I don't doubt for a second that game budgets are artificially inflated. But those extra costs are always going to exist to one degree or another. They have to pay people to do administrative jobs while they're developing their game, so that's still a budgetary factor. And once the baseline salary for that position has been set, good luck ever getting people to do those jobs for less. However the money is distributed across rent/equipment/designers/programmers/artists/managers/secretaries/janitors/utilities/insurance/food, those are all costs that exist if you want to make a game. So while you can argue that the technical cost of making a game is inflated if you're only counting things that contribute directly to the creative and technical process of making the game, those other costs are still just as much existent.
Sure, this is primarily an argument against people saying "Innovative indies can't produce a AAA quality game, cuz they cost $50 million!"
They don't. Running a corporation does, but certainly not developing a game. They do, however, still cost several million to develop and, for most indies, that may as well be a billion. It's still out of reach.
I see what you were saying now, and yes I can agree with that. Sure an indie company could develop a pretty damn good game on a sub-10 million budget. The problem is that I don't even think most indie developers actually realize this. The idea that games take 50 million or more to develop creates an artificial barrier to entry that keep a lot of people that would make a great game from ever even trying.
Invent the next formula. For fq sake, it's been fifteen years.
They already did. MOBAs instanced pvp games like World of Tanks survival MMOs instanced pve games like warframe ... may be people are too stuck in the narrow confines of the old mmorpgs and don't see that MMOs have already left them behind.
Oh. My. GOD! Can you please stop making every single thread about your lame crusade for the definition of MMO? This is crossing the line to trolling.
Lol.
That line is crossed virtually every other time he posts. He openly admits this behavior is on his top 5 list of hobbies.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
There are no new AAA MMORPG coming out. No themeparks in the WoW sense. Most new MMORPG are not aiming for the typical. Just a mater if these companies can release and with a quality product.
Invent the next formula. For fq sake, it's been fifteen years.
They already did.
MOBAs
instanced pvp games like World of Tanks
survival MMOs
instanced pve games like warframe
... may be people are too stuck in the narrow confines of the old mmorpgs and don't see that MMOs have already left them behind.
Oh. My. GOD! Can you please stop making every single thread about your lame crusade for the definition of MMO? This is crossing the line to trolling.
Exactly the kind of narrow-minded-ness i mentioned.
If *this* site has classified WoT as a MMOTPS ... is there a reason why I should not mention it?
Almost universally media outlets have mostly been stripped of their power to define terms. There was an outrage in the gamer community when the media tried to take over the definition of the term "gamer", and since then a lot of people have taken away the authority of media outlets to define gaming terms. You are free to continue following the media definition of an MMO, but if you're going to continue to acknowledge the media's ownership of the term MMO then you need to accept that the idea will be challenged.
Invent the next formula. For fq sake, it's been fifteen years.
They already did.
MOBAs
instanced pvp games like World of Tanks
survival MMOs
instanced pve games like warframe
... may be people are too stuck in the narrow confines of the old mmorpgs and don't see that MMOs have already left them behind.
Oh. My. GOD! Can you please stop making every single thread about your lame crusade for the definition of MMO? This is crossing the line to trolling.
Exactly the kind of narrow-minded-ness i mentioned.
If *this* site has classified WoT as a MMOTPS ... is there a reason why I should not mention it?
Almost universally media outlets have mostly been stripped of their power to define terms. There was an outrage in the gamer community when the media tried to take over the definition of the term "gamer", and since then a lot of people have taken away the authority of media outlets to define gaming terms. You are free to continue following the media definition of an MMO, but if you're going to continue to acknowledge the media's ownership of the term MMO then you need to accept that the idea will be challenged.
oh .. sure ... quite a few challenged that here.
That is why i said "narrow-minded-ness" ... i can challenge the challengers, right?
There are no new AAA MMORPG coming out. No themeparks in the WoW sense. Most new MMORPG are not aiming for the typical. Just a mater if these companies can release and with a quality product.
No .. but you can broaden your mind and look at other online games like Overwatch.
And i bet many will classify it as a MMO because it is going to be successful. Want to bet on it?
There are no new AAA MMORPG coming out. No themeparks in the WoW sense. Most new MMORPG are not aiming for the typical. Just a mater if these companies can release and with a quality product.
No .. but you can broaden your mind and look at other online games like Overwatch.
And i bet many will classify it as a MMO because it is going to be successful. Want to bet on it?
The thing that really pains me here is that I don't entirely disagree with your premise. It would be good for players to broaden their horizons and try new things even if they try new things and find out they don't like them. I want so much to disagree with you, but I can't on that point.
