. 

I agree that alot of the MMOs in development look super boring and are mostly just copying the old everquest/wow template and adding a single new feature ( archeage anyone? ). Sadly only very few indie devs want to take the risk and do the work to develop something new and innovative. 

Luckily theres a few good ones in the works, im mainly hyped for https://chroniclesofelyria.com/blog which brings alot of new features to the MMO scene including combat that isnt the old and by now to me very boring tab targeting. Crowfall also seems to be breaking a bit with the old template but not as much. 
Its also nice to see a indie company that actually have most of the work done and paid for with their own money before comming around asking for crowdfunding, i'd rather not support anyone that havent even begun making their game or invested any money into it which seems what kickstarters are all about..

YashaX

There seems to be a lot in development, have to wait until they release to judge whether they are good or not.

JamesGoblin

I'm playing Warhammer Online (best game ever made ) and Vanilla WoW, so go figure how much I value "modern graphics" and shinies. Unfortunately, not much is happening on the AAA scene and the future seems even less promising.

Here's my MMO waiting list (surprise, surprise - indies everywhere!)

• Camelot Unchained

• Crowfall

• Revival - I like the atmosphere, art style & concept, still kinda early in development.

• Chronicles of Elyria has some very interesting gameplay concepts

• Pantheon, Rise of the Fallen - I like the visuals & races, I hope I'll like the gameplay.

• Shroud of the Avatar will IMO be more PvE that any of the above

• Worlds Adrift looks lovely, still in early development

• Gloria Victis caught my attention recently, and it's similar to Life is Feudal

• Shards Online is another one I might play casually, not exactly on top of my list

• Albion Online - same as Shards, hope for some casual love in this one since I don't plan to go AO hardcore. Thou you never know!?

Yanocchi

My MMO waiting list: * Revival * Star Citizen * Chronicles of Elyria * maybe Crowfall

BlueScreenISU

Hello,
I develop a game by myself, as a single developer, in my free time only. I am still at an early testing stage and the technical backbone is weak, but I like my conceptual progress so far. I've played many many many AAA titles in the past and I was fed up with all that, so much to complain in every single game.
The big plan is to stay free to play, nothing to buy. You can donate if you like. I am even giving money to the players currently
My biggest problem is building up a player base. Most of them quit after 10 minutes and never come back. This is excactly what I am addressing these days. I want to know and find out why.
Maybe you can help me here:

http:///www.i-show-you.de/orbs/
http://www.indiedb.com/games/orbs

Blue

Yanocchi

Are you for real? You give your players money and they quit after 10 minutes and most don't come back? How is that model working out for you? I think you just saved my day. :awesome:

KenFisher

Why are the Indie games getting praise and attention in the western market?  Very little else exists in the coming soon list.

For example, try to name all the AAA developer created MMORPGs with release dates in the next 2 years.

Then take off the list games that are westernized repackages of games from Asia.

How many do you have left?

Yanocchi

I seriously hope that some mainstream publishers are not lying in ambush, waiting to sink some indie projects. I'll never forgive Intel for buying Offset Software and burying their promising next-gen indie game called Project Offset five years ago. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_Software).

BlueScreenISU

Yanocchi said:

Are you for real? You give your players money and they quit after 10 minutes and most don't come back? How is that model working out for you? I think you just saved my day. :awesome:

Not quite, the money comes from a competition which just started today. So you cant say they quit even that they get money. The competition lasts for 1 week, and I will be a little bit smarter after that. Glad I saved your day, but I am not kidding. Blue

ArChWind

Yanocchi said:

I seriously hope that some mainstream publishers are not lying in ambush, waiting to sink some indie projects. I'll never forgive Intel for buying Offset Software and burying their promising next-gen indie game called Project Offset five years ago. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_Software).

Wouldn't surprise me at all. Have a good idea? Keep it under wraps and finish it or it may show up sooner than you want in someone else's project. 

Yanocchi

Nice, for a moment I suspected that it was a bot advertisement. To think about it, that could actually be a smart model for really small indie projects. Developer can gift a bit of money via PayPal or something to attract some more interest and attention. I think most people who visit MMORPG.com are mainly interested in much bigger games, though.

khanstruct

@BlueScreenIS you're in for some trouble. Modern browsers no longer support the Unity Web Player. Hopefully you'll be able to rebuild it to WebGL without too many issues. 

anemo

ArChWind said:

Yanocchi said:

I seriously hope that some mainstream publishers are not lying in ambush, waiting to sink some indie projects. I'll never forgive Intel for buying Offset Software and burying their promising next-gen indie game called Project Offset five years ago. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Offset_Software).

Wouldn't surprise me at all. Have a good idea? Keep it under wraps and finish it or it may show up sooner than you want in someone else's project. 

There is nothing weird or conspiracy worthy there.  If a small team project does well or looks hopeful, usually the people who make it are more valuable than the actual project.   So often times large companies will buy the company/team with stipulations in contracts that they must work for them for X time for X amount.

Also people don't steal idea's at all in game design.   And even if they did they wouldn't be successful at stealing your idea, since because in actual practice game development is choosing trade offs that are based on your situation.   Even the most famous case of the stolen idea of notch saying "I could make a better version of this" to get minecraft from infinity miner, shows how different even ripped off ideas are.

BlueScreenISU

khanstruct said:

@BlueScreenIS you're in for some trouble. Modern browsers no longer support the Unity Web Player. Hopefully you'll be able to rebuild it to WebGL without too many issues. 

Hello, I know. The game is also available as an executable. But I have to think about some web alternative Blue

Samons

What indie mmos

anemo

Samons said:

What indie mmos

WurmOnline, A tale in the Desert, Haven and Hearth.   To start.

If you're willing to expand your search a bit to the webspace you have tons of browser games(empire building an old favorite of mine).   Imperial Conflict, Ferion, and just too many.

You also have titles that are indy in the sense of Independent(READ: people would disagree since the spirit/size isn't there).  EvE-Online, Iron Realm games(Acheae, Lusternia, ect), Runescape.

nariusseldon

borghive49 said:

Is it just me or are these games over hyped and just plain awful at the moment? 

because they don't have enough money to make proper MMOs? Otherwise, they would not be indie.

Don't get me wrong .. there are a tons of indie games that i like (The ROOM, for example, is brilliant) but I have not yet seen an indie MMO that i want to play.