There are no new AAA MMORPG coming out. No themeparks in the WoW sense. Most new MMORPG are not aiming for the typical. Just a mater if these companies can release and with a quality product.
No .. but you can broaden your mind and look at other online games like Overwatch.
And i bet many will classify it as a MMO because it is going to be successful. Want to bet on it?
It's a shooter. I will probably play it but it's not a MMORPG and words can't redefine gameplay.
I think you are all looking for a certain kind of experience in an MMO that isn't nearly as profitable as the ones you're getting. The depth in the MMO you want is shared by a small percentage of people, namely us, but its worth a lot more money to make the kind of games you see today which sells "happiness" through an in game shop.
I think you are all looking for a certain kind of experience in an MMO that isn't nearly as profitable as the ones you're getting. The depth in the MMO you want is shared by a small percentage of people, namely us, but its worth a lot more money to make the kind of games you see today which sells "happiness" through an in game shop.
I think the problem is that the MMO market has become typecast. Contrary to what... some think, the view of MMOs (in my opinion) has actually narrowed. Not literally, just in its preconceptions.
Now, when people think MMO, they immediately think themepark, high fantasy. That's fine. There's a place for those games, but that's restrictive to the point of absurd.
The concept of MMOs is simply that it's a game in which hundreds, even thousands of people can play together at the same time. Maintaining that broad view, the market has SO much potential.
A few have branched out, and many have even done it successfully. Obviously sandboxes are a large example. Survival MMOs were also a big step. But we've barely even scratched the surface of what's possible for the genre. We just need to break out of that cookie cutter view, and find a way for it to be accepted and even expected.
You could have an MMO about warring corporations. An MMO about an alien invasion (aliens vs. human resistance). Why isn't there a full Battletech MMO yet? Complete with clans and mechanics and planet colonists?
Seriously, if I had billions of dollars and all the time in the world, I would have such a hayday exploring the possibilities.
I feel like every new game tries to pile on to the way the last game helped you not have to play the game.
...
I am tired of the clones as well but you seem disdainful of action combat and lack of tab targeting since you list it with DF. Why?
Action combat steps the game up and puts responsibilities on everyone. I don't think anyone has made a great mmo and simultaneously done active combat well. TERA did amazing combat and crud at every other aspect. XIV is a great game, but their active combat is shoddy.
Tab targeting was a necessary evil, but I'm love to see it gone.
DF.. It's nice not having to shout for hours or miss a shout because you were farming or something, but I do understand its downsides too. Cross-server makes forming friendships harder, but that can be worked around with dev teams going the extra mile.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug. 12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
I'm still waiting for a nice world to explore...Every single MMO the last few years just makes a generic world that is nothing but a questfest.......I blame WoW...All the games before it had interesting worlds, all the games since are boring, linear theme park worlds.
If you want a world to explore, have you tried Uncharted Waters Online? Exploration is as important of a game mechanic as combat. Much of the best gear in the game comes from discovering it in the wild, without having to kill things to get it.
Its been about 3 years since I last tried it, but last I remember the tutorial was flat out awful.....You're right its a little different from the norm but not quite what I am looking for.
Player: I want a game that does X.
Developers: Here's a game that does X.
Player: That's not what I meant, so I'm not going to play it.
So you see the problem. You might not be one of them, but there are some players who loudly whine that no game does what they want--and developers would be nuts to try to cater to people who can't be pleased.
Now, Uncharted Waters Online is a weird game. It's not so much that the tutorial is bad as that the game does so much stuff wildly differently from everything else on the market that it's hard to get players to understand what their options are. (When I was new, it took me about an hour to figure out how to use consumables in land combat. And I don't mean an hour after starting the game; I mean an hour of explicitly trying to figure out how to use consumables in land combat before I figured it out.) And if you don't like the game, that's fine.
But when you say you're waiting for a nice world to explore, what you really mean is, you want a game with a nice world to explore and also a bunch of other things that you're not listing. Basically everyone does this to some extent, as a game that has all the features you want but is a buggy mess to the point of being unplayable isn't what you're looking for.
If you want something different, then play something different. For example, Uncharted Waters Online. Try it for a week, and after a week, you'll be so confused that you don't even realize how much stuff you've misunderstood or ignored.
Lol, he isnt gonna like that game. It is a cheap Asian garbage game, based on whales who pay 4000 a month to the cash shop.
UWO is made in Japan, developed by Tecmo-Koei, or more properly, Koei. But Koei does things their own way, and their games don't really fit neatly into any categories unless you make a category specifically for their games.
The English version does rely heavily on whales. (The Japanese version is subscription-based.) But what a lot of people don't get is that, unless you're into piracy, most of the stuff in the item mall barely matters and you can play cheaply without being at much of a disadvantage to the whales. In most games, a 20% damage bonus from the item mall would be hugely unbalancing. In UWO, it's scarcely more than a rounding error and will rarely change the outcome of a battle.
Now, maybe he won't like the game. It's a weird game and it's not for everyone. But it shouldn't be lumped in with your random import of a short-lived Chinese cash-grab.
@Quizzical ; I can understand the idea that there is no way to please everyone, but I think that there is also no way that the games have reached a plateau of possible design capability. The products they make are feature poor imo. I feel like they take your argument to heart and shoot for the toilet as their goal. Maybe they do that because games routinely fail to live up to even the original blueprint and its just safe to shoot for getting your base game working and letting transcendent ideas go into the bin.
MMORPG players are often like Hobbits: They don't like Adventures
Its the case because there is a major portion of the population of gamers that are satisfied with the way things are and they are absolutely convinced that anyone who dares say otherwise are just simply wanting too much. My argument is... if that was the case, cars wouldn't have air bags, get 45 mpg, and have heat and cooling. If you never innovate, you never improve.
I feel like every new game tries to pile on to the way the last game helped you not have to play the game. But in the end I haven't seen anything that's really astonishing in about 8 years. Developers have been derailed by trying to make game npcs and characters look and act like humans, seeing how much heat they can make your video card produce, but no real new gameplay.
I guess Wow came out with so many features in such a condensed place, these developers think that it's all been done, and they just have to rearrange it in a better way. I'm tired of seeing the same gameplay and features rearranged around a different theme with slightly different mechanics. That's basically what we've had. Players sign up, the nostalgia isn't there, they move on. Big game, dead game, big game, dead game. Every game is the best game until it releases then it's the worst game. It's like the back-up quarterback on the football team, it's everyones favorite until he gets put out to play.
Can we get something new? Can some developer somewhere find an actual new way to have fun? Like something I haven't seen or sort of seen before? I know u got to make money, but don't make the entire game a skin for an item mall, that's the worst thing.
I'm so bored I'm not even downloading these new games anymore. They're all re-skins with some random new feature.
ARK Survival Evolved.
Full Crafting Game + Open World Full LOOT PvP + Taming animals + Flying mounts + Sandbox features + epic npcs roaming around the map + Single player + Own server + Hunger Games Mod (where u compete against other players in battle for survival).
I have 1.000h into that game, got burned out a bit...but the game its there and it delivers it.
I'm still waiting for a nice world to explore...Every single MMO the last few years just makes a generic world that is nothing but a questfest.......I blame WoW...All the games before it had interesting worlds, all the games since are boring, linear theme park worlds.
If you want a world to explore, have you tried Uncharted Waters Online? Exploration is as important of a game mechanic as combat. Much of the best gear in the game comes from discovering it in the wild, without having to kill things to get it.
Its been about 3 years since I last tried it, but last I remember the tutorial was flat out awful.....You're right its a little different from the norm but not quite what I am looking for.
Player: I want a game that does X.
Developers: Here's a game that does X.
Player: That's not what I meant, so I'm not going to play it.
So you see the problem. You might not be one of them, but there are some players who loudly whine that no game does what they want--and developers would be nuts to try to cater to people who can't be pleased.
Now, Uncharted Waters Online is a weird game. It's not so much that the tutorial is bad as that the game does so much stuff wildly differently from everything else on the market that it's hard to get players to understand what their options are. (When I was new, it took me about an hour to figure out how to use consumables in land combat. And I don't mean an hour after starting the game; I mean an hour of explicitly trying to figure out how to use consumables in land combat before I figured it out.) And if you don't like the game, that's fine.
But when you say you're waiting for a nice world to explore, what you really mean is, you want a game with a nice world to explore and also a bunch of other things that you're not listing. Basically everyone does this to some extent, as a game that has all the features you want but is a buggy mess to the point of being unplayable isn't what you're looking for.
I agree. People think they will want X but when they get it they will find out the truth. It might not even be that simple, they might be recalling a game feature from a past game and it really isn't as great as they remember or that some other feature of the game is what they want. Or they could have some issue and think the X will solve the problem when in fact it isn't.
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what
it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience
because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in
the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you
playing an MMORPG?"
The real problem here is you started playing the genre before Facebook was even an itch in some guys pants. Back then, just chatting with people online was in and of itself... entertaining. The game was just something you did together with your new online friends.
Now people don't give a rats ass about the people playing the game, they're not interested in having an online chat with anyone. So in a nutshell, if you were presented with <insert you most favorite MMORPG> today for the very first time... you'd go meh to it as well because the game is, in reality, meh. It was the people that made the game interesting to play, the game really wasn't all that. And that is why no new game keeps you entertained for more than a month tops.
You have far too many things that are vying for your attention now... back then, not so much.
In reality, games are not created in such a way that you need anyone else. So of course no one gives a rat's ass about anyone else.
As soon as online games bring back the need for players to interact or work together all the way through (as opposed to just at "end game"), whatever the goal may be, it will change the entire scene. That is why I'm looking forward to a few indie games in development like Pantheon.
You say this as if 2004-05 didn't happen...They were there, then they were abandoned, the players leaving for games like WOW came first, it seems some do not remember that. It was only after that that the genre switched focus to a content first priority. That's all I remember reading about when WOW released, "it's not a boring mob grind, it has questing!, yay"... yet we wonder why that's what devs started focusing on?
Where were they? What great games were everyone playing that did those things? Please do tell and for the love of cheeseburgers do not cite games that changed drastically since they really supported that type of gameplay.
New is hard. Hell, doing old things right is hard. Apparently my old playstation 2 could have an open world mmorpg without load screens, but now I need to load everywhere I go.
Really though, it is a business, and right now devs/publishers are exploring all the ways to most effectively milk this consumer base. We are pretty easy to wring money out of, also - the publishers know that they are catering to people willing to periodically pay lump sums in addition to monthly subs, and if you put pretty things in a cash shop we will be all over that, too.
Until either kickstarter or some other form of funding rocks the boat, we are going to be getting served what we have shown we will pay for.
A developer should just make a new warhammer mmo ( as Mythic did ) the idea behind the game was really good. Just poorly executed. Add some extra Pve to it and we got a really good game with pvp and pve.
Of course I can dream ... but at the moment I miss raiding and dungeons as it used to be. In older games it is hard to catch up and the new games don't feel that awesome because you have to focus more on spamming skills then anything else. I miss exploring, having a fun class that can CC, or the support class like captain in lotro....
All this action based combat is great but I know a lot of people who would love a mmo like we used to get them but with better graphics and etc.
Comments
MOBAs
instanced pvp games like World of Tanks
survival MMOs
instanced pve games like warframe
... may be people are too stuck in the narrow confines of the old mmorpgs and don't see that MMOs have already left them behind.
I see what you were saying now, and yes I can agree with that. Sure an indie company could develop a pretty damn good game on a sub-10 million budget. The problem is that I don't even think most indie developers actually realize this. The idea that games take 50 million or more to develop creates an artificial barrier to entry that keep a lot of people that would make a great game from ever even trying.
That line is crossed virtually every other time he posts. He openly admits this behavior is on his top 5 list of hobbies.
"Mr. Rothstein, your people never will understand... the way it works out here. You're all just our guests. But you act like you're at home. Let me tell you something, partner. You ain't home. But that's where we're gonna send you if it harelips the governor." - Pat Webb
If *this* site has classified WoT as a MMOTPS ... is there a reason why I should not mention it?
Almost universally media outlets have mostly been stripped of their power to define terms. There was an outrage in the gamer community when the media tried to take over the definition of the term "gamer", and since then a lot of people have taken away the authority of media outlets to define gaming terms. You are free to continue following the media definition of an MMO, but if you're going to continue to acknowledge the media's ownership of the term MMO then you need to accept that the idea will be challenged.
That is why i said "narrow-minded-ness" ... i can challenge the challengers, right?
No .. but you can broaden your mind and look at other online games like Overwatch.
And i bet many will classify it as a MMO because it is going to be successful. Want to bet on it?
The thing that really pains me here is that I don't entirely disagree with your premise. It would be good for players to broaden their horizons and try new things even if they try new things and find out they don't like them. I want so much to disagree with you, but I can't on that point.
I think you are all looking for a certain kind of experience in an MMO that isn't nearly as profitable as the ones you're getting. The depth in the MMO you want is shared by a small percentage of people, namely us, but its worth a lot more money to make the kind of games you see today which sells "happiness" through an in game shop.
http://baronsofthegalaxy.com/ An MMO game I created, solo. It's live now and absolutely free to play!
Now, when people think MMO, they immediately think themepark, high fantasy. That's fine. There's a place for those games, but that's restrictive to the point of absurd.
The concept of MMOs is simply that it's a game in which hundreds, even thousands of people can play together at the same time. Maintaining that broad view, the market has SO much potential.
A few have branched out, and many have even done it successfully. Obviously sandboxes are a large example. Survival MMOs were also a big step. But we've barely even scratched the surface of what's possible for the genre. We just need to break out of that cookie cutter view, and find a way for it to be accepted and even expected.
You could have an MMO about warring corporations. An MMO about an alien invasion (aliens vs. human resistance). Why isn't there a full Battletech MMO yet? Complete with clans and mechanics and planet colonists?
Seriously, if I had billions of dollars and all the time in the world, I would have such a hayday exploring the possibilities.
Action combat steps the game up and puts responsibilities on everyone. I don't think anyone has made a great mmo and simultaneously done active combat well. TERA did amazing combat and crud at every other aspect. XIV is a great game, but their active combat is shoddy.
Tab targeting was a necessary evil, but I'm love to see it gone.
DF.. It's nice not having to shout for hours or miss a shout because you were farming or something, but I do understand its downsides too. Cross-server makes forming friendships harder, but that can be worked around with dev teams going the extra mile.
Spec'ing properly is a gateway drug.
12 Million People have been meter spammed in heroics.
Developers: Here's a game that does X.
Player: That's not what I meant, so I'm not going to play it.
So you see the problem. You might not be one of them, but there are some players who loudly whine that no game does what they want--and developers would be nuts to try to cater to people who can't be pleased.
Now, Uncharted Waters Online is a weird game. It's not so much that the tutorial is bad as that the game does so much stuff wildly differently from everything else on the market that it's hard to get players to understand what their options are. (When I was new, it took me about an hour to figure out how to use consumables in land combat. And I don't mean an hour after starting the game; I mean an hour of explicitly trying to figure out how to use consumables in land combat before I figured it out.) And if you don't like the game, that's fine.
But when you say you're waiting for a nice world to explore, what you really mean is, you want a game with a nice world to explore and also a bunch of other things that you're not listing. Basically everyone does this to some extent, as a game that has all the features you want but is a buggy mess to the point of being unplayable isn't what you're looking for.
The English version does rely heavily on whales. (The Japanese version is subscription-based.) But what a lot of people don't get is that, unless you're into piracy, most of the stuff in the item mall barely matters and you can play cheaply without being at much of a disadvantage to the whales. In most games, a 20% damage bonus from the item mall would be hugely unbalancing. In UWO, it's scarcely more than a rounding error and will rarely change the outcome of a battle.
Now, maybe he won't like the game. It's a weird game and it's not for everyone. But it shouldn't be lumped in with your random import of a short-lived Chinese cash-grab.
I can understand the idea that there is no way to please everyone, but I think that there is also no way that the games have reached a plateau of possible design capability. The products they make are feature poor imo. I feel like they take your argument to heart and shoot for the toilet as their goal. Maybe they do that because games routinely fail to live up to even the original blueprint and its just safe to shoot for getting your base game working and letting transcendent ideas go into the bin.
I agree. People think they will want X but when they get it they will find out the truth. It might not even be that simple, they might be recalling a game feature from a past game and it really isn't as great as they remember or that some other feature of the game is what they want. Or they could have some issue and think the X will solve the problem when in fact it isn't.
Epic Music: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vAigCvelkhQ&list=PLo9FRw1AkDuQLEz7Gvvaz3ideB2NpFtT1
https://archive.org/details/softwarelibrary_msdos?&sort=-downloads&page=1
Kyleran: "Now there's the real trick, learning to accept and enjoy a game for what it offers rather than pass on what might be a great playing experience because it lacks a few features you prefer."
John Henry Newman: "A man would do nothing if he waited until he could do it so well that no one could find fault."
FreddyNoNose: "A good game needs no defense; a bad game has no defense." "Easily digested content is just as easily forgotten."
LacedOpium: "So the question that begs to be asked is, if you are not interested in the game mechanics that define the MMORPG genre, then why are you playing an MMORPG?"
Really though, it is a business, and right now devs/publishers are exploring all the ways to most effectively milk this consumer base. We are pretty easy to wring money out of, also - the publishers know that they are catering to people willing to periodically pay lump sums in addition to monthly subs, and if you put pretty things in a cash shop we will be all over that, too.
Until either kickstarter or some other form of funding rocks the boat, we are going to be getting served what we have shown we will pay for.
For me, its not a matter of needing new ideas....JUST A WORLD THAT PLAYERS CONTROL THE ACTIONS,
Not scripted !
Not easy !
Not everything under the developers control !
Without auto tools !
And no Cash Shop !!!!!
Of course I can dream ... but at the moment I miss raiding and dungeons as it used to be.
In older games it is hard to catch up and the new games don't feel that awesome because you have to focus more on spamming skills then anything else. I miss exploring, having a fun class that can CC, or the support class like captain in lotro....
All this action based combat is great but I know a lot of people who would love a mmo like we used to get them but with better graphics and etc.